10 Directors For "Bond 24" and Beyond

With the enormous success of last year’s Skyfall, the James Bond film series has been reinvigorated.  Directed by Sam Mendes, the movie marked a return to the bold, ambitious filmmaking of the franchise’s glory days of the 1960s, and is by far the most successful installment in the post-Connery era.  

EON Productions, the company behind the Bond films, has stated that it wants to return to the two-year production cycle that was fairly standard throughout most of the franchise’s fifty-year history.  Pulling together a new film by 2014 that can match the critical and commercial heights of Skyfall is certainly a tall order, especially considering Mendes has said that he won't return.

A director for Bond 24 – which is rumored to be the first chapter in a two-film story arc – hasn’t yet been announced, but it’s fun to think about who might take over.  Here are ten filmmakers (in alphabetical order) I’d like to see bring us a new Bond film:

Ben Affleck (U.S.)

Resume: Argo (2012), The Town (2010)

Riding high on the huge success of Argo, now would be the perfect time to bring Affleck into the fold at Pinewood.  With his first three films, he’s proved that he can bring entertaining, intelligent thrillers to the masses.  At the helm of Bond, he could strike a good balance between realism and spectacle, keeping the ball rolling after the triumph of Skyfall.

Tomas Alfredson (Sweden)

Resume: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011)

His first – and, to date, only – English-language film was one of the most densely-plotted in recent memory.  It’s no small task to adapt the work of novelist John Le Carre, and Alfredson pulled it off stunningly well.  With the right script, he could bring a welcome complexity to the franchise.

Kathryn Bigelow (U.S.)

Resume: Zero Dark Thirty (2012), The Hurt Locker (2008)

Having a woman take the reins in a franchise known for its misogyny would make a huge statement.  More importantly, we’d be getting an exceptional film from a director whose attention to detail has paid massive creative dividends.  Bigelow knows    how to keep the hearts (and minds) of her audience racing.  As the first female director in the history of Bond, she would have the potential to give the series its best entry.

Brad Bird (U.S.)

Resume: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), The Incredibles (2004)

As far as I’m concerned, Ghost Protocol is now the yardstick by which all subsequent action films are measured against.  And having been a driving force at Pixar, Bird knows how to use visual space.  He could easily continue the grand style that came roaring back in Skyfall, becoming a legend in two blockbuster espionage franchises.    

Martin Campbell (New Zealand)

Resume: Casino Royale (2006), Goldeneye (1995)

Having saved the franchise twice, he has a proven track record with Bond.  Bringing him back for a third installment is a no-brainer.  However, Campbell does his best work as a savior and, with the huge critical and commercial success of Skyfall, it’s not likely that the series will need rescuing anytime soon.  Look for him to be a serious candidate if and when there’s trouble brewing with Bond 26 and beyond.    

David Fincher (U.S.)

Resume: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), The Social Network (2010)

He would undoubtedly take the series to a darker place than ever before, giving Craig complete freedom to mine the depths of Bond’s soul.  As much as I’d love to see this collaboration, it would be a huge risk for EON to take, as it would probably turn off certain audiences.  Fincher’s very distinct style (which trends toward high levels of violence) makes him the ultimate long-shot, and sadly I just don’t see this one happening.

Ridley Scott (U.K.)

Resume: Body of Lies (2008), Blade Runner (1982)

Though known for his work in science fiction, the veteran Scott’s canon includes an incredible variety of genres.  He could certainly deliver a film on the epic scale that EON seems to be returning to, and his penchant for strong female characters could give us a Bond girl for the ages.  Commitments to other projects make it unlikely that we’ll see him direct Craig, but wouldn’t it be cool if he were to helm a film in 2018 starring Michael Fassbender as Bond?

Matthew Vaughn (U.K.)

Resume: X-Men: First Class (2011), Layer Cake (2004)

Craig’s performance in Layer Cake was reportedly a very big factor in him being offered the role of 007; here was even talk of Vaughn directing Casino Royale.  He brought the X-Men franchise back to respectability, and the first half of that movie was jam-packed with Bondian elements.  Vaughn can keep Bond on the right course, and he’s the mostly likely choice for the next installment.      

Joe Wright (U.K.)

Resume: Hanna (2011), Atonement (2007)

He seems to fall in line with the visually-expansive, rich style that EON wants.  Wright could make a seamless transition between Skyfall and Bond 24, keeping the juggernaut rolling consistently.  It is disconcerting that the impressive but small-scale Hanna is his only action picture to date, but he could easily scale up to take on something as big as Bond.

