Directors Cinematography Draft (2 Viewers)

[JohnRice]

And just in case anyone wondered, James Spader is not doing anything kinky in that shot. He's just strapping a saddle onto Maggie's back.

 

[SteveGon]

Time to call it.

Agee wins 5 - 3.

Thanks for playing, everyone!

 

[Walter Kittel]

First - Congratulations to Agee, and to all of the participants for a most enjoyable tournament.

I previously mentioned a few films that I ( sort of ) wish had been on my list. I thought I might expand upon that a bit with some other favorites that I didn't add for various reasons...

Hud (James Wong Howe) - I watched this on Laserdisc last weekend, during the tournament and seriously considered adding it to my list, but did not for several reasons - I wasn't sure how many had seen this film ( the DVD release, which I believe is later this year, is highly recommended. ) The other two films in the tournament by Howe are, for me, superior examples of cinematography in some ways. Seconds boasts some impressive lens work that aids the story. Sweet Smell of Success has much more dramatic lighting.

Where Hud does excel however is in its compositions and framing. Howe turns ever shot of the landscape into a shot worthy of being framed and hung above the fireplace mantle. I wish I had a way to capture images from LD, and I'd post a few examples.

Force of Evil (George Barnes) - noir is probably my favorite style of film and the absence of most of the great noirs on DVD crimped me, along with Steve's choice of Alton who was one of the definitive craftsmen in the ranks of noir cinematographers. Two aspects stand out for me in this film. Very dramatic high contrast shots, which are one of the staples of noir; and the use of location shots, associated with Fox in the '40s, but employed on this film from MGM. ( The shots of the protagonist, Joe Morse, dwarfed by the office buildings of Wall Stree serve to underline the primary theme of the film - the individual subjugated to the will of the corporation. )

Gilda (1946) (Rudolph Mate) - If you want to check the gray scale on your display, this is the film to use. Great use of both graduated tones and stark high constrast shots drive the cinematography on this film. Two of my favorite shots are - one with Gilda lit, but with her face in the shadows; pretty common in noir, but very effective. The second shot is a high contrast outline shot of Ballin at his mansion.

Mildred Pierce (Ernest Haller) - Similar to Gilda in terms of its use of gray scales and high contrast shots. Overall though I consider it superior to Gilda in terms of composition. It, along with Gilda, Rebecca, and Kane are among my favorite films, from the point of cinematography, of the '40s.

A couple of films that I considered simply in terms of their visual appeal. Two films whose visual design I simply adore and never tire of watching...

The Natural (Caleb Deschanel)
A Walk In The Clouds (Emmanuel Lubezki)

Finally, if I were permitted to take one film, and only one film from the other seven lists in this tournament...

Rain - Seconds (James Wong Howe)
Steve Gon - Great Expectations (Guy Green)
Brook - Barry Lyndon (John Alcott)
John Rice - Cool Hand Luke (Conrad Hall)
Agee Basset - Lawrence of Arabia (Freddie Young)
ErikG - Blue Velvet (Frederick Elmes)
Justin_S -Apocalypse Now (Vittorio Storaro)

- Walter.

 

[Agee Bassett]

I see I wasn't disqualified for failing to claim my prize (whatever it is).



May I also second Walter's sentiments on the fun that was had in this tourney, and the recommendations he makes. Getting with the program, I will offer a few of my own:


Gate of Hell, 1953 (Kohei Sugiyama) - Hard to find and thin on story, Japan's first color film is nonetheless one of the most beautifully-shot ever. Fans of the incredible work in Kwaidan should have a ball with this one.

How Green Was My Valley, 1941 (Arthur Miller) - Arguably the best-looking film in the Ford filmography, Arthur Miller's trademark clean-edged, superbly-composed images showcase the dramatic qualities of the film image to powerful effect. The closing image of Huw with his dead father on the mine elevator
is among the most graphically-evocative images I have seen.

Kings Row, 1942 (James Wong Howe) - Anything done by the brilliant production designer William Cameron Menzies is worth viewing, and this film is no exception. Besides being a masterpiece of the genre later trademarked by Douglas Sirk, this Menzies-Howe collaboration is a work of art in every frame. One of the best uses of compositioin and deep-focus to convey emotional and psychological subtext (dig the prominent, recurring kettle imagery).

Madeleine, 1949 (Guy Green) - Perhaps the most obscure work in the David Lean filmography (and, storywise, justifiably so), this film still is worth seeing for the spectacular Kane-esque deep-focus work alone.

Odd Man Out, 1946 (Robert Krasker) - Those who think Orson Welles was the author of The Third Man's striking look need to take a look at this earlier Krasker-Reed collaboration. Arguably even more beautifully-shot than TTM, this film yokes a masterful fable on the value of a human life to a noir-ish Belfast enshrouded by phantom-like shadows and icy luminences. Lukey's hideout is a highlight of imaginative cinematography.

Zoo in Budapest, 1933 (Lee Garmes) - An extremely hard film to find, it represents arguably the best work of this legendary cinematographer. Although the storyline is pretty thin, the luminescent images are a paragon of the medium of "pictorialism"--soft, evocative, diffused images which coalesce into an atmosphere of magic.


