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The Cinematography Discussion #2 (1 Viewer)

JohnRice

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Well, it looks like my domain server is down at the moment, so the large images are not currently available. It is also screwing up the layout of the discussion a bit. Hopefully it won't last.



I hope that isn't all the discussion we are going to get.
 

JohnRice

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My server is back in operation, so the large images are available again, though it seems nobody has anything else to say.


I have really only scratched the surface. Doesn't anyone have anything to add?
 

Lew Crippen

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Hey John, just to know I have found your observations very interesting and have read and considered them closely.

Unfortunately this is not a film that intrigues me enough to watch with the discipline necessary to be able to contribute anything of value.

I am hopeful that I will be able to add to the discussion on the other two films under consideration.
 

Agee Bassett

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Sorry I haven't responded sooner, John. My computer crashed earlier this week and I have been spending most of the time since restoring my backed up files and settings (thank heaven for external harddrives).

Agee, I never really interpreted the murder of Richard as a plot "turn."
Perhaps more accurate would be to refer to this sudden shift in the plot's emphasis as a change in pitch--a change which I'm not sure is complementary to the film. Up until this time the film has never been about plot. Frank's murder represented a sudden turn in events, but not a totally unexpected one given the film's sketching of Richard's character. Investigation is the pitch in which everything has been cast up until the moment Matt pulls a gun on Richard. Unfortunately, by resorting to the device of a meticulously detailed portrait of a well-worn Hollywood staple which goes at least as far back as Double Indemnity, from this moment forward the film becomes a prisoner of the reflection of plots from other movies. In spite of retaining the same slow pace from earlier in the picture, from the moment Matt kidnaps Richard the pitch is full-on suspense, and "what happens next?" unfortunately consumes the fine balance of character interest the film has been setting up up until this moment. Perhaps it isn't fair that baggage from other movies casts its own shadow upon this largely unprepossessing production. Unfair, yes, but still unfortunately true.

In painting this turn of events the film also succeeds in completely undermining and cheapening the veil of realism the film has just spent an hour-and-a-half setting up. Unlike the portrait Hollywood tends to paint, abduction and murder plots are in real life exceedingly difficult to pull off successfully. For Matt, "happily" married family man with his own practice, and ostensibly as honest and upstanding a citizen as the film's town setting could contain, to suddenly turn vigilante and successfully engineer a complex kidnapping and murder stretches this veil of realism beyond the breaking point. Neither does it strike me as credible that the Matt the first 3/4 of the film has spent the time to sketch in so elaborately would respond to his and his wife's grief in this manner.

Again, perhaps I misread or overharshly judge the film, but this is how I respond to the plot "turn." What I would have liked to have seen, and what the film had prior done such an efficient job of building up to, is a further dissection of the dynamics of Matt and Ruth's marriage. More than the argument the day Matt sees Richard for the last time prior to his vigilante act is, I feel, needed to plumb the depths and sketch in the intricacies of this relationship. These two people have lived and loved together for a very long time, and I can imagine all of the requisite baggage coming to a much more emotionally shattering head than the cheap Double Indemnity plot purports to do.

-----------------------------------------------------------

On a humorous note, my memory of a film I saw just a few nights ago was just hazy enough that I repeated John's mistake of referring to Sissy Spacek's character as "Annie," despite the fact that it wasn't ringing any bells. Must remember to set bedtime a little earlier in the evening. ;)
 

JohnRice

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Thanks for the feedback, Lew. That is all people need to tell me to at least let me know they are here and getting something out of the time invested. It hadn't really occurred to me that people disliking or at the least, being indifferent to In the Bedroom might detract from the discussion, but I guess it has.

Agee, the main thing I recall from the first time I saw In the Bedroom was surprise that Matt actually had the stones to carry the murder through. I don't have a problem with the issues you mention regarding the story. Maybe I am just glossing over them because there are so many filmmaking elements I like so much with it, or maybe it makes me think of those real life incidents that cause me to say, "If someone made a movie about this, nobody would believe it."