Rupert Wyatt (U.K.)

Resume: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), The Escapist (2008)

He’s got the least experience in the chair of anyone on this list, but in his young career Wyatt has made two exceptional features.  EON seems to have a strong preference for veteran directors, which makes him a long shot.  The franchise isn’t really in need of a fresh take, but perhaps down the road when he has a few more films under his belt, Wyatt may indeed be called upon. 

How Cinema Can Make Us Less "Historically Illiterate"

In an Oscars race where five of the nine nominees for Best Picture were, in some way or another, historical films, the debate about how faithful cinema must be to the past has been reignited.  Numerous critics have railed against filmmakers for taking too many liberties with their portrayals of history, accusing them of misinforming the public.  Yet when people are historically ignorant to begin with, and our children haven’t the slightest understanding of history, there is far less outrage.  This is an incongruity that is unacceptable.  

Take Argo, which won the top prize at the Academy Awards, for example.  Focused on a sidebar of the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979-81, the Ben Affleck thriller took flak for inventing incidents that never really happened, in particular a tarmac chase at its climax.  However, what was more alarming to me was what happened when a friend and I went to see the movie at our local theater.  We were seated near two people, likely in their late twenties or early thirties, and we overheard one ask the other, “Wait, what country is this?”

Or how about Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln?   It caused minor outrage for accidentally misrepresenting the votes of two Connecticut congressmen on the House floor.  But where is the indignation over the fact that, according to the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress 2010 U.S. History assessment,  merely one percent of children in the fourth grade can even recognize a photograph of Honest Abe and give two reasons why he was an important figure?  Or why, at the eighth grade level, only one percent of students can identify and explain civil rights issues?  Shouldn’t it be seen as a monumental disgrace when over half of our high school seniors fail to attain even a basic level of achievement in U.S. History?

The problem isn’t confined to K-12 education.  In an interview with 60 Minutes that aired last November, historian and author David McCullough, a two-time Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award Winner, remarked that during lecture tours he was “stunned” at the numbers of intelligent university students who had little or no understanding of our nation’s history.  He said that one young woman told him that until she attended one of his talks, she had “never understood that the original thirteen colonies were all on the east coast.”

Ben Affleck creating a suspenseful chase scene for Argo (something that is well within his right to artistic license) is not the reason why our young people are, in the words of McCullough, “historically illiterate.”  Hollywood is, above all, an entertainment industry, not an educational endeavor.  It is not the job of historical cinema to fill in the cracks caused by the deficiencies of our academic system.  The fundamental problem is that our teachers are failing to give our children the tools to comprehend and think critically about history.

Of course, I understand as well as anyone the enormous influence that movies have on public perception of history.  But if students have a more comprehensive understanding of the subject in the first place, they will be better equipped to interpret movies about the past, and not simply take everything they see on the silver screen as fact.

Part of how we can improve the teaching of our students is by giving historical cinema a greater role in the classroom.  While textbooks are certainly more accurate when it comes to hard facts, movies can immerse our students into history like no other medium.  They present past events in a compelling, dynamic way that encourage children to gain a deeper understanding of the material at hand, showing them what it was like to live in a different time and place.  In this way, history becomes a living, breathing entity instead of a series of dates and figures that are detached from everyday experience.  Cinema imbues history with an emotional, human component that students can relate to.

This is not to say that movies should become the primary methodology for teaching history.  Textbooks are filled with prerequisite information, and thus should still be used to provide foundational knowledge to younger children.  But at higher grade levels, history education should involve a multidisciplinary approach that incorporates historical cinema.  In high school, textbooks should be used in conjunction with narrative history; books like McCullough’s 1776 that tell the stories – and speculate on the thoughts and feelings – of the people who lived the important events of our nation’s past.

Putting cinema to use as an educational tool teaches our students that the past is something that is open to interpretation.  Just like the historical record itself, cinema doesn’t spring up out of thin air, but rather arises from a series of choices made by those who create it.  

A discourse about these decisions will give younger generations a better idea of how – as individuals and as a society – our understanding of history is something that is constantly evolving.  Why did Spielberg choose to make the last months of the sixteenth president’s life the focus of Lincoln rather than taking a more broad approach?  What was the basis for Quentin Tarantino’s portrayals of the brutal slavery of the antebellum South in Django Unchained?

