Directing Bond: Will Bond Change with Better Directors?

Posted on November 18, 2012 Updated on November 18, 2012

Besides being absolutely fantastic and looking absolutely superb, there’s something a little different about the latest James Bond mission, Skyfall. Whether the presence of said difference is immediately noticeable or subtle and subversive is up to the audience, but one thing is clear: Skyfall is better because of its director. Yeah, screenwriter, cinematographer, Craig, Dench, etc. But the twenty-third entry into the longstanding 50 year old franchise has a particular man helming the picture: Sam Mendes.

Mendes won an Academy Award for Best Director for his work on the “is the grass really greener?” satire American Beauty, and has made his interesting mark on film with such works as Road to Perdition and Revolutionary Road, and his stage production revival of Cabaret. With each film, Mendes has added his own elements, evolving his style, etc. While I don’t necessarily want to jump into the “is he an auteur?” argument, I do want to make this point: his reputability as a director is a rare thing for the Bond franchise, and his expertise as such obviously shows in the work.

As mentioned in my review for Skyfall, the last time a director of that kind of caliber was hired for a Bond film was for The World is Not Enough. Michael Apted, director of the Up documentary series, didn’t quite make the impression other directors have made. One could argue that Martin Campbell is a good director, but his films, such as Edge of Darkness and Defenseless, are significantly smaller and hardly well received. (Yes, he also did Green Lantern and the Zorro films.) But his two entries into the Bond franchise, GoldenEye and Casino Royale, are two of the best in the entire history of James Bond.

There is Marc Forster, whose film Stranger Than Fiction ranks amongst my very favorites (though, that is partly due to the screenwriter, Zach Helm), and Finding Neverland, which is very imaginative, but his entry into the Bond series, Quantum of Solace, is one of the most disappointing and forgettable films ever. Just ever. I like to pretend it never happened. Poorly directed, incoherently edited, and with a rambling script (that remained unfinished due to the 2008 Writer’s Strike), Quantum of Solace is also the only Bond film to be a direct sequel. Which is, well, not a good thing. In an attempt to follow the adrenaline packed Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace is a half-assed rehash of all the things that made its predecessor great. So, there’s him.

So, besides Mendes, Forster, and Apted, Bond’s history of directors hasn’t been terribly start studded. More than half of the Bond films were directed by one of three people: Terrence Young (3), Guy Hamilton (4), or John Glen (5). Then there were some sporadic choices, but no one with the name that Mendes has, and pretty much no one with that much prestige.

But now that Bond has been directed by an Oscar winner, and a guy who was once married to Kate Winslet, what does that mean for the future of Bond and his missions? I’m not going to spend time speculating who might direct the next Bond films, but one has to wonder what kind of people will direct the Bond films.

Mendes definitely added an element, and with him he brought a team of incredible people. Roger Deakins for cinematography, John Logan for screenwriting, and Thomas Newman for the score. So, with a stunning arsenal of a crew, does that mean that the people behind Bond’s future missions could be just as prestigious as the director?

Mendes’ films, from American Beauty to Revolutionary Road, are marked by their seamless balance between darkness and style. The best of Skyfall feels at times like the best of a spy thriller worthy of Alfred Hitchcock. World weary though Bond may be, he’s still the best character the spy genre. So, thus Mendes’ dark, almost cynical look at Bond fits the film perfectly, blending it effortlessly with Roger Deakins’ gorgeous cinematography.

So, if other people take the helm of a Bond film, does that mean the Bond films will steadily get darker, more vulnerable, and look damn good? Will the next director continue to take Bond in a direction where a new canon is being created? Does this mean that the Bond films will look better, be directed better, — maybe just be better films? What do you think? What’s next for the quality of the Bond films?