Nobody does it better, p.83
Nobody Does it Better, page 83
SAM MENDES
There’s a school of thought in the movie that says, when it comes to national security, everything should be centralized. That we should be almost entirely dependent on surveillance and should let drones do our dirty work abroad. C questions whether we need to send people out in the field. MI6 is, therefore, at risk. In particular, the double-0 section.
ANDREW SCOTT
(actor, “C”)
The idea is that surveillance will now be stepped up. He has the opinion that one man in the field, even someone like Bond, cannot really compete with the huge technological advances that we’ve made in the twenty-first century. The idea of people losing control of their digital ghost and other online legacy is central to the storyline of the film. It’s something I think we can all relate to—our privacy and how much information we feel is right to keep to ourselves and how much we need to be protected. That’s a big question, and it’s still very relevant right now.
RAY MORTON
This script seems to have been cursed from the start. The one thing the filmmakers seemed sure of was that they wanted to reintroduce Blofeld, which was a great idea. But from the start, all the rest of the ideas seemed either misconceived or just plain terrible. At different times, Blofeld was reported to be an African warlord, and, different versions of either the Lucia Sciarra or the Madeleine Swann characters, before they finally settled on the worst idea of all—making him Bond’s long-lost, sort of half brother. Hard to figure why they couldn’t just make him what he has always been—the leader of an international terrorist organization. Early versions of the script also had either Bill Tanner or M himself turn out to be Spectre’s mole in British intelligence, the character who eventually became C in the final film. The idea of revealing a beloved regular character to be a villain is an idea some writers just can’t resist, but is always a terrible one, because it just makes loyal viewers feel sad and bad about life. After the final scene of Skyfall sets 007 up to head out on a classic Bond adventure, this film has him go rogue yet again, which at this point in the series has become a worn-out notion. And the idea that Blofeld was behind all of the villains and capers in the Craig era is an idea that probably seemed cool on paper, but comes across as horribly cheesy on film.
Not that you would get any of the filmmakers to agree with that assessment. After the success of Skyfall, producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli spent considerable time trying to convince a reluctant Sam Mendes to come back to the fold, despite the fact that the director had been fairly vocal in his belief that he’d said everything he wanted to say about 007. Eventually, though, he was convinced. And that journey, he says, began with the characters.
SAM MENDES
It all starts with character with me, and I wanted to explore all sorts of different aspects of the characters that I’d left behind in Skyfall. We had populated MI6 with a whole new generation of people: a new M, a new Moneypenny, and a new Q. I wanted to let those relationships develop and grow. Bond had a sense of a new beginning. Skyfall was an entirely reactive movie as far as Bond was concerned. In the first sequence, he was pursuing somebody with all his old focus and drive, but he gets shot before the credits even roll and for the rest of the movie he is one step behind Javier Bardem’s character, Silva. You could even argue that at the end of Skyfall he has failed. He has not kept M alive, and though Silva’s death is a victory for Bond, there are other elements that are failures. Hence, with Spectre, I wanted to give him a chance of redemption.
DANIEL CRAIG
We wanted to be better than Skyfall. It is as simple as that. We didn’t have a choice; we had to be bigger and better. With Skyfall, we set something in motion and we wanted to go a bit further with it and experiment a bit more.
BARBARA BROCCOLI
(producer, Spectre)
This film is very much about the empowerment of Bond and, with Daniel portraying the character, he does this with such enormous integrity that we really feel what he is going through, emotionally as well as physically.
The film kicks off with a kinetic pre-title sequence set against the backdrop of Mexico’s Day of the Dead festivities—which in itself was preceded by a breathtaking Touch of Evil–like opening shot. While there was the stunning cinematography by Hoyte van Hoytema, as well as a grimy and gritty first act that had Bond finding himself tracking down Bellucci’s character, much of the film’s bad press caught up with it and proved accurate. Thanks to the infamous Sony Pictures Entertainment hack of 2014—which saw private emails between producers and Sony studio chief Amy Pascal, as well as the film’s script itself, hit the internet—it had become public knowledge (proven upon viewing the final film) that the creators of Spectre had struggled fruitlessly for months to crack problems with the third act. The script in question was widely disseminated (and dissected) during production.
