The name’s Campbell. Martin Campbell. And although he’d pass for an elegant, well-spoken character in a Bond film, you’ll actually find him on the other side of the camera. Campbell is the director of Casino Royale, the latest (and 21st “official”) James Bond film, and he is in Australia to help promote the film together with the man playing the new Bond, Daniel Craig.
“I’m a New Zealander,” says Campbell, without a trace of the accent, “and it’s always nice to be back on this side of the world.” Campbell moved to London in the early 1970’s when he was in his twenties, looking for work as a cameraman, and rapidly ended up directing. “The first couple of films I made were not exactly big hits,” Campbell says with a knowing smile. Actually they were two low budget and very satirical sex comedies called The Sex Thief and Eskimo Nell, part of a trend of British films at the time pushing the boundaries on repressive censorship laws. The experience made Campbell realise he needed to know how films were financed. “I knew that I had to learn how to be a producer. I could tell that the money wasn’t ending up on the screen, and I needed to find out why.” As a result he spent the next few years producing two films, Black Joy in 1977 and Scum in 1979 which starred a young Ray Winstone as a brutal inmate in a British borstal.
With an understanding of the bigger picture, Campbell then returned to directing, making police and spy shows like Minder for British television before taking on the feature film Criminal Law starring Gary Oldman and Kevin Bacon. “Directing is what I always wanted to do. That’s where my passion lies,” he says. The cast of Casino Royale clearly agree, and the word “energy” is often on the lips when people speak of Campbell’s influence on set. “Martin fires everyone up,” says Daniel Craig, the man in the spotlight as the new Bond, “you obviously need that level of energy in the action sequences, but it’s equally valuable in quieter, dramatic scenes.” Dame Judi Dench, back playing ‘M’ for the fifth time, agrees; “Martin is very enthusiastic and he knows the Bond scene very, very well.” Campbell returns the compliment: “Judi is now so much a part of Bond, she’s a national treasure.”
Dench and Campbell met making GoldenEye in 1995, his first Bond film as director and her first as the steely head of MI6. It was also the film that introduced Pierce Brosnan as the Bond to replace Timothy Dalton, and many regarded it as the best Bond film since The Spy Who Loved Me. Perhaps it was no surprise when Campbell was approached to refresh the franchise with a new Bond once again.
“After Die Another Day the producers were really keen to take Bond back to basics, and that interested me,” says Campbell, who was brought into script development discussions very early. Die Another Day was not critically well received, and risked making the series a parody of itself. Influential Variety magazine reported at the time: “it feels like a betrayal of what the franchise has always been about“. Four years went by and, when Brosnan announced he wouldn’t do another film, the opportunity was there for a major re-think. “What was great was that I had a very free hand in Casino Royale,” says Campbell. “The producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson were very supportive of new ideas, even when we started to explore Bond’s character in more detail, his darker side.”
Casino Royale is based on the first Bond book written by Ian Flemming in 1953, and the film introduces Bond as a new, less sophisticated agent, explaining how he gets his “00” rating. Daniel Craig liked the new emphasis; “In this film, James Bond is a darker character, which is how Ian Flemming originally wrote him. We start right at the beginning of Bond’s career, when he has a lot of rough edges. He’s a loner, and he doesn’t like to get involved with people.”
This wasn’t enough for Campbell, who wanted the Casino Royale Bond to show some character development through the story, rather than simply being a foil for the action. To help, double Oscar winning scriptwriter Paul Haggis (Crash and Million Dollar Baby) was brought in to re-write the already structured screenplay. “The scriptwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade had done a great job drafting the story,” explains Campbell, “and Paul Haggis re-wrote the whole thing from a character perspective. This is a common part of the process, and really helps with the dialogue.” It was the resulting emotional complexity in the script that attracted Craig, a highly accomplished stage actor, to the role of Bond. And Campbell was delighted with the result; “Daniel will be a revelation to the audience,” he says, “he combines toughness with charm and a sense of humour, and because this is a much more character driven story, his depth and gravitas are a perfect match for the role.”
At the heart of the Casino Royale story is a high-rolling game of poker in which Bond has to defeat his wealthy evil enemy Le Chiffre, played by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen. In the story, the poker game has an entry fee of $10 million dollars, with play continuing until the winner takes all, so the pressure gets understandably high. Campbell explains that shooting the card-playing scene was more difficult that any of the action sequences. “You have ten people sitting around a table with drinks, playing Texas Hold ‘em, and looking at their cards and at each other. Maintaining the tension and the continuity was a nightmare.” Campbell took nine days to shoot the scene and had multiple decks of cards specially organised so that the cast got the same hand each time they shot the scene. “It would be a very good test for film students,” says Campbell, who admits he’s not a poker player. “I was lucky that producer Michael Wilson is a genius at poker, and very good with numbers. He did all the rehearsals of the poker game, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without him.” Campbell also got some help from previous movies. “I watched some famous card playing scenes from Maverick, The Hustler and The Sting and realised that you have to focus on the people playing the game, rather than the cards. That’s where the drama is.”
For those who like their Bond films full of action, the drama is also in some spectacular action sequences, shot all over the world – from the Bahamas to Lake Como, and from Prague to Venice. The film hits the ground running and, after a brief introduction to the new Bond, we find him in Africa, chasing a suspected terrorist through a massive construction site, first on foot, diving and sliding on cranes and scaffolding, and then in a huge truck, crashing into concrete barriers and fences. Craig embarked on a rigorous fitness regime in order to avoid using stunt doubles. “I wanted to do as much of the action work as I could, so that the audience can see it’s me and its real,” said Craig, “that meant acquiring injuries and bashing through to the next level of pain. If you don’t get bruised playing Bond, you’re not doing it properly.”
Doing Bond properly also usually means finding beautiful women in your bedroom, something that this ‘back-to-basics’ film plays down in favour of an extended relationship between Bond and the enigmatic Vesper Lynd, a Treasury official charged with looking after his $10 million gambling fund. French actress Eva Green, who plays Vesper, says “she’s not the classic Bond girl, wearing a bikini, being sexy and firing guns. There is more to her than that, and she has a great impact on Bond’s life.” Campbell underlines the point; “the relationship between Vesper and Bond is the spine of the story, and there’s no doubt that this is the best female role in all of Flemming’s books.”
Bond in a relationship? Bond a darker character? There are clearly some changes at work in this latest 007 film, all aimed at clearing the past and reframing the world’s most famous spy as a more complex man. “This is more realistic and more emotionally involving than previous films,” says Campbell, “it’s Bond’s first 00 mission, and he has a lot to learn.” Eva Green, whose character Vesper gets closer to Bond than any other, puts it this way: “This is a different James Bond: raw and sensitive. You will see his flaws and watch him become the Bond you think you know.” Much of this transformation, this fresh start for Bond, comes from Campbell’s influence behind the camera. “He’s a different Bond, “ he says, “in every way.” Judging by the box-office results around the world so far, the difference has been truly appreciated.
