Often overlooked movies with beautiful cinematography?

[Chris Keth]

Morning, everyone! I'm looking for some movies I likely haven't seen that are worth watching for their cinematography. Even if they aren't that good, I would like to hear some of your picks.

 

One that I would choose is "Ladyhawke." It's a fantasy comedy/love-story shot by Vittorio Storaro and released the year I was born, 1985. It's a great story (if very cheesy) and looks great but it's all brought down a notch by a very dated 80s score.

 

[Max Jacoby]

If you haven't seen it yet, check out 'Snow Falling on Cedars'. One of the most beautiful films of all time.

[Chris Keth]

If you haven't seen it yet, check out 'Snow Falling on Cedars'. One of the most beautiful films of all time.

 

Will do. I've never seen all of it, for some reason. Thanks.

[Ruairi Robinson]

Will do. I've never seen all of it, for some reason. Thanks.

 

 

The End shot of Electra Glide in Blue is pretty amazing

[Ruairi Robinson]

Point Blank is pretty stunning looking. And it STILL isn't out on region 2 dvd...!

 

One of my favourite film...

[Paul Bruening]

I recall The Color Purple being extraordinary looking without any gimmicks.

[Tim O'Connor]

If you haven't seen it yet, check out 'Snow Falling on Cedars'. One of the most beautiful films of all time.

 

I agree regarding the film's look and yet I couldn't watch it because the fractured clunky storytelling

turned me off so much (and I'll sit through a lot.)

 

Before I became disillusioned with the narrative, I thought wow this is one of the best looking films

I've seen!

 

 

On a positive note, check out "Local Hero" 1983 dir. Bill Forsythe, cinematographer Chris Menges

This film is a great example of using natural light.

[Greg Traw]

'The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.' Ozzie Morris did the cinematography, so it might not be that overlooked. But it has some of the best b/w lighting via "practicals" I've ever seen.

[Michael Nash]

I agree regarding the film's look and yet I couldn't watch it because the fractured clunky storytelling

turned me off so much (and I'll sit through a lot.)

 

Then I guess you missed the point. The movie is about emotions, told from an impressionistic point of view. The events are context to the emotions, rather than the other way around (as with conventional narrative).

 

I image you'd probably hate Wong Kar-Wai and Soderbergh too, then...

[Freya Black]

Mario Bava movies:

 

Black Sabbath/Black Sunday etc

[Tim O'Connor]

Then I guess you missed the point. The movie is about emotions, told from an impressionistic point of view. The events are context to the emotions, rather than the other way around (as with conventional narrative).

 

I image you'd probably hate Wong Kar-Wai and Soderbergh too, then...

 

 

I do my best to not hate anybody or anything but yeah I quite possibly could have not

"got" it and I know how frustrated I get when I recommend a movie that I think is great and somebody

dislikes it but they completely miss its point. I'll give it another look. If I still can't hack it, then I'll

turn off the sound and just watch it.

 

 

There are lot of films to see so I haven't yet seen one by Wong Kar-Wei but I do like Soderbergh

though.

 

I think that "The Limey" is great even though it seems to have hardly been noticed. In that,

he uses some broken continuity in his scene coverage, particularly as I remember in a scene with

Luis Guzman and I disliked that tactic but I still really like the movie.

 

It also may be that although I'm a fan of daring storytelling, I like conventional narrative.

 

"Elephant" however is as I recall a conventionall narrative film and, although it has some great

Steadicam shots and won big at Cannes, the first 98% of it is about the most boring conventional

narrative that could be. Sure, it may show how ordinary life can explode by first showing

a regular hum drum day but in my opinion its only redeeming aspect is the camera work.

 

Another recommendation: see if you can get "Meshes of an Afternoon" a short film from

1943 by Maya Deren.

 

I found this post about its availability on DVD

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036154/board/nest/45821178

[Wendell_Greene]

There are lot of films to see so I haven't yet seen one by Wong Kar-Wai

 

 

Then I would recommend you watch "In The Mood For Love". Beautiful cinematography.

