First things first: Roger Deakins is the god of cinematographers. As you know, he’s the Coen Brothers’ long-time DP—your cue to salute—and he’s on the job here in Skyfall, the latest Bond movie. Another Coen film crew member, Dennis Gassner—salute, goddammit!—is handling the production design. So the visuals oughta win Oscars, but they won’t.
Fuckin’ Deakins, that guy can shoot, man! You’ve gotta see the night sequence in Shanghai! Scary-tall skyscrapers with their huge panes of neon-reflecting glass, against which men with guns stalk around and lose themselves in patterns of swirling, shifting colored light. It’s so staggeringly beautiful, you think, “Huh, turns out modernity was worth it after all.”
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