Five years later: Why SKYFALL might be the best Bond film
By David Pegram
James Bond fans will never agree on which film is the best. It’s “all a matter of perspective.” When the question comes up, Goldfinger, Casino Royale, and From Russia with Love are often named at the top of the list. And for good reason. But so too is Sam Mendes’ Skyfall….also for good reason.
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This week, Skyfall celebrates the fifth anniversary of its U.S. release (has it really been that long?). To honor the film, let’s investigate what makes Skyfall so great and why it could also be considered the very best Bond film ever made.
Redefining James Bond
“Orphans always did make the best recruits.” -M
Skyfall presented a new 007. While Casino Royale broke the mold and gave us a grittier James Bond, Skyfall made him more human, more vulnerable. For the first time, we see James Bond actually questioning himself and his abilities. There is no greater evidence of this then when Bond must pass a battery of tests in order to resume field duty. He can’t shoot, struggles to complete pull ups, and can’t finish a psychological examination. And all this while sporting facial growth the likes of which we rarely see on him.
But Bond is also hurting emotionally, much more than physically. He feels betrayed by M. Is there anything worse than being an aging MI6 agent who’s “lost a step? Bond is so desperate for reassurance that after M informs him of his next mission, he asks, “Anything else you want to tell me?” When M says no, the hurt on Bond’s face is measurable.
By traveling back to his boyhood home, Bond is forced into his past to confront his inner demons. Kincaid reveals that after Bond’s parents died, he had hid himself away in a priest’s hole for days and that when he came out, he was a boy no more. In effect, Bond had . However, as is revealed in his test results, Bond still suffers from “unresolved childhood trauma.”
For the first time on screen, James Bond has become fully an embodiment of Jungian psychology, not just in the battle with the shadow self, but in becoming an archetypal orphan. Bond’s attempts at what Jung would call “self-actualization,” are forcing him to face himself. Hence why the film features several scenes in which Bond is seen in reflection, through either glass or mirror. The title sequence, containing images of Bond shooting at mirrored images of himself, sets this up for the rest of the film.
Brave new world
“It’s amazing what one can do with a single computer.” – Severine
Soon after its release, many fans were disappointed with Skyfall and noted its plot holes. As David Christopher Bell, writing for Cracked, observed:
"Any time a movie has the villain do the, “Surprise! Every action you’ve taken has actually played perfectly into my hands!” bit with the hero, it never really makes sense. And this is a great example — when you walk through it from the bad guy’s point of view, you realize that either Silva is an incredibly lucky bastard, or he’s literally God."
Actually, he’s neither. And therein lies the beauty of Skyfall. Intentionally or not, by making Silva seem like a character who could be God with a keyboard and a mouse, capable of doing anything with a “point and a click,” the paranoia sets in. What does this man actually control? We don’t know. The idea that anything is possible can create anxiety. (See note below about Q’s conclusions on this.)
Writers John Logan, Neal Purvis, and Robert Wade deserve a lot of credit here: the focus on cyber security and cyber attacks makes the film stand up against criticism, like that lodged by Bell. Almost anything can be explained by either Silva’s ability to access information or his ability to make MI6 (and us, the audience) believe and fear he can.
It’s important to note that when Bond meets Severine, she asks him what he knows about fear. “Everything,” Bond says. Severine responds, “Not like this. Not like him.” She’s telling the truth, here, because soon after, when they reach the abandoned island, she explains how Silva managed to get thousands of people to flee their home, simply by leading them to believe there was a chemical leak.
Silva is doing the same thing to MI6, to Q, to Bond, even the audience: we’re led to believe things that may not exist at all. It’s bloody brilliant. Speaking of Q, he is Silva’s foil, a brilliant mastermind of computer technology. But unlike Silva, Q really has no experience in the field at all. (Hence why his conclusion that Silva has it all planned is unreliable.)
