James Bond has many iconic villains.
However, none of them are quite as intimidating
as Mads Mikkelsen's Le Chiffre.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- Bring me one as well.
Keep the fruit.
- That's it?
Mhm?
Anyone want to play poker now?
[END PLAYBACK]
The catlike financier of global terror
pushed Bond to his very limits in the iconic film Casino
Royale.
He's not just a good villain though.
He's quite possibly the most terrifying Bond villain ever.
But before we get too deep, please
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Casino Royale was the first novel published
by Ian Fleming in 1953.
It starred an as yet unknown fictional spy named James Bond.
His adventures were loosely based on Fleming's exploits
in the British secret service during the fever
pitch of World War II.
Bond would go on to become one of the most
famous and successful characters of all time.
In 2002, the Bond franchise drove straight into a ditch
with Die Another Day, Pierce Brosnan's
final, and objectively worst, outing as the famed double-0.
Released that same year, The Bourne Identity
turned the spy genre on its head,
instilling a gritty reality, popularizing
shaky handheld camerawork, and catapulting Matt Damon
to another echelon of superstardom.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- I swear to God, if I even feel somebody behind me,
there is no measure to how fast and how hard I will bring
this fight to your doorstep.
I'm on my own side now.
[END PLAYBACK]
Thus, when it came time to start developing Casino Royale
into a new take on the Bond mythos,
all eyes turned to their heir apparent, Bourne, for cues.
This gritty realism is showcased perfectly
in the film's central antagonist.
Director Martin Campbell was brought back into the fold,
having previously rehabilitated the franchise with GoldenEye.
He and longtime bond screenwriters Robert Wade
and Neal Purvis would be the primary creative forces
deciding how to reboot Bond, dispatch Bourne,
and create one of Bond's most iconic enemies
ever in Mads Mikkelsen's Le Chiffre.
French for the number or the cipher,
Le Chiffre exists on celluloid all the way back
to Bond's original outing.
As long as there's been a Bond, there's been a Le Chiffre.
He appeared, played by Peter Lorre,
as Bond's antagonist in the televised adaptation of Casino
Royale on a 1954 episode serialized suspense program
Climax!.
He also appeared in the comedy adaptation of Casino Royale,
played by Orson Welles in 1967.
And yet, the definitive and most striking version of Le Chiffre
is the version portrayed by Mads Mikkelsen.
In the 2006 film, Le Chiffre is a cold and calculating genius.
It's said that he's a chess prodigy, mathematically gifted,
and earns large sums of money by financing terrorism
around the globe.
In an additional character affectation,
Le Chiffre is revealed to suffer from haemolacria,
an arrangement of the tear ducts that
causes his eyes to weep blood during moments
of extreme stress.
Mikkelsen's turn as the new iconic Bond villain
is impressive on a few fronts.
Initially, the character feels imposing and threatening
due to Mikkelsen's impassive yet charismatic demeanor.
He feels like a man that's always in control.
And yet, as the film unravels, we
learn just how out of control he truly is.
Unlike a traditional bond villain
who is out for money because of greed,
Le Chiffre has his back against the wall.
He has a serious problem.
He has various deals that have gone wrong with people
from the criminal underworld.
Therefore, as we move into a baccarat tournament set up
by Le Chiffre, Bond is forced into a game of wits.
As the story escalates, we begin to understand
that Le Chiffre has just as much, if not more,
to lose than Bond.
These escalating stakes force this character
to commit increasingly more desperate acts.
Unlike the type of villain Bond usually goes up against,
who have cliched massive secret bases, henchmen,
and long monologues about holding the world
captive for money--
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- This is gold, Mr Bond.
All my life I've been in love with its color, its brilliance.
I welcome any enterprise that will increase my stock.
[END PLAYBACK]
--Le Chiffre is a man fighting for survival.
He's a caged animal, a wild dog.
And that comes through in Mikkelsen's performance.
He has a mania lurking right beneath the surface.
Even in the tense poker scenes or standard exposition dump
sequences, Le Chiffre has a tension to him.
His body language, the way Mikkelsen
carries himself through scenes, his terse dialogue, and the way
he gently dabs his eyes as they bleed blood--
they all further the idea that he is a man quickly running out
of options.
In the now-iconic baccarat sequence of the film,
Le Chiffre is engaged in a battle of wills against not
only Bond, but CIA operative Felix Leiter and an army
of ne'er-do-wells from across the globe.
In this tense back and forth, Bond eventually
unearths Le Chiffre's tell.
In this sequence, it's one of the few moments
that Mikkelsen allows us to see just how rattled the character
really is.
Bond raises the pot by throwing in a $500,000 chip.
Mikkelsen's acting in this sequence is pitch perfect.
He vacillates between visibly shaken,
to attempting to cover up his displeasure,
to sternly determined in a matter of seconds.
And then he presses his temple, the tell.
Le Chiffre has fallen into Bond's trap.
The game is getting out of hand, and Le Chiffre knows it.
In the over the shoulder shot, Le Chiffre
is repeatedly pressing his temple and fervently glancing
back and forth.
