Don't Make a Scene: SPECTRE

The Story: A new James Bond film comes out this week (on this side of the pond; your friends in England have already ruined it for you, probably). And No Time To Die, being part of the Daniel Craig canon, is heavy on continuity from film to film.

That's not the way it was in "the old days." Back then, from every Bond from Connery to Brosnan, the continuity was—well, there wasn't much! The series would re-cast C.I.A. agent Felix Leiter in every film. Heck, there have been six actors who've played James Bond (name them, but you're probably forgetting George Lazenby...or Timothy Dalton) in the series! Only one actress has played a recurring Bond girlfriend (that would be Eunice Gayson and she was phased out after the second film); "Bond-girls" would wind up in a clinch with 007 at the end of each film and never be seen or heard from again. Not even mentioned.

Well, the new one features the one who has survived. At the end of SPECTRE, Bond is seen motoring away in his Aston Martin with Dr. Madeleine Swann in the passenger seat, both of them with smug, satisfied smiles on their faces. And she's back in the new one! No more mooning over Vesper Lynd, the woman who betrayed Bond in Casino Royale! Bond has moved on...

So, who is she? Well, in the Craig films, it seems everybody is related to somebody else, and Dr. Swann is the daughter of the mysterious Mr. White, who has been in the majority of the last few films. Seems he was a bad guy who did a lot of work for the nesting dolls of Evil Empires that have plagued Bond lately. And, since she's in the Craig era when Bond's psyche and background are the highest priority, it's only appropriate that she's a shrink. In this era, he needs someone just like her—Daniel Craig's Bond has issues!

In this scene, she does a little analysis—there was a similar scene in Skyfall—and they don't exactly get off on the right foot.

 

The Set-Up: James Bond (Daniel Craig) has gone rogue again. On a tip from his former boss "M" (Dame Judi Dench), he ran down to Mexico to take out a terrorist involved in a string of bombings. Then, after a reprimand from the new "M" (Ralph Fiennes), he has secretly gone to Rome to visit the bad guy's widow, which leads him to the board meeting of a criminal organization and one of its operatives—one he's met before—"Mr. White" (Jesper Christensen) who, before he takes his own life, requests Bond to protect his only remaining relative, his daughter (Lea Seydoux), who may be next on the "hit list."

 

Action.

 

INT. CLINIC, EXAMINATION ROOM, AUSTRIA - DAY 

Bond enters.

The impressive snowscape behind the floor-to-ceiling window provides all the decoration this room needs.

Until he spots MADELEINE SWANN across the room at her desk.

MADELEINE SWANN: Please, take a seat. I'll be with you in just a moment. 

Mr. White's daughter is beautiful. She speaks into a DICTATION PHONE under her breath, finishing up her notes on the previous patient.

MADELEINE: (into recorder, in French. No subtitles)...following blood-tests on Monday, patient was diagnosed with subacute thyroiditis suspected to be linked with a pituitary gland malfunction. 

She crosses the room carrying her clipboard, to the window still talking into her dictation machine. Bond watches her intently.

MADELEINE: ...Patient to receive a single course of carbimazole, in conjunction with CBT and cranio-sacral therapy.

She presses stop.

MADELEINE: Please excuse me,... 

MADELEINE: ...Mr. Bond. 

MADELEINE: My name is Dr. Madeleine Swann. Our job today is to analyze your needs,...

MADELEINE: ...both psychological and physical to best prescribe bespoke therapy to put you on the path to a rejuvenated and healthful lifestyle.

JAMES BOND: Hmm, sounds pretty straightforward.

She walks over to the wall and pulls down a blind.

MADELEINE: I hope you don't mind. The view can be distracting. 

BOND: I hadn't noticed.

She looks up from her clipboard and catches his eye for the first time; but if she catches his inference she doesn't show it.

MADELEINE: I see you filled out most of the paperwork. 

MADELEINE: Just a few questions to complete your evaluation, if I may. Do you exercise? 

BOND: When I have to. 

MADELEINE: Do you consider your employment to be psychologically stressful? 

BOND: On occasion. Sometimes.

MADELEINE: Do you have trouble sleeping?

BOND: Only when I'm alone.

She pauses slightly, doesn't look up.

MADELEINE: How much alcohol do you consume? 

BOND: As much as is necessary. Too much.

She looks up at him. He gives nothing away.

MADELEINE: Some broader questions. 

MADELEINE: As a child, would you say you were close to your parents? 

BOND: My parents died when I was young. 

MADELEINE: Really? How old? 

BOND: Eleven. Old enough to remember. 

MADELEINE: How, if I may ask?

BOND: It was a climbing accident. 

She looks up at him.

MADELEINE: So you grew up where?

BOND: Here and there.

She looks at him levelly. Returns to her questions.

MADELEINE: So who brought you up? 

BOND: (dismisses it) Someone else. 

BOND: Humor me. How does one train at Oxford and the Sorbonne, become a consultant, spend two years with Medecins Sans Frontires 

BOND: ...and end up here? 

BOND: Forgive me, but anyone might think you were hiding from something.

MADELEINE: You're paying a lot of money to be here, Mr. Bond. 

MADELEINE: Who's asking the questions, you or me? 

BOND: Of course. Carry on. 

MADELEINE: I see you left this final question blank. What is your occupation? 

BOND: Well, that's not the sort of thing that looks good on a form. 

MADELEINE: And why is that? 

BOND: I kill people. 

She looks back at him, turns cold.

BOND: Small world, eh?

She realizes what he means. Puts her paperwork down.

