Skyfall - Bond 23
by Paul Zuckerman

Cue up the famous James Bond theme once again--SkyfalI, the thirdfilm starring Daniel Craig as secret agent James Bond, marks Bond’s 50th anniversary on the silver screen. Starting in 1962 with Dr. No, 23 films of super-spy 007, British secret service agent extraordinaire (not counting two movies by other producers), have resulted in one of the most successful and longest continuous series in movie history.

Bond, however, has been around since 1953, when author Ian Fleming penned the novel Casino Royale. Nor was Dr. No Bond’s first appearance on the screen. In 1954, Casino Royale was adapted for TV as the third episode of the show Climax, when Barry Nelson starred as American agent Jimmy Bond. (Yes— “Jimmy” was an American!)

Yet, while Fleming’s books were popular, and got an increased shot in the arm when President John Kennedy said that From Russia with Love was one of his favorite books, the movie Bond has been a cultural phenomenon. Also debuting in ’62 was the Beatles, and both became megastars in 1964 (Bond, with the release of Goldfinger and the Beatles with their dominance on the U.S. charts), two trends establishing British cultural dominance even as British political significance was in free fall. Britain’s empire, once the world’s largest, was rapidly unraveling as the U.S. replaced Britain as the world’s premier power.

The Beatles were then the spokespersons for the younger, post-colonial generation, in the vanguard of the cultural wars, even when dressed in their matching Edwardian suits, either leading the parade or just one step behind every major cultural upheaval of the ‘60s.

James Bond, however, was, in many ways the political and cultural opposite. Fleming’s Bond was an agent of the Empire, seeking to preserve the English way of life at all costs. Bond was schooled at Eton, knew what to drink, what clothes to wear, and always showed the proper respect for his betters. Bond’s first appearance in Dr. No, in white jacket, with cigarette and martini (shaken not stirred) in hand, at the baccarat table, is an iconic image, recognizable throughout the world. Bond is the symbol for a certain way of life. He doesn’t worry about the ordinary concerns of life — he makes love to endless women who leave when he no longer wants them; he never gets drunk or gets ill; never coughs from smoking. He always knows what to do; he can get out of any scrape. We don’t want to be friends with Bond; we want to be him.

Cut 50 years and five previous Bonds to the current incarnation. Bond has been played straight, in the early Connery, Lazenby, Dalton, early Brosnan and Craig years, and as a camp parody, in the last Connery films, some of the later Brosnan and most notably much of the Moore years (and let’s not talk about the non-canonical first movie version of Casino Royale). He has bent with the changing times, but has always come back stronger, revitalized and recharged. And Skyfall has proven to be one of the most successful Bond flicks at the box office.

Yet, throughout all of the changes, Bond’s image is essentially unchanged, i.e., the girls, the guns, the martinis, the tuxedo, the cars (OK; the cigarettes have been mostly absent in recent years), the unswerving loyalty to Queen and Country, the deference to M, the prickly relationship to Q, the teasing with Miss Moneypenny. But little is ever revealed of Bond himself — he has remained a cipher, an unknown. Throughout it all, Bond remains unflappable, unstoppable, unyielding. Until Skyfall, that is.

Although Skyfall features stunts and action sequences, romancing, and the other Bond staples, including, of course, Monty Norman’s famous theme music used in every Eon film since Dr. No, this movie is in many ways is different than most other Bond movies. Part of it is the nature of the menace —  a domestic attack on England’s secret service itself, instead of some mission to some exotic location, but more, Skyfall delves into the inner Bond, explores aspects of him that have been mostly absent in the movies (though explored somewhat in Fleming’s books). In the past, Bond has sometimes let emotion get in his way.

In Goldfinger, M reminds Bond that his mission is not one of revenge, but just a job. In License to Kill, Bond, no longer on Her Majesty’s Secret Service, seeks revenge because of what happens to his friend Felix Leiter. Perhaps the height of Bond’s emotional intensity is displayed in the finale of the Craig Casino Royale, which is the most faithful Bond movie to its original literary source since the earliest films of the ‘60s. But never has Bond in the movies wanted to shuck the whole thing as he does in SkyfalI when a mission goes awry and he is wounded and presumed dead.

Bond’s disillusionment, and anger at M, because she didn’t have sufficient faith that Bond would prevail, mirrors that of Silva, the principal villain, who was similarly the victim of M’s decisions. But, unlike Silva, who plots revenge on M, Bond returns to action when the crisis strikes. He remains the same loyal public servant that he has always been.