We can never know how much (or how little) Silva had manipulated MI6 because of the power of persuasion. All Silva had to do was demonstrate that he could “point and click” in order to do anything. That leaves one always looking over the shoulde. It also leaves the world “more opaque,” as M describes it.
Raoul Silva
“Always got to make an entrance.” – James Bond
As a villain, Silva is one of the rounder characters in the Bond cinematic universe. His “out of the elevator” speech, about his grandmother’s rats, demonstrates that he is both perceptive and insane at the same time. In other words, he is a “mad genius.”
What really makes Silva an interesting case, however, is his motivation. Silva wants to accomplish two things: 1. Humiliate M and MI6; 2. Kill M. To accomplish #1, he needs to steal a hard drive for the sole purpose of, well, stealing it. It’s more than likely that Silva didn’t need a physical hard drive; he had the ability to get “the list” via cyber attack — and it is possible he already had it all along. What he needed was to reduce MI6 to fighting him on their own terms, on their own turf: in the field. Remember, Silva is not fond of all that “running around” because it simply causes one’s knees to hurt. By exposing MI6 as incompetent “in the field,” the humiliation is much greater.
It’s the need to kill M that is his fatal flaw. He hired Patrice (and many others) to do his “running around” previously, but killing M is something Silva wants to do face-to-face. Problem is, that forces him out of his comfort zone, away from a computer terminal.
Silva’s need to kill M on his own leads him to botch the assassination in the hearing; and he later looks incompetent at SkyfallI, as well. “Do not kill her. She’s mine,” Silva instructs his men; yet, the estate at Skyfall is in flames, and for all Silva knows, she’s perished in the fire. Some quibble that this is bad plotting. To the contrary. Silva’s inability to make smart choices in the field is a direct result of him not liking the field. It’s excellent characterization.
Deeper themes
“Old dog, new tricks.” -Eve Moneypenny
Skyfall traffics in themes that few Bond films come close to even touching. Aside from the Jungian approach to Bond himself, the film traffics in the thorny issue of old vs new, in terms of espionage, in terms of field duty, in terms one’s own self-concept.
Consider the following:
- Q’s reflection on the JMW Turner painting “The Fighting Temeraire” at the National Gallery: “It always makes me feel a little melancholy. Grand old war ship, being ignominiously hauled away to scrap… The inevitability of time, don’t you think?”
- The contrast between old London and Skyfall, with its gray stone and brick, and the vibrant, glowing look of Shanghai.
- Bond and Moneypenny’s exchange about shaving. Bond says he likes doing some things the old-fashioned way.
- M’s reading of the poem “Ulysses” by Alfred Tennyson: “…and though We are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven…”
- The trail of breadcrumbs: a combination of old ways and new technologies.
- Kincaid’s musing that sometimes “the old ways are the best.”
- The destruction of the Aston Martin DB5, symbolic of the “old” Bond being annihilated before our very eyes.
And there’s more…
“This is the end, hold your breath and count to ten.” -Adele
Skyfall features top-notch performances from a top-notch cast. It is safe to say that the film is the best cast Bond film of all time. For instance, the acting, as opposed to the actual lines in the script, drive the humor. Bond’s reaction to Q, sitting beside him at the gallery. Bond’s response to Silva’s homosexual advances. Kincaid mistakenly calling M “Emma.” Silva’s eyeroll when Bond and a henchman fall into the frozen lake. Of note: Javier Bardem was nominated for a number of awards for his performance as Silva. And as a Bond girl, Berenice Marlohe is mysterious and beautiful and meets a horrifying (and untimely) fate.
Roger Deakins’ cinematography, which won a Los Angeles Film Critics Award, uses deep, rich color to contrast Shanghai and London. Thomas Newman’s score is the most extensive ever written for a Bond film. Not surprisingly, it won him a Grammy Award and an Oscar nomination.
And, of course, speaking of music, the film features of the great Bond songs of all time:
Is there anything left to say?