Skyfall and the Painting in M's Office

Following on from my blogs about the paintings in the new Bond film Skyfall, I've been asked what the painting is in the final scenes where (not giving any spoilers away) Bond receives his new assignment in M's office.

Prominently between the two characters is a painting on the wall.   As you 'read' the scene between the two characters who book-end the shot, you 'read' across the painting.

Here it is close up (rather blurry, sorry)...

It's HMS “Victory” Heavily Engaged at the Battle of Trafalgar, possibly by Thomas Buttersworth (although there are a number of similar versions by both Buttersworth and other marine artists).

Thomas Buttersworth, H.M.S. “Victory” heavily engaged at the battle of Trafalgar, 1825

Anyway, the important thing is that it's the Battle of Trafalgar.  Given that the paintings in the film have been full of significance, what's the meaning of this painting in the context of a James Bond film?

Skyfall uses the metaphor of Bond as an old warship who is past his prime and no longer needed, through the medium of a Turner painting, The Fighting Temeraire.  Turner's painting, with its sunset and reflections, evokes a feeling of sadness and loss at the passing of an era (here specifically of Britain's naval supremacy), which is in turn applied to middle-aged Bond.

Joseph Mallord William Turner, The Fighting Temeraire, 1839

Read about the scene in the National Gallery in front of Turner's The Fighting Temeraire here and  here.

So  what about the painting which the film ends with, showing the Battle of Trafalgar?

The story of the battle is that, after a lengthy and frustrating chase across the Atlantic and back, Lord Nelson finally confronted the Franco-Spanish fleet off Cape Trafalgar on the morning of 21st October 1805. Outnumbered, Nelson thought up an unconventional plan to break the enemy line in two places.  Carnage ensued.  At the height of the battle, a French sharp-shooter, taking aim from the mizzentop of the Redoubtable,  hit the heroic Nelson.  This is the moment captured in the painting.   Nelson was carried, wounded, below decks.  However, he lived to hear that it was a convincing British victory, with the surviving Franco-Spanish ships fleeing to Cadiz.

Skyfall is full of flag-waving Britishness.  It's Bond as a British icon, established for 50 years.  Just as Turner's The Fighting Temeraire was voted 'The Nation's Favourite Painting', so Bond is the nation's favourite spy, in this case overcoming the baddie, Silva, played by a Spanish actor.  The Battle of Trafalgar is the quintessential British victory, with Nelson overcoming the Franco-Spanish fleet by means of a nifty new manoevre, splitting them up and picking them off. 

Bond may initially be likened to the Temeraire being towed to the scrapyard. However, by the end of Skyfall, when he receives his new orders, the story arc is such that Bond has been reborn, rejuvinated.

Now, here's the clever bit with the painting in M's office..

Is this painting therefore telling you how to interpret the battle at Skyfall (the house)?  It's actually the Battle of Trafalgar - where, against the odds, resourcefulness and unconventional tactics lead to a great British victory.  That reading would even suggest that M is a Nelson figure - think of her final scene, and the parallels with Nelson (even down to the kiss).  

But perhaps the most interesting parallel is that when Nelson led HMS Victory to engage the enemy at the Battle of Trafalgar, right behind him was (wait for it) the “Temeraire”.  That's the same Temeraire that Turner painted, and which appears earlier in the film.  But now we see it in its youthful heyday, rejuvinated, reborn, back in the thick of the action, literally right behind British Victory.  

Now there's a mission statement for the next Bond film!

Of course, the reason that there's paintings of ships and sea references at all in M's office is a reference to Dr No of 1962.

Take a look here at M's office.

M's office is full of ship paintings, models, and naval references such as telescopes.  Have a look at the drawings behind Bernard Lee here.

And also behind Sean Connery here.

Fleming himself occasionally referenced M's career in the British Navy, so it's not mere set-decorating by the film-makers.  

The fact that it's a reference in Skyfall which is then extended and developed into the meaning of the film itself is a nice touch for film fans in the franchise's fiftieth anniversary year.

You might also be interested in this blog on the painting in M's office in Skyfall HERE.

That Stolen Modigliani Painting in Skyfall

It was back to the cinema again last night, this time to take my son to see the new James Bond film Skyfall ('not enough car chases').  Which gave me the chance to count the number of times that Q's 'Q' Scrabble mug appears, or to look out for famous paintings.

Read about the paintings included in the scene in the National Gallery HERE, and the painting in Mallory's office HERE, and how they inform the plot.

But there's another painting in the film, seen in the Shanghai section of the film. It's where the beautiful Severine uses a stolen painting as bait in an assassination plot, and the prospective purchaser of the picture is shot.

Here is Severine in front of the painting in the apartment, seen from the window of an adjacent building...

Here's the painting...

 

It's Modigliani's Woman with a Fan painted in 1919.  

And guess what, it really WAS stolen from a gallery in real life - the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, on May 19 2010.  

BBC article here. 

Speculation is that it really did end up in China, too.

Read the article here.

So the Bond film uses a real-life stolen painting as the basis of one of Skyfall's subplots. 

This is a device which also was in the first Bond film, Dr No, in 1962, and so it's a way of referencing 50 years of Bond.  Dr No's lair was adorned with Francisco Goya's Portrait of The Duke of Wellington, as a way of expressing the villain's hubristic aspirations (Max Zorin’s desk in A View to A Kill was flanked by Jacques-Louis David's portrait of Napoleon).

  

Fransisco Goya, Portrait of the Duke of Wellington (1812-14)

The Goya portrait was stolen on 21 August, 1961 from the National Gallery in London, in a theft so notorious that the painting would instantly have been recognisable to the cinema audience. That's the same National Gallery where Skyfall Bond first meets Q.  How clever is that?

Now, how many people are going to actually realise from watching the film that there's a plot all about fencing stolen paintings?  I certainly didn't the first time round, and you also have to get to the end and then rewatch the credits to understand all the references within the title sequence to the themes of Bond coming to terms with the death of his parents, and his own ageing and mortality.  

It's a film that takes itself rather seriously, and obviously wants you to see it more than once, by placing all sorts of references and layers within it - a bit like Stephen Moffat era Dr Who.

Plus it's very much a reflection of  the times - an austerity Britain, post-Jubilympic Bond if you like.  It's all Union Jacks, M as British bulldog, iconic blast-from-the-past that's-what-made-British-car-manufacturing-great Aston Martins, backs-against-the-wall in Churchill's bunker with MI6 being attacked from within.  

And whilst the screen is filled with lots of London landmarks and English icons, when they 'lay a trail of breadcrumbs' for the baddie to follow Bond and M up the A9 to Scotland, they end up very obviously in Glencoe.  Glencoe?! Which gives you a sense of a somewhat fractured UK, where one end of the country doesn't know that at the other end, Glencoe very definately isn't at the end of the A9. 

What a pity there weren't more car chases...

Read more about the hidden meanings in more of the paintings in Skyfall HERE.