Skyfall: Scene by Scene

As he approaches Bond, his voice is soft and melodious, incongruent with his anecdote about the rats. When he talks of the rats eating each other, he makes a nibbling sound which helps make the character seem macabre and menacing.

In his commentary for Skyfall, Mendes reflects on how the use of mise en scene helps to establish the character of Silva: “Silva is, in a sense, Bond’s doppelgänger. He’s his double. And I always had an image of a fallen angel. There’s a reason why he’s dressed in white, Bond’s in black. He’s kind of a negative image of Bond which you can see in this shot here. He’s what Bond would have been, or could have been, if Bond had turned bad. Of course, he was abandoned/betrayed by M which you could Bond has been in the first reel. So there are all sorts of parallels.”

When Bond says that he scored seventy on his marksmanship test, Silva gives a loud and derisive laugh. He smirks and raises one eyebrow slightly. Bond’s character is developed further as Silva reads excerpts from his evaluation: “Medical evaluation: Fail. Physical evaluation: Failed. Psychological evaluation: Alcohol and substance addiction indicated. Pathological rejection of authority based on unresolved childhood trauma. Subject is not approved for field duty and immediate suspension from service advised.”

After reading the results of his evaluation, he sits down in front of Bond. “Mommy was very bad!” he says, pursing his lips and nodding. His eyes flick down to Bond’s chest. Mendes cuts to a reverse shot as he undoes one of Bond’s buttons. Cutting back, Silva smiles slightly. After examining the bullet wound, he traces his fingers lightly across Bond’s chest. “We can either eat each other,” he says. “Or eat everyone else.” He runs a hand over Bond’s neck seductively. “How you’re trying to remember your training now,” he says. “What’s your regulation to cover this?” He smiles as Mendes cuts to an overshot as he strokes Bond’s legs.

He releases Bond and Mendes continues to develop the narrative’s antagonist. “England,” he says, scoffing. “The Empire! MI6!” He rolls his eyes and shrugs his shoulders in a mocking gesture. “You’re living in a ruin as well,” he says, shaking his head and pursing his lips. “You just don’t know it yet.” Javier Bardem’s eccentric performance continues as he makes a ‘beep’ noise and mocks Bond’s ‘little gadgets’.

When they emerge from the building, tinny Latin music comes from outdoor speakers, contributing to Silva’s madness and eccentricity. As he approaches Séverine, the incongruity of his soft voice conveys a sense of menace. He smiles and kisses her on the lips. She recoils in terror, acting contributing significantly to the character’s sense of menace. “Don’t lose your head,” he says, as Mendes cuts to an extreme close up as he places a shot of whiskey on her head. He smiles gleefully and turns around. “Time to redeem your marksmanship score,” he says ominously.

This scene is both an interesting example of audience engagement and character development. When he hands Bond a pistol to shoot the glass from her head, Mendes slowly dollies in on Séverine who is bound and terrified. He cuts back to a close up of Bond who flinches visibly as Silva leans in to whisper, “Let’s see who ends up on top!”

To build suspense, the music ends suddenly and is replaced with the ominous sound of wind blowing through the deserted square. Mendes cuts to a close up of Bond, pulling focus to reveal the barrel of the gun that is trembling noticeably. The agonising silence continues as he cuts to a mid shot of Séverine who is shaking. The use of mise en scene contributes to audience engagement, the smear of dried blood on her face and her smudged eye makeup, creating a pang of sympathy for her plight. Mendes cuts back to the close up of Bond who continues to tremble as he points the gun towards Séverine. “I can’t believe it! Did you really die that day?” Silva says in a mocking tone. “Is there any, any of the old 007 left?” Mendes continues to build suspense as the camera dollies into a close up of Séverine. The gun fires suddenly, breaking the silence and shocking the audience. Cutting to a long shot of the characters, Mendes shows the stone behind Séverine exploding as the bullet strikes it. Silva fires off a shot. Séverine slumps forward and Mendes cuts to an extreme close up of the whiskey glass hitting the ground, her feet twitching in the background. “I win,” he says nonchalantly, his indifference conveying significant menace.

In the next scene, Mendes continues developing the character of Silva and his relationship with M. This is achieved using a combination of production elements. In this scene, Silva reveals how she betrayed him: “They kept me for five months in a room with no air. They tortured me. And I protected your secrets. I protected you. But they made me suffer. And suffer. And suffer. Until I realized it was you who betrayed me. You betrayed me. So, I had only one thing left. My cyanide capsule in my back left molar. You remember, right? So I broke the tooth and bit into the capsule. And it…it burned all my insides. But I didn’t die. Life clung to me like a disease. And then…I understood why I had survived. I needed to look in your eyes one last time.”

Although there is a great deal of exposition in this scene, lighting, sound and acting also contribute to character development. In this scene, lighting helps to establish him as sinister and malevolent. He is caged in a hexagonal glass cell, lit from above by harsh fluorescent lights which cast subtle shadows across his face. In his commentary for the film, Mendes comments on this “otherworldly top lighting” that gives the scene and this character an “eerie atmosphere”.

Similarly, sound editing also contributes to this air of malevolence. The reverb of the glass cell has been augmented by the sound editors to give it “weird echoes”. The cumulative effect of this lighting and sound editing – combined with the idiosyncratic performance of Javiere Bardem – establishes this character as particularly malevolent. Similarly, when Silva removes his false teeth, Mendes and the sound editors “worked very hard in the mix” to create a deeply disturbing sound. In his commentary for the film, Mendes notes that the sound always makes him “kind of nauseous”. When M leaves the room, acting again contributes to Silva’s sinister characterisation as Mendes cuts to a close up of him laughing softly and manically. At this moment, Thomas Newman’s score also makes a subtle contribution to character development, eerie strings wail softly in the background, punctuated by suspenseful bass notes.