American Cinematographer - December 2006 - 10

When 37-year-old English actor Daniel Craig was
introduced

the sixth incarnation of British super¬

spy James Bond - on October 14,2005, during a
splashy ceremony staged on a Royal Marine speedboat
on the Thames
a hue and cry erupted. Hordes of
fans and critics began slow-roasting the star on the
Web's global spit, with some Bond aficionados even
threatening to boycott the next installment of the vener¬
able franchise. Spurious rumors began to circulate: that
Craig couldn't drive a manual car, and that he'd lost two
teeth while filming a fight scene. (Craig later maintained
it was just a crown that had come loose.) Others
objected to the actor's 5'11" stature, blonde hair and blue eyes, with even The New York
Times deriding Craig's "pale, flattened face and large, fleshy ears."
Perhaps only the capable but oft-mocked George Lazenby (who played Bond
just once, in the 1969 outing On Her Majesty's Secret Service) can fully relate to this
level of abuse. To his credit, Craig has endured the cruel taunts with manly restraint,
urging his detractors to judge him by his performance. Of course, anyone who has actu¬
ally seen Craig act - especially as the tough guys he adroitly embodied in Hoad to
Perdition, Layer Cake and Munich - can see that he'll be a smashing 007.
The larger lesson we can learn from this worldwide kerfuffle is that audi¬
ences still care
and I mean really care - about Bond. Thankfully, the caretakers of
the franchise
producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson - seem to have
heard and heeded the rumblings. With Casino Hoyale, the 21st film in the lucrative
series, they've promised a return to basics by rebooting our hero and keeping him closer
in spirit to the edgy assassin of Ian Fleming's novels. "In the new film, none of the action
is impossible or spacey," maintains director of photography Phil Meheux, BSC. "We
never take things to a ludicrous extent." Of course, as Jon Silberg learned during his
interview with the cinematographer ("High Stakes for 007," page 42), this mandate
didn't preclude an array of spectacular and stylish action sequences, or a climax involv¬
ing a slowly sinking villa in Venice, Italy. After all, this is James Bond we're talking
about, not Jimmy B. from the accounting department.
The stakes are also high in the stories told by this month's other featured
films: Children of Men, a futuristic thriller shot by Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC
("Humanity's Last Hope," page 60); Dreamgirls, a backstage musical drama shot by
Tobias A. Schliessler ("Motown Hitmakers," page 76); and Home of the Brave, a tale
about soldiers returning from Iraq shot by Tony Pierce-Roberts, BSC ("War's Emotional
Toll," page 90). All boast memorable images worthy of insightful analysis.
On a sad note, this issue marks the passing of legendary cinematographer
Sven Nyvkist, ASC (In Memoriam, page 139). Nykvist's truly exceptional contributions to
cinema
too numerous to review in this limited space - will be more fully remem¬
bered in our February 2007 issue.
-

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American Cinematographer - December 2006

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