He's trapped.
He can feel the walls closing in,
but he doesn't want to admit it.
Mikkelsen's body language sells this completely.
As the scene ratchets up, Bond and Le Chiffre
engage in an ever-increasing game of one-upmanship.
They're both given cards which make good hands,
but it appears to the viewer that Bond definitely
has the winning cards.
The direction in the scene bounces back and forth
between Le Chiffre and Bond staring each other down
while the blinds grow larger and larger.
As the scene builds up in tension,
Le Chiffre becomes visibly uncomfortable.
He obviously feels backed into a corner.
Mikkelsen has an air of defeat about him,
a reservation of a man that has no other options.
Just as Bond feels that he has Le Chiffre on the ropes,
the sequence climaxes in Bond calling an all-in pot.
He's certain that he's going to take
Le Chiffre for all he's worth, because he's
been bluffing this whole time.
He's been touching his temple, his tell.
Only, when the cards are revealed,
Le Chiffre comes out on top.
Le Chiffre knew Bond knew he was bluffing.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- Oh, oh, oh, oh.
- You must have thought I was bluffing, Mr. Bond.
[END PLAYBACK]
Upon rewatching the scene, you realize that Mikkelsen's Le
Chiffre was acting panicked and backed into a corner
the whole time as a front.
He was actually the person dictating how things progress.
This is a perfect example of how cunning and nefarious Le
Chiffre is and how Mikkelsen completely
sells how conniving he is.
The fear and panic in his character
that exists in the rest of the film
is subverted in this scene, because you know.
You think he's scared, but he's actually totally in control.
Another pitch perfect example of how Casino Royale builds
its villain is the sequence towards the end
of the film where Le Chiffre is interrogating Bond,
attempting to get a password from him.
In the traditional finale to a Bond film,
you'd have Bond and the villain squaring off
in a secret lab, or underground base, or even an ice
palace, unfortunately.
However, Le Chiffre's modus operandi is guttural and base.
It's subsistence and survival.
For the entirety of the film up until this point,
we've been in high class parties, the beautiful villas.
Now, we're getting to see who Le Chiffre really is.
And the environment reflects that.
The environment of the safe house
that Bond is being tortured in is a reflection of Le Chiffre.
It's a dingy warehouse subbasement.
It's primal, just like the fear running through both antagonist
and protagonist.
They say a good antagonist pushes your protagonist
to their very limits.
And that's evidenced here as Le Chiffre aggressively
slams a knotted rope into Bond's groin.
The pain seems immeasurable, something
that no Bond villain has ever pushed the usually cool, calm,
and collected spy to before.
Le Chiffre physically pushed Bond to the point
that he starts laughing from the pain.
And we the audience wonder if Bond has lost his mind.
No other bond villain has this effect on 007.
Even the classics like Dr. No, Blofeld, and Goldfinger,
they're always engaged in a game of wits with Bond.
But Le Chiffre is in a struggle for survival.
Mads Mikkelsen has the fear of God in his eyes
during the whole scene.
Yes, he's barking commands at Bond, asking for the code.
Yes, he's literally torturing him.
But it's out of fear, not malice,
which makes the scene even more complicated and engaging.
He knows that if he doesn't get this password from Bond,
he's as good as dead.
And for a split second, when bond is screaming in pain
and laughing simultaneously, you can see
Le Chiffre is caught off guard.
Did he break Bond?
And then, in classic Bond fashion,
he has a sarcastic and witty retort.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- [LAUGHS] Now the whole world's going to know that you done
scratched my balls.
[END PLAYBACK]
Ultimately, Le Chiffre has a dark and foreboding presence
and personal desperation that sets him apart
from every other Bond villain.
The fact that he's not motivated by a typical Bond film
backstory of greed or revenge is the core
of why he's so successful in the film.
He's trapped in a web of lies and karmic justice,
struggling to free himself of the deals he's
made in the past.
In many ways, he's a dark mirror image of Bond's future.
Bond trades in secrets, betrayal, and murder.
But it never seems to catch up to him.
He always escapes scot-free.
But Le Chiffre is a reminder that death comes for us all.
And the decisions we make pile up and will eventually
be our undoing.
These themes of desperation and tormented survival
are almost Shakespearean in their scope.
Many people point to Craig's Bond
as being the dark and brooding center of the reboot,
that he's the reason that Bond was
able to recontextualize itself and progress
past the over-the-top spy antics of the Brosnan era.
While that's true, an often-overlooked key to success
is the writing and acting that spawned Le Chiffre.
He's the menacing, real-world terror
that provided the anchor point for the whole picture
to revolve around.
He's the most understandable and relatable Bond villain ever put
on film.
And that's why he's so terrifying.
Well, that's all we have this week.
What do you think?
Does Casino Royale rank among the best Bond films ever?
Is Le Chiffre the greatest villain to ever go head-to-head
with 007?
Let us know in the comments below.
And, as always, please subscribe to the Nerdstalgic channel
in order to stay up to date with everything happening
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[MUSIC PLAYING]