American Cinematographer - December 2006 - 45

Opposite: British
superspy James

and

with his heart
Campbell. "He
drank too much, smoked 70 ciga¬
rettes a day and was very misogynistic. In the course of the story, he has
a serious romance, and by the end

thinking more
than his head," says

he becomes the Bond

we

Bond (Daniel

Craig, far left)
against

faces off

the villainous Le

Chiffre (Mads

Mikkelsen)

during a
pressure-packed
poker game in
Casino Royale.

all know

and love. His evolution is

really

what the books about, and that's

This page, top:
Bond feels a

too."
Meheux, who has collabo¬

what this movie is about,

rated

spark when he
gets close to the
alluring Vesper
Lynd (Eva Green).

with

Campbell on eight
features, including Goldeneye (see
AC Dec. '95), observes that Fleming
wrote Casino Royale "as a straight¬
forward thriller. The book has

Bottom: Director
of

more

recent

"all in" with
light meter.

goes

ugly scenes in it. The producers
[Barbara Broccoli and Michael
Wilson] and Martin all felt some of

very

the

photography

Phil Meheux, BSC

some

his

Bond films had

slightly off track and too
in visual effects. The man
is a government-hired assassin, but
the series was becoming unreal."
Casino Royale has no Q
Branch and no super gadgets, and

gotten

wound up

the

villain, Le Chiffre (Mads
Mikkelsen), is not as bizarre as

of Bond's other

many

nemeses.

Also, there are no superhuman
stunts, because the Filmmakers
wanted the action

scenes

to

look

like

they obey the laws of physics.
not to say that the movie is
totally unrecognizable as a Bond
film. "The whole thing is still very
up-market, of course," says
Campbell. "We've given it a very
glossy look, as all the Bond films

This is

have. But

none

of the action is

impossible or spacey. We never take
things to a ludicrous extent.
"Phil's a great cameraman,"
the director continues. "He and I
work very

SPicoctouruenrfst.eysy
Phot s

well together, and he's
very good at handling movies like
this. You have to be tremendously
organized and able to work under
extreme pressure for a long time on
movies like this. It can be tough and
grueling. Phil always knows what I
want and photographs it beauti¬
fully."
The filmmakers decided to

confound Bond fans'

expectations

these
and

which shows Bond

stunt

first

committing his

government-sanctioned
do some¬
thing quite different and turn every¬
one
around, do something in
black-and-white!" says Meheux.
"People are so used to seeing all
two

murders. "If you want to

and

everything in color,
right into a scene of
black-and-white with very little
stunts

from the very start by opening
with a black-and-white sequence,

we

go

work." The sequence was

more like spy films
from the Cold War era, such as The

designed to feel

Ipcress File and The Spy Who Came
In from the Cold, than a big action
film

of 2006.

Shot

Barandov Studios in

in

part at

Prague and in
American

Cinematographer 43
American Cinematographer - December 2006

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