What are your favorite shots in a movie?

[JTN 2,002]

[karelm 2,903]

Ok, this one is hard to explain.  I deeply loved this sequence from Heat.  I remember seeing it in a theater vividly when you're completely engrossed in the film.  The whole time, Deniro is pulled from a life of crime and leaving it behind.  In this scene, very late in the film, he finally meets someone who he connects with personally and is pulling him away from crime.  They are leaving crime for a happier life.  You see the dilemma in his mind. He realizes who he is.  He is a criminal.  I just love this scene and how it was scored by Elliot Goldenthal.  One of the best crime dramas I've ever seen.  What I think makes this film so good (aside from the score) is that Pacino, who has the same obsessive desires, is just as broken, but as a broken hero, willing to sacrifice his life, his love, his family, everything, for his obsession.  These two desperately lonely characters only truly understand each other...their enemy.    

 

 

Then this scene without a word.

 

The music beautifully swells to Bernard Herrmann's Vertigo obsession level.  

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JTN 2,002]

“The man who said "I'd rather be lucky than good" saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net, and for a split second, it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck, it goes forward, and you win. Or maybe it doesn't, and you lose.“

– Match Point (d.:  Woody Allen)

[Naïve Old Fart 9,498]

Maleficio.

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,498]

Getting a definite Twin Peaks vibe.

FIRE WALK WITH ME?

 

To this day, Killer Bob is still the scariest thing I've seen, on TV.

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

25 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Getting a definite Twin Peaks vibe.

FIRE WALK WITH ME?

 

Yes. I started my rewatch with the film this time.

 

 

[JTN 2,002]

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

Here is Denis Villeneuve's contribution to this thread:

 

[Glóin the Dark 1,218]

I know I’m shallow but, still, I can’t believe he left out the motorway shot(s).

 

And no mention of Incendies!

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

 

 

Disappointing that I can find hardly any stills from this on the net. Slocombe's cinematography is stunning.

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[A24 4,326]

On 29/03/2024 at 9:52 PM, Marian Schedenig said:

 

 

Disappointing that I can find hardly any stills from this on the net. Slocombe's cinematography is stunning.

 

Do you believe directors have no say in how something should be filmed? 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,498]

4 hours ago, A24 said:

Do you believe directors have no say in how something should be filmed? 

 

Sometimes directors have no idea how to create a shot, what they want, or how it's achieved.

Apparently when it came to shooting THE ELEPHANT MAN, Lynch "didn't know one end of the camera from the other".

In the case of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, to say that Dougie Slocombe's cinematography is "stunning", takes nothing away from Jewison's direction.

By the way; Dougie Slocombe's cinematography is stunning 

 

[A24 4,326]

34 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

 

Sometimes directors have no idea how to create a shot, what they want, or how it's achieved.

Apparently when it came to shooting THE ELEPHANT MAN, Lynch "didn't know one end of the camera from the other".

In the case of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, to say that Dougie Slocombe's cinematography is "stunning", takes nothing away from Jewison's direction.

By the way; Dougie Slocombe's cinematography is stunning 

 

 

So the DOP of The Elephant Man was basically telling the whole story while Lynch's only job was to guide the actors? Interesting! 

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

5 hours ago, A24 said:

Do you believe directors have no say in how something should be filmed? 

 

Of course I don't. For a long time, I used to think the director is directly responsible for everything, and the "camera" people (the whole discipline is simply called "camera" in German, which I'm sure misled not just me) just handle the cameras. If anything, I try to compensate now by focusing more on the cinematographers. But certainly directors like Leone and De Palma have a strong influence on this, maybe more than their cinematographers. On the other hand, Villeneuve seems to put a lot of focus on it as well, and yet his Deakins films look distinctly different from the ones he did with other cinematographers.

 

In the case of JCSS, that second shot above reminds me of Indy digging up the ark. Whether that was originally Slocombe's doing, or him looking back on his earlier work for Raiders, or Spielberg telling him to repeat what he did for Jewison, I don't know. I haven't seen much else by Jewison, I think, but The Cincinnati Kid is also very classy looking, and that was shot by Philip H. Lathrop, who I'm mostly unfamiliar with. So much of it may well have been Jewison's own doing, but even then it was "Slocombe's cinematography" insofar as he was the one realising it, or at the very least being credited for it.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,498]

1 hour ago, A24 said:

So the DOP of The Elephant Man...

... Freddie Francis...

 

1 hour ago, A24 said:

... was basically telling the whole story while Lynch's only job was to guide the actors? Interesting! 

 

Of course not, Alex.

I only said something that I had read at the time, hence the quotation marks 

It's well documented that some DPs have been let go because they clashed with the director (Gil Taylor; Haskell Wexler; Dick Bush), or had to leave due to illness (Jordan Cronenweth),  but one cannot underestimate the great talent that a decent DP brings to a film.

 

 

 

 

54 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

The Cincinnati Kid is also very classy looking, and that was shot by Philip H. Lathrop, who I'm mostly unfamiliar with.

 

Check out Lathrop's Oscar nominated cinematography for both THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY, and EARTHQUAKE. The latter has a very distinct color palette.

[Chen G. 3,943]

22 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Haskell Wexler;

 

Well, that guy was also a director, so...

[Naïve Old Fart 9,498]

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

Well, that guy was also a director, so...

 

Yeah, but he got fired from ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST.

[Chen G. 3,943]

1 minute ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Yeah, but he got fired from ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST.

 

Sure, I'm just saying if you're a DP who also directs, you're sure to be very opinionated on directorial issues, and depending on the director and the project that can get you into trouble...

[Naïve Old Fart 9,498]

2 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

Sure, I'm just saying if you're a DP who also directs, you're sure to be very opinionated on directorial issues, and depending on the director and the project that can get you into trouble...

 

... like Peter Hyams and 2010.

Apparently, the suits said that it was too dark.

Peter Andrews, on the other hand, always lights impeccably