MADELEINE: Where is he? 

BOND: Your father's dead. 

BOND: Two days ago. 

MADELEINE: How do you know? 

BOND: Because I was there. 

MADELEINE: Did you kill him? 

BOND: I didn't have to. 

BOND: He did it himself.

MADELEINE: Were you friends?

BOND: No.

She regards him, fighting her emotions. 

MADELEINE: And you came all the way just to tell me this? That your enemy my father's dead? 

BOND: I came to tell you that your life is in danger and I need your help. 

MADELEINE: Why?

BOND: Your father worked for someone who views emotional attachments as Fair Game. I made a deal with him... 

BOND: ...to protect you. 

MADELEINE: You're lying. Why would he trust you? 

BOND: Because he knew that I needed something in return. 

MADELEINE: And what was that? 

BOND: To find L'Americain.

She turns stone cold.

MADELEINE: This interview is over.

He stands, moves to her, she flinches back.

BOND: Dr. Swann... 

MADELEINE: You have 10 minutes to leave the building. Then I'm calling security.

She heads to the door, opens it.

Bond sees THE RECEPTIONIST outside the room. Doesn't want to make a scene.

BOND: I gave him my word.

MADELEINE: What does that even mean to people like you?

BOND: Thank you, Dr. Swann.

Bond leaves.

Madeleine stands, shaken.

SPECTRE

 

Words by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, John Logan and Jez Butterworth

 

Pictures by Hoyte van Hoytema and Sam Mendes

 

SPECTRE is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from M-G-M and Fox Home Video.

The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse

The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (Fritz Lang, 1960) Peter Barter, respected journalist and broadcaster for a German news program, has gone missing for his evening news program. It turns out he IS the news; he's been murdered on the way to the studio by an unknown assassin, who has fired a shot into his neck while the reporter is stopped at a street-light. The other cars in the jam move on, but a traffic policeman investigates what the hold-up of one car is, and discovers Barter slumped over the steering-wheel, dead.*

But, the unusual thing about the assassination is that the local police had been warned of it before it happened: Inspector Kras (Gert Frobe) had received a call from the blind clairvoyant, Cornelius (Lupo Prezzo), who has seen the future crime happening in his mind's eye. Kras visits Cornelius, and expresses his cynicism about the mystical. What he responds to is cold, hard clues—like the thin blade discovered in Barter's neck that came from a secret military weapon that was under development—but strangely vanished—from the United States.

It's just one of a string of unsolved crimes that have occurred, and they have only one thing in common—the victims have all previously stayed at the Hotel Luxor in Berlin, and the authorities are starting to concentrate their investigative efforts there. That's a lucky thing as the Luxor has another crisis going on that day. Marion Menil (Dawn Addams) is standing on a high ledge of the Hotel, threatening to jump. The police can't reach her, but the American millionaire Henry Travers (Peter Van Eyck) is staying at the Luxor—he's just negotiated buying a British rocket company—and his window is a life-saving arm's length away from the distraught woman. His soothing words and offers to help convince her to come in off the ledge.

Her psychiatrist—who happens to be in the same building—is called. He is Professor Jordan (Wolfgang Preiss) and is treating Marion with hypnosis as she has become agitated by the manipulations of her estranged (and club-footed) husband. The Luxor seems to be the busiest joint in town with Travers and Kras and Jordan and Menil and the husband—and the busy-body press!—all bustling around the rooms and halls and very busy bar. And then there's the vociferous Heironymous B. Mistelzweig (Werner Peters), an insurance agent (and doing good business evidently!) always tagging along trying to get information on leads. It's enough to make the manager, Berg (Andrea Checchi), dehydrate from his constant sweating.

But, Berg knows something about the Luxor not everyone knows—it used to be a Nazi stronghold, designed for and fitted with false rooms (the better for spying) and, keeping up with the times, outfitted with secret cameras and microphones. No one's safe from having their business monitored almost constantly. But, who's doing the watching? 

Interpol has a strange theory: they think that it might be the work of Dr. Mabuse, a crime-kingpin, who had a spider's-web network of contacts and a magician's ability to cloud victim's minds. It's crazy, but we have seen a van of thugs (answering only to numbers) circling around the city-streets in radio contact with the purported voice of Dr. Mabuse giving them orders to carry out—including the murder of that reporter. Then, Kras' office is bombed, that missile plant Travers was buying is sabotaged and Cornelius warns Travers off Marion by saying that a woman would lead to his death.

The film is filled with double-identities, double-tricks, trapped rooms, and a paranoid world-view that would only unimpress the most aluminum-capped conspiracy theorists. It's a continuation of a series that Lang had started on in Nazi Germany, and, returning to post-war Germany and making this film at the age of 70 (it was his last film), it's themes are just as relevant on the pervasive and slippery nature of Evil. But, now that world is not limited to the rarefied world of spies and criminals. As with the films of Hitchcock—most recently in his 1959 film North By Northwest—it spills over into the every-day, invading the nightmares of people just living their lives and turning their normality of quiet desperation ass over tea-kettle. No longer are they being spied on from around corners and through un-draped windows. Now, they're being monitored by technology in the Holy name of Security (as opposed to these days where it's in the Holy names of Convenience and Consumerism). And evil wraps itself in superstition and assumes a mantle of power only because it tells you it's there.

And the thing is, it works...just as well as it did in the Silent Era. The nightmares may have changed over time, but Lang's ability to create them, whole and fresh and insinuating, never ebbed.

* Lang used a similar sequence in his The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, filmed 27 years earlier.