But Bond is subtly different in this movie and it’s hard to tell if it is because he has a new, less deferential attitude to M, or because she is a woman, and that this Bond reacts differently as a result. The snippy, snappy relationship with M is far from what the deferential Bond of old would have had. There is almost a mother/son kind of attitude here, which hasn’t been the case in the earlier movies with Dench as M, and certainly Bernard Lee’s M would never have stood for the way Bond talks to M in this film. He would have tossed Bond out in a second. But, M here is willing to take it, perhaps because she has begun to question her own judgment and actions as well.

Also different is Bond’s vulnerability. The movie Bond, unlike the literary Bond, has often been depicted as being next to superhuman. Whereas Fleming’s Bond would get beaten, and almost dies several times, the movie Bond has always bounced right back. Not so here, where Bond’s extended absence and recovery leaves him out-of-shape and a pale shadow of his former self.

Skyfall finally gives some background to James Bond. The books gave meager scraps as well; some of the details revealed here come from Bond’s obituary in the book You Only Live Twice (and the obit in the movie is as premature as it was in the book). But some of the information, including the meaning of SkyfalI (which, despite its Fleming-like name, apparently did not originate with Fleming) was devised by the movie’s creators to create some history to Bond, to make him less of a cipher Ironically, especially at a time when many Scots are seeking separation from England, Bond, the ultimate English hero and defender of the faith, is actually of Scottish descent.

The cast is uniformly excellent. At the center, of course, is Daniel Craig, who has reinvented Bond for the 21st century, more serious and intent. Quips that Brosnan or Connery could toss off don’t come easily to Craig. In many ways, his Bond is most like Dalton’s. Craig’s Bond gives the sense of a seething volcano underneath — you never know when he is going to erupt. In his first appearance in Casino Royale, Craig played a young Bond, who hadn’t yet received his license to kill. Now, his Bond is one that is in danger of being put out to pasture for good.

In addition to Javier Bardem’s masterful but nearly over-the-top performance, Judi Dench, reprising M again, grounds the movie in her solid portrayal of a secret service chief who has made hard decisions that she has had to live with and is now being forced out. Never has M been so involved in the action of the story. Ralph Fiennes, as Mallory, the head of the government oversight committee, has grave doubts about Bond’s continued usefulness, as well as M’s.

Fiennes’s Mallory has a sense of duty and is not just a politician on the make. Naomie Harris is charming and playful as Eve, Bond’s fellow agent, who is not as experienced as 007 but can hold her own when necessary. Bond women are often stereotyped as being helpless and clinging, but Eve is the latest in a long line of Bond women who are strong, resourceful and independent . . . and, of course, beautiful. Eve has to make her own decision as to whether she wants to continue to be a field agent. Ben Whishaw makes for a young but cocksure Q. Albert Finney is fine as Kincade, the gamekeeper who knew Bond way back when. Berenice Marlohe is beautiful as Silva’s agent, Séverine, who seeks escape from his grip.

There is perhaps one aspect of the movie that is troubling. SPOILER ALERT — When Bond is forced by Silva to engage in a target practice with one of the characters, who Bond had undertaken to help, as the target. Bond tries to save the character, but Silva kills the character. Bond shows little more than a momentary anger and the character is never mentioned again. Bond, intentionally or not, comes across as exceedingly callous. Bond’s attentions are soon devoted to saving another character, and while more emotion is displayed then, the way the death of the first character is simply ignored leaves one uncomfortable and somewhat at odds with the greater degree of vulnerability otherwise shown by Bond. END OF SPOILER ALERT.

When the Bond franchise was rebooted with Casino Royale, some of the familiar parts of the Bond universe were jettisoned. Only the character of M, played again by Judi Dench (and she had been only the third M in the series), was carried over. There was no Q, who had been played by Desmond Llewelyn for five Bonds, being replaced only in the last Brosnan movie by John Cleese, nor was there a Miss Moneypenny. A new, younger Q now makes his first appearance, and even Moneypenny returns.

As for M----It is not a spoiler to say that Bond defeats the enemy and England, if not the empire, still stands. But, Bond does sustain loss in Skyfall, and his emotional vulnerability parallels his physical vulnerability. Bond survives and moves on; that is his nature and part of why he is so successful in what he does. For the audience, by the end of Skyfall, the Bond universe has come full circle and all is right in the world.

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