Mendes says Skyfall is `darker than usual’

Skyfall director Sam Mendes is quoted by an Italian publication as saying the 23rd James Bond movie is “darker than usual.”

Skyfall director Sam Mendes

The comment appeared in La Repubblica. When you run the story through Google Translate, it comes out like this:

“Although the script is original, we’ve told the writers, telling them to be guided by the irony and the spirit of Fleming’s novels,” said Mendes. “If I agreed to shoot Bond is because I believe that it is now possible to make a film of escape, fun, but at the same time tell us something about the world in which we live. And to do that you have characters believable and human. And actors like Daniel Craig, who has given to 007 humanity that I had never seen in the Bond of the past. Bond again seems a real man in real situations. I recalled how I felt when I saw the films of Sean Connery. Skyfall is even a bit darker than usual.”

What to make of this? Who knows?

Back at Skyfall’s early November press conference, Mendes talked about how he liked Live And Let Die, hardly a dark film. Now he’s talking up the Sean Connery movies. At the same press conference, producer Michael G. Wilson said no change in direction for Skyfall, then later talked about Skyfall having a feel like Goldfinger, a more escapist movie than Quantum of Solace.

The Skyfall principals have told other reporters there will be more humor in Skyfall. The most recent example? An April 23 story in The Washington Post, quoting star Daniel Craig. Now Mendes says “darker than usual.”

If you accept the principals at their word, Skyfall is escapist fun AND a film with a message about the way we live. It’s got more humor AND it’s “going to move people a little.” (another Craig quote at the end of the Washington Post story). We’ll see.