James Bond: Skyfall part 1
Often, a cinematic narrative resolves into a family dynamic. Soldiers become brothers, teachers become parents, animals become children. Family dynamics are useful to get at what makes stories universal. Not many people know what it’s like to hunt a shark, but everyone knows what it’s like to be stuck in house with squabbling siblings. That’s often our “way in” to the narrative. Few movies, let alone few spy movies, go ahead and make the family dynamic the foreground of the narrative, but Skyfall does, and by so doing it does something to James Bond that has never really been done before: make him a character. Or, as my 11-year-old son puts it, it makes him interesting.
Longtime readers of this journal will know that a few years ago I did a sketchbook analysis of all the James Bond movies. When I started, I was largely unfamiliar with the character — I’d missed every Bond movie from Moonraker to Goldeneye and had only seen Goldfinger before that. Bond as a character was ever elusive to me, he never seemed like a person, more of a list of attributes: tuxedo, car, gun, gambling, martini, babes. He seemed closer to a model than a person. We knew how he would behave but we didn’t know who he was, and, since we knew he’d survive every adventure, we knew there was never really anything at stake for him. He murdered people, gave a quip and a cockeyed smile, and moved on. How appropriate that Skyfall begins with a shot of Bond literally coming into focus. After fifty years it’s a long time coming.
Skyfall has four acts. Act I involves Bond’s “death” and “resurrection,” his training, assignment and departure into the world. Act II involves the steps required to fulfill his mission and is divided into three sections recognizable by locale: Shanghai, Macau and Bad Guy Island. At the end of Act II, Bond has captured the Bad Guy and brought him back to London. Act III takes place entirely in London and involves the Bad Guy escaping and the flourishing of the family dynamic, and Act IV literally takes Bond home, to Scotland and a last reckoning.