On the fiftieth anniversary of the James Bond films , director Sam Mendes strives to make Bond brand new again — and his new movie , Skyfall , is so self - mindful that the encounter between old and new is at the shopping center of it . Can an old - school agent like James Bond still exist in today ’s world ? What ’s the point of a Cold War undercover service in the twenty-first century ?
We talk to Mendes and delved into these questions , and a whole pot more , at the Skyfall military press group discussion .
Was there a lot of press to throw in references to past Bond films , with the 50 yr day of remembrance around the corner ?
Sam Mendes : There ’s nothing in the movie that I do n’t stand by and did n’t want to put in myself … [ Small Spoiler ] I think they were charmed when I say I want to use the [ Aston Martin ] DB5 and I need to try and instil some more humor into the proceedings in some manner … I felt about the court elements , that you have to pull in them . If you put them in at the wrong time , they ’re going to hit a false note . You have to rediscover your 13 - year - old self . It was a delight for me to find oneself that part of myself again .
The Return of the Lip - Smacking Relish Villain
Sam Mendes : I want a certain kind of baddie . I had a very particular estimation of the kind of showy … even very early on I want a sort of feeling of flamboyant … lip - smacking flavour of this particular type of villain . That villain that date back to the old Bond pictures .
How Casino Royale Saved Bond
Sam Mendes : I felt that what I experience in Casino Royal was a Bond who was capable , as an actor , able of handling a much bigger personal journey . The thing about Bond , for me , watching the erstwhile moving-picture show was that there was a item around Moonraker where it lose some of its thriller rootage and pass into more of an almost travelog , action - adventure case of feeling . vast locations , attractively shot . Bond the eccentric became kind of the Scotch tape that tied it all together . It was like , “ How can we get adhesiveness from Rio to Venice and from Venice to a cable television car ? ” Because these are the big sequences that we have to make study . He almost from that moment on had no journeying at all .
I ’m being unfair to the movies in - between because there were some great movies in - between . But peculiarly in Casino Royale , it mat like Bond was back in the center of the movie , because he was on projection screen the whole fourth dimension . He had a journeying , he had an emotional post . He fall in love in that movie . And there was no coincidence that , that was the first movie in a tenacious time that had been based on a Fleming novel . So to endeavor to feel that sort of personal weight in the center of the movie was really important . That was something that we really centralise on .
Would Mendes point another Bond Picture ?
Sam Mendes : It ’s been a fantastic experience , but it ’s been completely exhausting . I land up the movie last Tuesday and I was reading review on Friday … “ Do I need to do another one ? ” I ’m a shadow of my former ego . The truth is I never seek to be a chiefly commercial filmmaker , the challenge with me is it ’s all about timing . But I did need a challenge and something Modern . No , I do n’t know . I feel like everything I wanted to do with a Bond movie , I put into this film . So I would have to be convinced that I could do something that I screw and like about as much if I was to do it again . I suppose the great risk of ingeminate oneself is that one does n’t have the cracking store of ideas that you have when you first take on a issue … but that ’s a long ways off .
The theme of Old vs. New in Skyfall
Sam Mendes : It was to me very exonerated that the discussion at the center of the movie was , what is the point in time of a secret service create during the Cold War now that the world has commute ? And therefore , what is the point of Bond ? And therefore , what is the point of attachment movies ? And so , at its nitty-gritty there ’s an argument for all three . I ’m not just talking about the old and the new — [ for instance ] whizzy computer kids and hacking . And the old being missive and citizenry writing on a firearm of paper and take a shit phone calls .
I ’m talking about old values : laurels , trustfulness , friendship , bravery . In a way it ’s deeply old - fashioned in its time value . I think they never go out of appointment . That , for me , is what old is in the motion picture . I think [ this root ] run right through the picture , and reaches a natural conclusion . That is what I hope is there .
James BondMoviesPoliticsSam Mendes
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