This is something that I've been thinking about for a while
I re-watched the Andrew Dominik film 'the assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford' the other day, and looking at it through a different lens (pun slightly intended) I was astounded by the breathtaking cinematography, so I just thought if anyone else has had a similar feeling whilst watching a film?
Oppenheimer had some magnificant film BW courtroom filming.
Super 70mm or something - near 55x70mm format. Specially made Kodak BW XX film.
Ridley Scott:
Tony Scott: Top Gun
Lord of the rings:
Kurosawa
Huw Kurosawa is one I had expected to see!
Lord of the rings is an interesting one, I think Peter Jackson is a really underrated film maker, despite the success of the original LOTR trilogy!
Less said about the phoned in Hobbit prequels the better!
Films that I love and which have moved me with their stories and haunting imagery have been Ashes and Diamonds dir Andrzej Wajda 1958, Lilya 4-ever dir Lukas Moodyson 2002 and Stalker dir Andrei Tarkovsky 1979.
One of the very best ways, imho, to get a great insight into photography, composition and lighting is to watch good films, with DVD’s it’s easy to still frame and turn the sound off, just look at the imagery.
Cinematography is just photography at 24fps.
’Oldies’ but greats, film noire’s like Double Indemnity, noir films are great for simplification of images as they were designed to be relatively inexpensive to make, so having large dark areas with tight shots of the principals meant sets were cheap and fewer actors needed. A “ Neo Noir”- The Cohen Bros “ The Man Who Wasn’t There.”
Raise the Red Lantern, a Chinese film is so beautiful in its use of colour and lighting for mood you can watch it as many times as you like!
Stanley Kubrick was an excellent photographer as well as film director and just about any of his films are very interesting and illuminating, John Alcott, was often his cinematographer. Barry Lyndon well worth watching. This was the film, for which Kubrick obtained, and had adapted to cine cameras, Zeiss f0.75 lenses to shoot a scene lit only with candles.
Harder to get into immediately, but Andrei Tarkovsky’s “ Nostalgia” and “ Mirror.”
Edited by Lightingman
Edited by Lightingman
I agree. When I saw your headline that Jesse James movie was the one that came immediately to mind. Plus The Joker and Last of The Mohicans.
The Fall by David Fincher.
https://youtu.be/GZWiJHaR4f4?feature=shared
You can watch the full movie from the link. Visually stunning and quirky outfits.
I forgot about Fincher, the last time I watched some of his films was before I was really into photography, but fight club and Zodiac I would list in my favourite films of all time, so might be worth giving them another watch
'Casablanca' will inspire my work moving forward. I watched it for the first time just a couple of nights ago and thought the lighting and composition was a work of art, no wonder it is so highly acclaimed even though the story was made up as they went along and is nothing remarkable. Ingrid Bergman and the catch lights in her eyes were captivating. The light effects are outstanding, I kept wanting to stop the film and grab a still shot.
