What films inspire your work

The Good the bad and the Ugly...and other Spaghetti Westerns.

I loved way that the heat and the dryness and the sweat was filmed and the close up deep focus.

Like Afrofilmviewer we'd be here all day going through my favourites - but since we've got company I'll offer up a handful of titles well worth seeking out:

"Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans" - F.W. Murnau 1927

"Time of the Gypsies" - Emir Kusturica 1988

"A Canterbury Tale" - Powell & Pressburger 1944

"Jaya Ganga" - Vijay Singh 1996

"Incendies" - Denis Villeneuve 2010

Afrofilmviewer said

Possession (1981)

The Red Shoes (1948)

Black Narcissus (1947)

Love the work of William Friedkin and Robert Altman.

Magnolia (1999)

The Phantom Thread (2017)

Magnolia is a complete, and quite emotionally terrifying, masterpiece. I recommend it a lot and I want to watch it more, but it requires a certain emotional commitment.

Not unlike Dogville, which I have only ever got through in its entirety once. The slow growth of foreboding in that film is just devastating.

Films that really stick in my mind: 

• E.T.
• In The Mood For Love
• The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp -- in particular the mesmerising Anton Walbrook monologue: "But Clive! Dear old Clive. This is not a gentleman's war"
• I Walked With A Zombie
• Fried Green Tomatoes
• Dancer In The Dark -- I fear recommending this to people because it's so hauntingly sad
• Mary & Max -- I once recommended this to a friend as a lovely, sweet, funny movie, which of course it is, as well as poignant, and the text reply after she watched it was just "Blimey, Mike"
• Return To Oz
• Man On Fire -- if you think Taken is a good movie, you are hopelessly wrong, and this is what you should have watched instead
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
• My Cousin Vinny
• A Simple Favor
• Rollerball
• Meet Joe Black
• Cloud Atlas
• GalaxyQuest
• Colossal
• Paris, Texas
• To Kill A Mockingbird

It's probably only I Walked With A Zombie that is a strong visual influence on the way I think, though. And in other ways: sometimes when I am really frustrated at my own stupidity I wonder what Sir Lancelot would have sung about it.

Edited by Unfocussed Mike

Afrofilmviewer said

Vassili Peter Jackson's The Frighteners is still a great movie

Remarkably underrated. 

Witness

Heaven’s Gate

Sin City

Dark City (Matrix a poor copy)

Thirst (Korean vampires anyone?)

Last Train To Busan (as above for Zombies)

Culloden (history as fly on the wall reporting)

Pauline at the Beach (pastels never looked so vibrant)

Abre Los Ojos (Vanilla Sky…give me break)

Gladiator (especially the first 30mins…just wow)

And if I’m allowed a TV Series ….Netfix’s Glória…..the sixties as grim and grey as I remember them

JDS said

The batman. excellent filming skills, dirty frame and Helios lenses

JDS said

The batman. excellent filming skills, dirty frame and Helios lenses.

probably the best Batman film made

Once upon a - not too long - time (ago), films/movies/cinema inspired and influenced my stills photography significantly. The original Blade Runner (in its various guises) the most.

And then it dawned on me that stills -photography- has its own aesthetics + raison d'etre(s) which are the antithesis of cinema and all its conceits.

I really can't see any connection. I really have no comprehension of the notion that a film has influenced my photography. My images just happen. I never think " Ooo, I must think about xxxx film" as I shoot. I can't see any correlation between the films you quote and the images you shoot. Just my opinion.

ClickMore 📷 said

I really can't see any connection. I really have no comprehension of the notion that a film has influenced my photography. My images just happen. I never think " Ooo, I must think about xxxx film" as I shoot. I can't see any correlation between the films you quote and the images you shoot. Just my opinion.

why bother commenting if you are just going to becontrary and negative?

rather than coming onto a discussion where 100% of the comments have been positive, just go away

theres always one

ClickMore 📷 said

I really can't see any connection. I really have no comprehension of the notion that a film has influenced my photography. My images just happen. I never think " Ooo, I must think about xxxx film" as I shoot. I can't see any correlation between the films you quote and the images you shoot. Just my opinion.

Couldn't agree more.  It's the same as saying inspired by Ansel Adams or whoever.  Nobody inspires me I just shoot for fun

Afrofilmviewer said

The Red Shoes (1948)

Black Narcissus (1947)

Black Narcissus stands alone with its extraordinary visuals - there's nothing quite like it - especially once you realise that the spectacular Himalayan scenery is a fabrication created with mattes. 

Four Powell & Pressburger films named on this thread so far...

Probably because I come from a design background where we are interrogated about how the inspiration has manifested into real qualities in our work; i can only say no film inspires my work! 

Id like to say Tarcovskys Stalker but a lot of what he was doing was playing with the concept of time, which I am not.  Stalker got me interested in model shoots although its has no models in it or anything similar. it ignited a bit of a passion for art not pure entertainment.

I like "Jim Jarmuch" "stranger than paradise" aesthetic, but outside of the context of a movie, its a bit blah. Same with a lot of Art house stuff id like to be influenced by, its very difficult to translate into a photo shoot. 

Edited by Perception

Edited by Perception

ClickMore 📷 said

I really can't see any connection. I really have no comprehension of the notion that a film has influenced my photography. My images just happen. I never think " Ooo, I must think about xxxx film" as I shoot. I can't see any correlation between the films you quote and the images you shoot. Just my opinion.

Yet your profile says “I work very hard on ideas”?

Possibly a difference between word based learners and visual learners?

Not criticism, just interested in the process.

Edited by Huw

Any time I see a film with great cinematography, I’ll find out who shot it (the cinematographer), and what he used. 

Oppenheimer: immediately realised the courtroom scenes were larger than normal format. Thought they looked like film. (I used and loved a Pentax 67 for many years).

“Oppenheimer, in IMAX (15-perf) format using KODAK 65mm large-format film, including, for the very first time, sections on 65mm B&W shot in IMAX.” 
https://www.kodak.com/en/motion/blog-post/oppenheimer/ 

Kodak made the 65mm XX BW film specially for this film.

Shot with a 50mm lens at f/1.4:

Too many other film to list them. It’s all just a way of learning.

Reacting to what has just gone before, I don't conciously think , "Ah, I will do it like this or that film".

But I do think, on many of my images in a cinematic way. I am constructing an image that has a something happened before and something will happen afterwards.

I am not good enough to produce images comparable to that created in the films I admire -which are many- but some may be in the back of my mind.