Skyfall: Scene by Scene
“007. What took you so long?” M asks. “Got into some deep water,” he quips before catching her as she falls. There is a close up of Bond who looks down at her wounds, then desperately towards Kincaid. “I suppose it’s too late to make a run for it?” she says. “I’m game if you are,” Bond replies, the corners of his mouth twitching with grief as he attempts a halfhearted smile. Here, the uneasy relationship between Bond and M is resolved through acting and dialogue. Mendes lingers on a close up of the dying M. “I did get one thing right,” she says, Thomas Newman’s score rises in the background, highlighting the emotion of the scene. When Mendes cuts back to a close up of Bond, he trembles slightly. Raising a hand, he closes her eyes, breathing ragged. After cutting to Kincaid, Mendes cuts back to a shot of Bond who leans forward, tears welling in his eyes as he kisses her forehead. The final shot in this scene, is Bond embracing M as the camera slowly dollies out. The scene in the chapel resolves two of the major storylines in the film, Silva’s confrontation with MI6 and the relationship between Bond and M.
A shot of the London skyline, British flags waving in the wind. The camera tilts down to reveal Bond standing on the top of a building. The score features warm, heroic horns which both contribute to a sense of triumph and loss. The camera comes to rest showing Bond standing proudly against the skyline. After a brief conversation with Eve, they return to Mallory’s office. “You know we’ve never formally been introduced,” he says as she removes his jacket. “Oh,” she replies. “Well, my name’s Eve. Eve Moneypenny.” Moneypenny is a charter who has appeared in countless Bond films and this line of dialogue would be a surprise for people who are familiar with the franchise. In this scene, the use of mise en scene also evokes previous Bond films. The office is designed to mimic the office that first appeared in Dr. No. In the commentary for the film, Mendes reveals that the office was an exact replica of the original, right down to the wood panelling and coat rack. The James Bond Theme rises in the background when Tanner emerges from the office. “So, 007,” says Mallory when Bond enters the office. “Lots to be done. Are you ready to get back to work?”
“With pleasure, M,” he replies. “With pleasure.” The film cuts to the classic James Bond gun barrel logo and the credits roll.
Skyfall and genre
Although Skyfall is a spy film, the long history of the James Bond franchise means that it has developed its own conventions and can be regarded as a subgenre in its own right. In addition to the title character, James Bond films typically feature an eccentric, larger-than-life villain. In Skyfall, Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) is an idiosyncratic former spy attempting to kill M (Judi Dench) for betraying him. Bardem’s quirky performance helps to establish the character in a way that is consistent with other Bond villains like the sinister Ernst Blofeld. When he is introduced, his voice is soft and melodious, incongruent with his long anecdote about killing rats. When mentions the rats eating each other, he makes a nibbling sound which helps to establish the character as macabre and menacing. As the conversation continues, Bardem eccentric performance continues as he makes a beeping noise while mocking Bond’s ‘little gadgets’. Later in the film, when he reveals that he tried to kill himself with a cyanide capsule, Mendes uses a close up of Silva’s disfigured face as he laughs manically. These examples of acting help to establish Silva as villainous and idiosyncratic, much like the villains from other Bond films.
James Bond films also feature beautiful women who are seduced by Bond. In Skyfall, the character Sévérine assumes the role of the ‘Bond girl’. She is played by French actress and model Bérénice Marlohe. During her first conversation with Bond, music is used to establish the character as sultry and seductive. In an interview, the film’s composer Thomas Newman revealed that the leitmotif he wrote for this character featured alternating minor and major chords as well as a harp to create “sense of darkness and exquisiteness and sexiness” at the same time, helping to establish the character as a typically seductive Bond girl. Skyfall also features a number of exotic locations. This use of setting is another convention of Bond films. In the opening sequence of the film, the camera tracks Bond as he emerges from a building to suddenly reveal that he is in the dusty, bustling streets of Istanbul. Later in the film, Bond travels to Shanghai. Mendes uses a number of exotic establishing shots of the city at night. Skyfall features characters and settings typical of the James Bond franchise which, over the last fifty years, has evolved as its own subgenre of the spy film.
Links
Defining the Genre Through the Character of Bond