2. Main Characters
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James Bond (Daniel Craig): Is a Senior Operational Officer known as 007, an ultra-covert
Black Ops unit within the British Secret Intelligence Service. Involved in various missions, and
later in the film brings up his past while defending M taking her to his former home Skyfall…
M(Judi Dench): M is the character who is the Head of Secret Intelligence Service—also
known as MI6. The whole plot is all evolved around M after one of her former agents tries to
seek revenge.
Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem): The main antagonist, he wants to discredit and kill M. Was a
former agent of M’s until he turned evil in her eyes. When he was an agent for M he got
captured and tortured and from this he turned evil and seeks revenge.
Séverine (Bérénice Marlohe): Silva’s mistress, being already bad enough with this title due to
her past she has very little reason to smile.
Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes):Chairman of the British Parliament's Intelligence and Security
Committee. He becomes the new M at the end of the film, bond stereotypes him to be just a
man behind a desk but in fact he was an ex-army officer and also once held hostage.
3. Plot
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Bond's latest adventure takes him deep to the heart of Istanbul to retrieve a hard
disc containing the names of NATO operatives, their whereabouts, and their real
identities. Unfortunately the mission goes horribly wrong and ends with Bond
getting shot while on the roof of a train. Fortunately Bond survives and is enjoying
life on a remote Mediterranean island. But an untimely and horrific attack
compromises MI-6, kills 6 agents, and ultimately compromises M herself. Then a
mysterious hacker, using the newly obtained data, outs the agents on YouTube compromising their missions and identities.
That brings Bond back out of retirement. He then goes on a cat and mouse chase
after a reclusive computer hacker - taking him to Shanghai, Macau, Japan, and
ultimately back to London and his childhood home called "Skyfall" While the
hacker has ties to M's past, it puts Bond's loyalty to the ultimate test.
4. Mise en Scene
• Location: Differs throughout, implying elements of action and fast
pace.
• Lighting: Dim low key lighting with areas of high key lighting.
• Costume: Suit, indication of significance in film (along
with repetition of presence in opening sequence), suggests power,
authority, professionalism, and potentially a serious character.
• Cinematography: No consistent pattern, a wide variety of
cinematography. Low and high angles of medium long shots,
extreme long shots, extreme close-ups, mediums close-ups of
protagonist Bond.
5. Iconography
• Has been used where appropriate; for example:
guns, knifes/swords, blood, grave stones, skulls, shadows etc…
• Opening sequence consists of predominantly dull colours grey
and black. Alternatively, with in the ‘James Bond’ opening
sequence it has injected a handful of vibrant colours. For
example white from high key lighting in underwater
scene, blood which was red and orange. With yellow and
purple from the lights.
6. Ideology
• An example of ideology in Skyfall would be the
MI6 victims of a faceless crime with seemingly
no motives and no traceable evidence, and it
is here that the film finds its most poignant
ideology.
7. Genre Features
• Skyfall definitely lives up to the thriller features of
adrenaline rushing scenes involving Bond when in
action. A good example of this could be when Bond
is defending M and fighting off Silva’s men in a place
which he once called home.