Regardless, and despite your dislike of or indifference to the film, you will soon have the opportunity to see it again. ;)
 

Agee Bassett

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I don't dislike the film, merely the direction it took with Richard's abduction and murder. While I can't say I found the rest of it a masterpiece, it is more than a solidly interesting portrait of five characters and their relationship with eachother. It is perhaps a fault of mine that I tend to focus on the negative when there are things I don't like in an otherwise good movie.

On another note, is it just me, or does Sissy Spacek continue to be one of the three or four finest actresses in American film today?
 

JohnRice

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Yeah, Sissy Spacek is top notch.


When I was reading you comments Agee, something occurred to me that I forgot to say. The first time I saw The Ring I was comstantly distracted by other films, particularly The Changeling and as a result, I didn't like it. It kind of stuck in my mind though and I bought a cheap used copy this week. Now I think it is pretty darn good. I have the original and, unlike a lot of folks, I do not find the original better, just different.
 

JohnRice

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*&*()_%^&*%^&(#%@#$%& domain server is down again!!!!



This is pissing me off.
 

JohnRice

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Well, is that going to be all the discussion of In the Bedroom?
 

Mike Broadman

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Finally bought and re-watched the film.

It is definitely better the second time around for me. I could ignore all the action and story and focus on the film's strength- the emotional impact and visual beauty of the movie.

Some random musings:

Placing characters relative to each other was used a lot throughout the film. In one scene, Tomei's character and the boyfriend are talking about him leaving school to be with her. He is sitting way lower than her and she is looking down at him. It gives the feeling that she has power over him, which of course she does. There's also an "Angel of Death" feel it gives me. I felt like I was the boy's mother watching that scene after his death as I almost did feel like "blaming" her.

Dr. Fowler is placed higher than everybody else throughout the film. He stands, others sit, etc. Except when he's in the car, kidnapping the killer. So that means it's time for my favorite game: Reading Too Much Into Things!

Until the hijacking and murder, Fowler always seems to have the moral and intellectual high ground relative to everyone else. Educated, sweet, friendly, and the favored parent of their son. But when he decides to go through with killing the ex, he is brought down to his level. Sure, it's understandable and I'm not saying that the film is portraying him as evil or anything. It's more a loss of innocence, or that he can no longer exist in that pure state. Maybe he did what was right or necessary, but it still stained his soul.


Though seperate from cinematography, the editing played a huge role in how the film functions. Chunks of the film are presented as series of thematically related but action non-related scenes, like the post-wake scenes I mentioned in my earlier posts. The glue that holds them all together is that a dissolve is used to transition, while the image that is being disolved is a great stand-alone picture.

For example, dig the scene where Dr. Fowler is going to tell his wife that their son died. No talking, just him walking to her class. He sees her conducting and stands in the hall looking at her. Cut to the angle of his profile from down the hall, he puts his head down a little, and dissolve.

Another one I like is Mrs. Fowler watching TV and the doc sits down in the room. The TV is shining a bright (maybe exaggerated) pale light at her face, singling her out in the room without a closeup. It's kind of eerie.


In a great use of a classic "talking heads" shot, the scene in the diner with Doc Fowler and his friend is about one of my favorite things in the world: awkwardness. I just love watching it unfold (and yes, that applies to real life- especially real life). In this scene, the friend is stumbling through questions about the trial and such which Fowler doesn't want to talk about while they're eating. The shot is simple, but effective, as it just lets the actors do their stuff.


In the last cinematography discussion thread, a lot was said about the camera work serving the story. With In the Bedroom, I think the story serves the mood. Since it's an exploration of emotion more than plot, the cinematography would makes or break it. Other movies may have funny dialogue or SFX, but Bedroom can't rely on any of that. It's raw film, maybe "film for film's sake."


And now some non-cinematography stuff;

- Marisa Tomei is one sexy woman. I got to see her do her version of the Dance of the Seven Veils as Solome on Broadway. Heh.