BEN FRITZ
(author, The Big Picture: The Fight for the Future of Movies)
To me, the most interesting details came deep in financial documents that revealed how the two companies split the profits. MGM owned the rights to release Bond movies, but after emerging from bankruptcy in 2009 as a severely slimmed down studio with no distribution operation of its own, it needed a larger studio to handle that job for it. Sony desperately needed globally popular franchises and was willing to bend further backward than any studio to get 007. Or more accurately, to hold onto them, as it had released Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, too, while MGM was spinning into bankruptcy.
In order to release the movies that would end up being 2012’s Skyfall and 2015’s Spectre, Sony agreed to cover half their budgets but receive only 25 percent of their profits. So on Skyfall, which grossed a massive $1.1 billion, Sony’s profit was a measly $57 million. MGM, meanwhile, made $175 million, and Danjaq got $109 million.
Many Sony executives were mad at Amy Pascal, the studio’s motion picture chief. They thought she had a history of making bad business deals in order to look good to the creative community.
Even Pascal had to admit it was a pretty crazy arrangement. “Who else is gonna make such a one-sided deal with MGM?” she asked Barbara Broccoli in an email.
Beyond the third act problems, however, the cast is underserved by a script that can’t decide if it’s going to play it straight or lighten up the formerly dour Bond. Unfortunately, after 007 ejects from his Aston Martin to avoid being killed by Dave Bautista’s relentless Mr. Hinx—a nearly mute killing machine—it evokes unwelcome comparisons to the paragliding sequence in Die Another Day. And by the time Bond gets to Switzerland, we feel we’ve stepped into a less-well-realized version of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. And despite Seydoux’s solid performance, there’s not even a simmering amount of romantic tension between her and Bond.
By the time they both arrive at Blofeld’s desert lair, the film begins to rapidly unravel as it tries to evoke the spirit of You Only Live Twice’s classic volcano base, but grounded in the contemporary realism of a meteor crater in the desert. Unfortunately, you can’t have it both ways. By the time the film enters that troubled third act, and despite all efforts to redress the studio’s concerns, it turns into a Mission Impossible film with Moneypenny and M all joining the fray in an attempt to bring down the sniveling C. But perhaps the most egregious misstep the film makes is its clumsy attempt to create a Bond cinematic universe in which everything that’s happened to 007 since Casino Royale is part of a master plan by Blofeld (“the author of all your pain”), who himself is revealed to be Bond’s own foster brother, Franz Oberhauser, an absurd revelation that doubles down on the unwanted and un-needed family drama of Skyfall.
None of which actually affected production, which traveled from Mexico City to Switzerland, Rome, North Africa, and London.
SAM MENDES
Given the fact that Bond is much more engaged in his own journey, we were able to play around with much more widespread locations. There is much more variety and a far greater physical and geographical journey in this movie than in Skyfall. We couldn’t really do that in the last movie, because we were very London-based. Yes, there were sequences in Shanghai and Istanbul, but the second half of the film took place almost entirely in London and Scotland.
DANIEL CRAIG
In Spectre, we could work with a slightly different style from the other Bond films I’ve done. This film is very individual, but also harks back a little to what has gone before in the Bond films of the ’60s and ’70s.
SAM MENDES
I also wanted to get back to some of that old-school glamour that you get from those fantastic, otherworldly locations. I wanted to push it to extremes. And it doesn’t get any bigger than Mexico City and the Day of the Dead.
STEPHANIE SIGMAN
(actress, “Estrella”)
The opening scenes of the film start with Bond and Estrella celebrating the Day of the Dead in this amazing location with thousands of people. It is a beautiful scene, because it’s very close to the reality of how we celebrate that day in Mexico. That was very nice for me, being Mexican, and it wasn’t difficult to get fully immersed in the scenes.