My picks from each list:

Rain - The Red Shoes (Jack Cardiff)
SteveGon - The Third Man (Robert Krasker)
Brook K - The Night of the Hunter (Stanley Cortez)
JohnRice - Doctor Zhivago (Freddie Young)
ErikG - Bonnie and Clyde (Burnett Guffey)
Walter Kittel - Days of Heaven (Nestor Almendros, Haskell Wexler) tough!!
Justin_S - Don't Look Now (Anthony Richmond) no less tough!!!

 

[SteveGon]

Agee, those are some excellent recommendations - I'd considered picking Gate of Hell but figured no one else had seen it. It's been so long since I've seen it myself that the photography is the only thing I really remember about it - which says a lot.


Taking a cue from Walter; if I had to pick one film from each list:

Rain - Seconds
Me - Three Colors: Blue - Beautiful work.
Brook - The Night of the Hunter
John - The City of Lost Children
Agee - 2001: A Space Odyssey - Very tough choice.
Erik - Blue Velvet
Walter - Citizen Kane
Justin - Kwaidan

Once again, a big to all the lists.

 

[Agee Bassett]

I edited my post because I forgot to post my "favorites of" list, and include one of Steve's (and my) favorites, Odd Man Out, in my roster of recommendations.

 

[Brook K]

Thanks Agee, Odd Man Out has been on my list for awhile but I'll try and catch some of your others. And How Green Was My Valley I'll have to rewatch. I don't remember the cinematography as being nearly that impressive.

Some Recommendations:

Woman In The Dunes - Hiroshi Segawa, black and white with as evocative a use of light and shadow as you'll find to create the isolated prison look of the film out of minimal sets and giant walls of shifting sand.

Effi Briest - Jurgen Jurges, stark high-contrast B&W gives the film a remarkable look and exhibits many showpiece examples of framing, composition, and focus.

Whity - Michael Ballhaus, Fassbinder and Ballhaus' 1st collaboration. Fassbinder wanted to see what Ballhaus could do so he invented several "impossible" shots that Ballhaus managed to pull off. Long, unbroken tracking crane shots, bizarre angles, and a beautiful slow motion shot around a bed are some of the highlights.

All That Heaven Allows - Russel Metty, the best example of the Metty-Sirk use of light and color to turn mundane studio sets into either storybook ideals, frames for emotional angst, or grim prisons.

A few others: Opera, Code Unknown, Senso, Throne Of Blood, The Blue Angel


Rain - Wild Strawberries, Gunner Fischer
SteveGon - The Shining, John Alcott
John Rice - Metropolis, Karl Freund & Gunther Rittau
Agee - The Passion Of Joan Of Arc - Rudolph Mate
Erik - Edward Scissorhands - Stefan Czapsky
Walter Kittel - Days Of Heaven - Nestor Almendros & Haskel Wexler
JustinS - Requiem For A Dream - Matthew Libatique

Interesting to note the participation of some famous cinematographers in movies I've watched recently.

Geoffrey Unsworth was a camera assistant on The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and I was even more surprised to see John Toll as a cameraman on Urban Cowboy!

 

[Dome Vongvises]

And just in case anyone wondered, James Spader is not doing anything kinky in that shot. He's just strapping a saddle onto Maggie's back.

Didn't do anything in this tourney, but it's a good read like the Cinematography Discussion thread some time a while. Here's to reading part 2, whenever it happens.

 

[JohnRice]

Well, I just need to get the motivation and basically get in a better state of mind. The next one is planned for three contributors. All three of us seem to be having a little trouble with motivation (That discussion takes a shit load of work) and one of us still needs to settle on a film. Hopefully we will get it together sometime this summer.

 

[Agee Bassett]

Brook: Miller's work in HGWMV is, IMO, brilliant primarily in the deceptively simple, yet highly dramatic compositions and dazzling spectrum of silvery gradations which he was able to achieve. I have also always favored Miller's sharp, textured look to the "painterly" esthetics of pictorialism (although one of the films I recommended, Zoo in Budapest, is probably the zenith of this predominently 1930's visual aesthetic). HGWMV and My Darling Clementine, photographed by Joe MacDonald, are to me visually of a piece: in Ford's mise-en-scene, ordinary objects and people are given poetic, or larger-than-life attributes less by dramatic shadows than by precision framing and angling, and energetic interplay between image values. (Figueroa's aesthetic on The Fugitive [as linked to below], on the other hand, is a little more shadowy and impressionist.)

Probably it is hard for me to palpably convey in written words the response I have to Miller's imagery. Suffice it to say that my eyes swim in their texture.

BTW, Woman in the Dunes is in the queue for viewing within the next couple of weeks. I'll post my reactions in the "Expanding Horizons" thread.

 

[Agee Bassett]

Thought this might be interesting...