Opening up questions such as these for discussion in our high school classrooms actively engages students, encouraging them think critically about the past rather than simply memorize a series of facts, dates, and battles.  History is not a subject that can be learned by rote.  We need to move far away from the “teaching to the test” that is leading to a “just give us the answer” culture among students.  When history, or any subject for that matter, becomes bubbles to be filled in on a Scantron form, it’s time for a change.

No single approach will be one hundred percent effective in reversing the course of this educational decline.  Watching Saving Private Ryan (Spielberg, 1998) isn’t going to make our students World War II experts overnight.  But by incorporating cinema as part of a multidisciplinary curriculum that includes nontraditional and innovative teaching methods, we can start to make improvements.  Filmmakers who deal in the past are not, and should not be, history teachers.  At the end of the day, they are working to create an artistic vision.  But their work can play a valuable part in getting generations of young Americans excited about history.

Moving Past the Punditry Surrounding "Zero Dark Thirty"

When the first trailer for Zero Dark Thirty hit theaters, I heard a lot of complaints that the film had been turned around too quickly.  But I thought the timing was perfect.  Though Americans won’t ever forget the death of Osama bin Laden, there’s only a limited window of opportunity wherein the event will remain fresh in the collective consciousness of the nation.  Had the filmmakers waited, the moment for making an impact would be lost.

And boy, does this movie leave a hell of a mark.  Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, it is an ambitious, pulse-pounding epic that centers on the painstaking, dangerous work by intelligence and military personnel around the globe which culminated in the May 2011 operation that put bin Laden on a slab.

Not surprisingly, Zero Dark Thirty has been the target of political finger-pointing from both sides of the aisle.  Conservatives have labeled it as a piece of pro-Obama propaganda, while liberals deride it as an endorsement of torture in interrogations.   

Neither of these claims are on target.  President Obama is not the movie’s hero.  In fact, the only mention of him occurs during two scenes wherein characters voice criticisms of his policies.  When it comes to torture, the tactic is portrayed as one of many used in the manhunt, and isn’t glorified or given a position of prominence.  To leave it out would be a glaring and irresponsible omission; a failure to take into account the complexities involved in the formidable task at hand.  In any case, the idea that the movie leans heavily toward either the left or right is unfounded.  

Because of the fervor that surrounded the movie long before its release, it’s likely that many of those who scream and rage of political bias came into the film holding preconceived opinions fed to them by pundits.  They are cherry-picking aspects to bemoan without considering them within the context of the film as a whole.  In any case, these are stubborn people who  believe what they want to believe and refuse to be swayed.

This kind of narrow-minded criticism is a disservice to this film.  Zero Dark Thirty deftly tells what is perhaps the defining story of our time, anchored by a brilliant performance from Jessica Chastain.  She stars as the young CIA operative Maya, part of a team working throughout the Greater Middle East in pursuit of leads and informants that will bring them closer to the founder and leader of al-Qaeda.

As she has been doing for the past two years, Chastain commands our gaze like no other actress can.  Hers is a performance of incredible nuance, as she skillfully moves from driven professional to frustrated bystander, hitting every shade in between.  Whether speaking or not, she is continually fascinating to watch.   

What’s important to keep in mind is that Maya – along with many other characters – is a composite: a fictional distillation of real-life individuals.  In actuality, there were far more men and women involved than could be portrayed on celluloid.  Maya may be an invention of the filmmakers, but her character is far from historical heresy.  She is an embodiment of the passion and dedication of those who worked in the trenches.

With its substantial 157-minute running time, Zero Dark Thirty is not a film to see on a full bladder.  Keeping us interested for that long is no easy task; recent movies of similar length (think Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises) quite often come off as bloated or dragged out, sending their audience’s minds wandering.  But this film does not fall prey to the hazards of the modern epic.  Mark Boal’s screenplay is refreshingly devoid of filler, making complete engagement with the story possible at all times.

On the night I saw this film, something odd happened in the theater.  At most other movies I go to, people start talking and milling about – with many in a seemingly mad rush for the exits – as soon as the end credits begin rolling.  

This time was different.  My fellow moviegoers weren’t as eager to leave their seats as they usually are.  There were some who egressed right away, but most just sat there in silence.  That is what this movie does to you.  It is an emotionally draining experience that is very hard to simply walk away from without contemplation.

Zero Dark Thirty offers us a chance to start a conversation about the cost of the war on terror, measured by how far we are willing to test the limits of our morality.  But this dialogue will not succeed in providing clarity if its loudest voices are those of dogmatic pundits who use the film as a tool in the political fracturing of America.  We need to move past polarization if we are ever going to come to grips with the choices our country has made.