MICHAEL G. WILSON
(producer, Spectre)
Though we have worked on the James Bond films for more than 35 years, Barbara and I both felt that the opening sequence to Spectre was something magnificent to behold.
DENNIS GASSNER
(production designer, Spectre)
When the Day of the Dead came up, I was extremely happy, because it’s been something I’ve been watching for a long time, coming from California and therefore being very close to Mexican culture. We started doing our research, and when we reached the right tone and started designing it, it worked out really well. The Mexicans were absolutely wonderful to work with and are obviously passionate about displaying what their culture is invested in. Working on the Day of the Dead section of the film was one of the most exciting things I have done in my career, ever.
ALEXANDER WITT
(second-unit director, Spectre)
That opening sequence has a helicopter as part of it, and there’s this pilot who does all the acrobatics. The authorities left and we had the two helicopters in the Zócalo, right in the middle of Mexico, in front of the Presidential House. They didn’t let us do a lot of the acrobatics there. We went to an airport like an hour’s flight from Mexico City. It was a new airport that was not in use yet. That’s where we did all the aerials and the helicopter doing the turns and all that. I did some hand-held inside the helicopter with the fight going on.
BARBARA BROCCOLI
That opening scene is good old-fashioned filmmaking rendered on a gargantuan scale. The Mexico scenes are truly epic, and the Day of the Dead sequence stands as a reminder of what a James Bond film can achieve. Here we were in the middle of a foreign capital city with thousands of beautifully dressed extras and a world-class stunt team executing jaw-dropping scenes.
MICHAEL G. WILSON
We’ve had some amazing sequences set in the snow, and we were very conscious of what we’ve done in all these films. That meant we wanted to do something different from being in bobsleds or using any of the usual winter sports. Hence we had a different kind of chase with airplanes and 4×4s.
SAM MENDES
We wanted to send Bond to one of Europe’s great cities at night, and we chose Rome because of the history and an atmosphere of darkness and foreboding. Particularly if you’re dealing with 1920s and 1930s Fascist architecture. There is something dark and intimidating. And for the intimate part of the film, we went to North Africa, in Tangier and the Sahara. If you want this incredible immense landscape, this emptiness, then where better than the Sahara? So with all these locations, you have three tones that are quite different and quite extreme. And with London, the challenge was to try and find a way of shooting there that felt fresh and new and yet which was also a continuation of Skyfall. We tried to find a way to look at familiar locations and familiar places within London from a different perspective, and I think we found some great ways to do that. These five locations give you a clue as to why the movie was technically so hard to achieve, and why it was so exhausting, why it took so long to shoot, and why it has taken no prisoners.
On his journey, Bond does manage to find some time for lovemaking, initially with Monica Bellucci’s Lucia Sciarra, and, of course, Seydoux’s Swann.
MONICA BELLUCCI
(actress, “Lucia Sciarra”)
I said yes right away, because I was very happy to work with Sam Mendes and to be part of this project. I have so much respect for the James Bond films in general, because I think they are such a big part of cinema history. And I respect so much all the James Bond Girls; I think they are beautiful actresses and talented, and it was very interesting for me to be part of this history. When Lucia first meets Bond, she doesn’t trust him, because she comes from a world where only corrupt men have the power. But the chemistry and the attraction between them is so strong and she realizes her feminine power over him. Then she trusts him. He saves her and she gives him the information he needs—they find an interesting way to sign a contract with each other.
GLEN OLIVER
(pop culture commentator)
The Powers That Be deserve the highest praise for casting Monica Bellucci, albeit in far too brief a role, as a Bond Girl. If memory serves, she’s officially the oldest Bond Girl yet seen in these pictures—kudos to all involved for saying “fuck you!” to the irrational and discriminatory ageism that frequently plagues large scale films, and the industry in general. It was an interesting role, which I would’ve liked to have seen more of, and Bellucci was still sexy as hell.
