From Casino Royale to Skyfall: Perfect Imperfection

I remember hearing someone say years ago that many great beauties have a flaw that sets them apart. The example given at the time was Marilyn Monroe and her mole. I think something similar applies to art: a work’s imperfection can also be what perfects it. I was reminded of this recently while reviewing the three James Bond films starring Daniel Craig.

Casino Royale (2006) brought back the 007 franchise just when I had written it off. It features a high-stakes Texas Hold’em staredown between Bond and Le Chiffre, a man who badly needs money to pay some terrorists so they won’t kill him. Bond wins, and some violence ensues. Then, just when the movie should end, it continues, languidly and saccharinely exploring Bond’s love affair with the lovely Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), before launching into some action amid crumbling and sinking architecture in Venice.

 

 

The movie has an act too many, making it too long and a little disjointed. This is the movie’s only flaw worth mentioning, and it is exactly what makes Casino Royale flawless. Bond’s romance with Vesper gives his character depth it has lacked since . . . forever. The final events of the movie become the core of Bond’s character for the rest of the trilogy, as well as the video game Quantum of Solace. The longer running time with more serious themes than Bond aficionados are used to gives the movie its heft and heart.

 

 

The main flaw of the film Quantum of Solace (2008) is how light it feels compared to its predecessor. It’s significantly shorter, lacks a meaningful love interest, and at first glance goes little deeper than a standard Bond plot. Again, however, it is this flaw that makes the movie work. When I first saw Quantum of Solace, I liked its fast pace, brevity and relative simplicity--all recommendable for an action film. These aspects of the film work even better now that the trilogy is complete. Many successful series grow ungainly in their second installment, but Quantum of Solace is a sleek centerpiece to its weightier bookends.

Skyfall (2012) on its own is so perfect that at first it seems to lack the necessary imperfection. However, it has one foot in pre-Craig territory, and many fans have had more of that than they can stomach. Skyfall serves up, albeit with improved taste, many old tropes--a freakish villain, overblown action, sex but no love, witty banter with Q, etc.--until it begins to look and feel a lot like the film franchise’s first decade, not its sixth.

But that’s the point, isn’t it?  These homages to the earlier years reground the franchise in its roots while at the same time plotting a course for future films. The real frisson of Skyfall comes from the knowledge that the trilogy it concludes was--for all its grit, style and grandeur--no more than a prequel to the Bond films of decades past and future. We finish the film with the promise that Bond is just beginning, and this would not be possible without the new direction that Skyfall takes away from the two movies that preceded it.

No doubt Marilyn Monroe the real person would have been beautiful without her mole, but the point of the example I began with is clear: in aesthetics, a flaw may be what makes perfect. So it is with the Daniel Craig reboot of Bond: Each film has a blemish that makes it better than it would be without it.

Daniel Craig has been hailed as the best Bond since Sean Connery by many, as the best Bond ever by some, and the movies set box office records for the franchise and received critical acclaim. Despite having grown up watching the series, the last three movies are the only ones that engage me today--and all because of how imperfect they are.