- Dr. Fowler was reading this book in bed near the beginning of the film:
Morte D'Urban
 

JohnRice

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- Marisa Tomei is one sexy woman. I got to see her do her version of the Dance of the Seven Veils as Solome on Broadway. Heh.
Well, c'mon man! Tell us! Was she in a PG-13 mood that night, or was she in an R mood?


If it was R, got any pictures? :p)




Thanks for saying so much good stuff Mike. I might have shots for a couple of your points. I need to check, but it's just too late right now.
 

Adam_S

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Ahh how did I forget about this thread?!

WellI guess having no computer for my last two weeks at home (decided to permanently crash) and then coupled with moving in and getting into a routine at school had something to do with it. :p I'll make an effort to try to watch this again this weekend and see if I can't get a post up sometime soon!

Btw I'm completely thrilled I'll be getting to see Oliver Twist (and maybe Great Expectations) on the Big screen at the Egyptian in October. :) Can't wait to see how that experience will affect my perceptions of the film (probably make me love them all the more!)
 

Mike Broadman

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Well, c'mon man! Tell us! Was she in a PG-13 mood that night, or was she in an R mood?
PG-13 when I saw the play, but man can she move. In fact, I think her sexiness actually hampered the play dramatically.

It was extra-cool as Al Pacino was sitting behind her and drooling over her as well.

A friend saw the play a few weeks later and said she briefly took her shirt off. That son of a bitch was always the luckier one.:angry:
 

JohnRice

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A friend saw the play a few weeks later and said she briefly took her shirt off. That son of a bitch was always the luckier one.
That's what I mean by her being in an "R" mood. I suppose most people didn't know, but she had the habit of being particularly into the scene on certain nights and was known to rip her shirt off. Of course, nobody knew which nights would be the lucky ones.


Welcome back Adam. I was wondering where you were. In fact, I think I posted that a while back.




It's Alive!
 

Agee Bassett

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Okay, gang, this thread has been dormant for awhile, and I'm partly to blame. I've been spending too much time doing other things and not enough getting my treatise ready. But I've got almost half of my screencap commentary done, so you should be seeing my treatise on Oliver Twist posted pretty soon. I'm thinking I might post mine in installments, as John did.

Adam, I envy you the privilege of not only being able to see Oliver Twist on the big screen in November, but also to have Guy Green (the film's D.P.) there in attendance for a Q&A session. If you want some potentially fun reminesces, be sure to ask him how it was to work with the perpetually tipsy Robert Newton. :)

Stay tuned!
 

Adam_S

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It looks like I won't be seeing this Agee, the MTA bus strike prevents me from attending any movies away from USC. I missed five Lean movies last week (two double features and Zhivago), and if the strike continues I'll miss the ones in two weeks as well. :frowning: I've not forgotten about this thread, but have been swamped with other things, perhaps I can give in the bedroom another spin after tomorrow (midterm)...
 

JohnRice

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That really sucks, Adam.

On the note about In the Bedroom, I can finally get direct captures from that disc, so if I have a sudden surge of motivation, I might go back and replace the awful images I ended up having to use.
 

Brook K

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I've just been reading along since I didn't feel I could discuss the cinematography as intelligently as the rest of you and because I didn't want to inject negative thoughts into a positive discussion, but Agee perfectly describes my problems with In The Bedroom. I thought using violence was 1. a typical "movieish" resort to violence 2. An easier way out for the writer 3. a nod to what the creators thought would make the movie more watchable to a wider audience rather than doing what might serve the movie and its characters better in the ways Agee described.

Look forward to the Oliver Twist discussion, though again I doubt I'll have anything to contribute.
 

JohnRice

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This isn't directed solely at you, Brook. It may not even be directed at you at all, but I am constantly discouraged how so many people don't seem to be able to see certain strengths in a film because it has, or they believe it has, weaknesses in story or something else. I don't necessarily agree with the criticisms I read about ITB, or at the least, they don't blind me to its strengths. I'm just glad I didn't discuss one of the other films I was wanting to, like Flatliners or Body Snatchers.

I'm not upset, just disappointed.
 

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