LÉA SEYDOUX
(actress, “Madeleine Swann”)
The character is intelligent, independent, and she doesn’t want anything to do with Bond when she meets him for the first time. She’s not impressed. But the relationship softens; she understands Bond very well, because she has an insight into the world that he lives in. For his mission he needs to understand things from his past and he needs Madeleine for the information she can provide. Eventually it is a very strong relationship between them.
JOHN CORK
(film historian, author, Bond Girls Are Forever: The Women of James Bond)
I think Léa Seydoux is a fantastic actress with a very haunting quality. I think she was a great choice to play Madeleine Swann. I also liked Monica Bellucci. Both roles were slightly underdeveloped for my tastes. I would have rather more Monica or Léa than some guy listening to opera driving a Fiat 500.
Playing the iconic role of Blofeld was Christoph Waltz. Requisite intimidating henchmen included Dave Bautista as Hinx, who meets his apparent demise in a battle with Bond on a train transporting 007 and Madeleine to what would be Blofeld’s headquarters.
CHRISTOPH WALTZ
(actor, “Ernst Stavro Blofeld”)
In this film, it’s the classic, and the classical, protagonist/antagonist dynamic. The dynamic is that the hero’s major existential quest needs to be thwarted, and every obstacle needs to be set up to the degree that endangers not just the achievement of his quest, but endangers the existence of the hero himself. Everybody was very aware that this dynamic is, to say the least, very desirable in this context. That dynamic is what makes these stories really interesting.
LISA FUNNELL
There is that moment in the film where Blofeld tells Bond, “I’m the author of all your pain,” and I’m, like, “This is not the Marvel Cinematic Universe where you planned four films and everything connects.” I mean, Marvel takes you with breadcrumbs and you’re like, “I get how everything comes together.” In this case, it’s like an afterthought of trying to put things together. Like, you’re telling me that Silva, who’s on this personal quest and vendetta of revenge, because he was handed over during the 1997 handover back to China and all this stuff, that somehow he was part of your organization? That was a deeply personal revenge narrative where he wanted to get at M and MI6. There’s no trace of Blofeld in there. For me, I’m, like, where did he come from? Where would he have been? I just don’t buy any of that. Blofeld to me was so one-dimensional—not even two-dimensional—and so disappointing. I was bored.
RIC MEYERS
(author, Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Book)
By the time the revelation that Blofeld was actually Bond’s foster brother, who had not only killed his parents because “mom liked you best,” but also had masterminded every enemy in the series to take some sort of spoiled, tantrum-tinged revenge, my brain was already hitchhiking home. Just as well. The movie, incredibly, just got worse from there, until the only rational explanation for what happens on-screen during the finale and climax is that it was all a fantasy that Bond was having while Blofeld is drilling his brain—a la Terry Gilliam’s Brazil or The Twilight Zone’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” This wasn’t just sad, it was a travesty and tragedy.
DAVE BAUTISTA
(actor, “Hinx”)
This film has something of an old-school feeling, especially when you consider the history of Spectre. They’re this large, mastermind organization that is everywhere. They’re very mysterious, and it’s important that they remain that way. I always thought it was really cool to be the bad guy, but being a member of Spectre, specifically, is great.
GLEN OLIVER
I remember being hugely excited to learn Dave Bautista had landed a role in Spectre; I’d really enjoyed his work to date, and felt (and still feel) that the extent of his range had yet to be fully or properly explored. Hearing that he’d been cast as an “iconic henchman” was quite provocative, and gave rise to fun imaginings of how the current Bond regime might envision the notion of “iconic,” given the wonderful array of memorable and “iconic” henchmen who’ve visited the franchise in the past. What we got was Dave Bautista looking like Dave Bautista—dressed for a semi-formal dinner, wearing a beard cribbed from Zangief from Street Fighter, saying next to nothing, and not even being a particularly effective henchman. Such squandered opportunity, like so much of the film.