• Martin Scorsese's Picks for Best-Photographed Color Films
  
  The Adventures of Robin Hood
  Drums Along the Mohawk
  Four Feathers (1939)
  Gone with the Wind
  The Wizard of Oz
  The Thief of Bagdad (1940)
  Blood and Sand (1941)
  Jungle Book
  Phantom of the Opera (1943)
  The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
  Lady in the Dark
  Meet Me in St. Louis
  Leave Her to Heaven
  Canyon Passage
  Duel in the Sun
  A Matter of Life and Death
  Black Narcissus
  The Boy with the Green Hair
  The Pirate
  The Red Shoes
  Samson and Delilah
  She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
  An American in Paris
  Apache Drums
  Pandora and the Flying Dutchman
  The River (1951)
  The Greatest Show on Earth
  The Magic Box
  The Quiet Man
  Scaramouche
  Singin' in the Rain
  Moulin Rouge
  The Golden Coach
  The Band Wagon
  Fair Wind to Java
  Gate of Hell
  Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
  Invaders from Mars
  War of the Worlds
  Johnny Guitar
  Magnificent Obsession (1954)
  Senso
  The Silver Chalice
  A Star is Born
  Track of the Cat
  This Island Earth
  All That Heaven Allows
  East of Eden
  Pete Kelly's Blues
  Princess Yang Kwei Fei
  Giant
  Lust for Life
  Moby Dick (1956)
  The Searchers
  The Ten Commandments
  War and Peace (1956)
  Written on the Wind
  The Brothers Karamazov (1958)
  The Horse's Mouth
  Some Came Running
  Vertigo
  North by Northwest
  Peeping Tom
  One-Eyed Jacks
  The Counterfeit Traitor
  The Birds
  The Leopard
  Marnie
  Red Desert
  The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
  Kwaidan
  Juliet of the Spirits
  Pharaoh (1965)
  Once Upon a Time in the West
  Fellini Satyricon
  Ran

Unfortunately, the site I got this info from (which cites Variety's "Book of Movie Lists") doesn't list his black-and-white choices.

 

[SteveGon]

Very nice list - I'd also considered picking The Phantom of the Opera and The River.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Thanks for the list, chiming in after Steve, a few from that list I considered -

Leave Her To Heaven - The only color noir that I can recall during the period that I associate with noir ( pre-Touch of Evil )

Once Upon A Time In The West - in my top two Westerns of all time; and a great, visual, film.

- Walter.

 

[Brook K]

Senso is a film I considered singling out but didn't because it would be pretty hard for anyone to see it and I think Agee might be the only one here who's seen it. The first Italian Technicolor film, it is gorgeous and has one of the best looking battle scenes put on film but the existing DVD is terrible.

 

[JohnRice]

I realize I said a while back that my true favorites, the films I think have the most effective cinematography probably wouldn't be very popular in this tourney. The main reason is because it takes many viewings and some genuine work to "see" what is being done. For instance, I said I knew The City of Lost Children would be popular, so I picked it, but it is far from what I enjoy the most in cinematography.


There is a recent film that is climbing on my scale of favorite cinematography and I don't think I've ever seen it mentioned, except by me, In the Bedroom. I doubt anyone here has ever heard of Antonio Calvache, but he was the D. P. on In the Bedroom, which I just watched for about the fourth time last weekend. Each time I am more impressed by how subtlely he assists with the story. This is also a film that strikes me with its excellent editing. The entire mood and progress is perfectly aided with the sometimes unconventional visuals.

I notice that Calvache is credited as Camera Operator along with second unit D. P. Michael Genne and Director Todd Field. I wonder if this scaling down of the crew and having the primary creative individuals do the actual camera operation didn't have part in how wonderfully this film came out on screen.

Not to pick on Walter, but his statement about Hud having photography worthy of framing is not the case with In the Bedroom, and I don't think it should necessarily be the guideline by which to measure the best cinematography. I can't seem to get out what I am trying to say. It's been a long day and I'm tired. I would probably also have a difficult time explaining or describing exactly what I find so impressive about In the Bedroom, but I suggest buying it annd watching it several times over a few weeks or months and see if you agree with me. In fact, I think it would be my choice for my next Cinematography discussion, but the disc is not allowing me to grab stills for some strange reason. All I get is noise, which I've never come across before. Maybe I can figure out what is causing it. I have alternative ways of capturing if I really them.

 

[SteveGon]

I've seen In the Bedroom and I agree - the photography is outstanding. It's not what I'd call "flashy" work, it's just some damn good cinematography.

 

[Walter Kittel]

No problem John. I wasn't attempting to suggest that framing or composition is the be all / end all of characteristics associated with cinematography. It is mostly a personal preference and something that I value. I have fairly strong spatial reasoning (whatever that means ) and I believe this is reflected in my own preferences where I favor relationships between objects in film as one of the ways of defining content, and symbology - where applicable. ( At least when I'm really engaged with a film, vs. being a passive observer. )

In The Bedroom is still in my unwatched queue. I need to bump this title up. And watch Fiddler on the Roof again.

- Walter.

 

[JohnRice]

Don't get me wrong Walter, the composition and all is exceptional in In the Bedroom. It's just that, like Steve said, it is not flashy. It does not draw much attention to itself. I tend to feel the work that does draw attention to itself gets the most praise and stuff like this gets overlooked.