[Leo Anthony Vale]

Visconti's 'White Nights', I think Rotunno was cinematographer.

 

Their 'Il Gattopardo/The Leopard' is also quite beautiful Super Technirama, but not really all that overlooked these days, not that it hasn't been in the past.

 

'the Man who wasn't there', Ossie Morris. Maybe his first Cinemascope.

& his 'The Key' so-so movie, but with Sophia Loren. Contrasty B/W Cinemascope. The sea scenes are strong.

[Joseph Zizzo]

the events are context for emotion... what a great way to put it. that is certainly true of "in the mood for love", an extraordinarily compelling film both visually and dramatically, you just can't look away.

 

there is an emotional tone to this type of film that is hard to describe, let alone achieve. another one i love is "vera drake". that film just captures the events and their imact in the characters' lives, as well as the time period in which they take place so well, its sublime. dick pope really struck a perfect chord in that one, sort of an opposite approach, look-wise, to mike leigh's other fine films.

 

someone mentioned "point blank", another incredible film of depth and tone. are there any hal ashby fans out there? "coming home" and "being there" are similar in the powerful way they create time and space for the story to unfold in...

[Logan Schneider]

I will second "In the Mood for Love". It has some of the most subtle, beautiful and poetic cinematography that I have ever seen.

 

Even though many people did not like it, "Intolerable Cruelty", shot by Roger Deakins, ASC BSC has some of the most beautiful and glamorous Hollywood photography that I have seen.

 

I'll try to think of less obvious movies.

[Kieran Scannell]

This is a great topic and it's really interesting to see that people often just go for "beautiful cinematography" and not "often overlooked movies"

I guess it's the nature of the beast! I think a lot of Ken Loach's films are often overlooked, may be not "beautiful cinematography" but great

cinematography that flows and immerses you into the story without drawing your attention as to how it was lit, just brilliant visual storytelling.

 

Kieran.

Edited August 30, 2007 by Kieran Scannell

[Vincent Sweeney]

Maybe one of the most overlooked films I've seen, ever, is Waterland ('92). And no, that is not Waterworld. No one I know has seen it, which is a shame.

 

Waterland stars Jeremy Irons and was shot by Robert Elswit. It's photography and music stand alone on top of a great, haunting drama. We are lucky that it was finally released on DVD recently. I'd recommend that film to anyone and even more so to anyone interested in composing for film, or in modern cinematography.

[Chris Keth]

Wow! This is going pretty nicely. Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

Kieran, the big reason why I started this is that every so often I ahve got into the habit of watching a movie with the sound off and just seeing it. All of it. Most of the movies I hear about being so beautiful are also very good movies. There are also a lot that are just not that great but look great. It's a good world to expose yourself to. You learn a lot of trick as well as what not to do.

 

On the subject of what not to do, I watched Ladyhawke yesterday after posting about it. It's a veritable primer of what to do and what not to do with grad filters. Storaro had some really brilliant bits and some real stinkers in this one movie. For example, many of the exteriors are shot with a hard orange grad ALL the time. It didn't matter whether the camera moved or not, whether there was other stuff than sky (people, buildings, trees) in the upper frame or not. It was always there. It looks awful a lot of the time. Another significant part of the film, grads are used beautifully. Sometimes, I noticed, there's even a soft-edge, light orange grad on candlelit interiors on the bottom of the frame. It's a bit strange but it looks very nice when the effect is slight. The final scene, in a great cathedral, is especially beautiful. A gorgeous mix of candlelight and natural sunlight motivated form a broken window (that also has plot importance).

[Chris Keth]

may be not "beautiful cinematography" but great

cinematography that flows and immerses you into the story without drawing your attention as to how it was lit, just brilliant visual storytelling.

 

I feel I should clarify this. You describe what I am looking for. Beautiful in a usual sense and beautiful in an effective storytelling sense can be quite different.

[Max Jacoby]

"Elephant" however is as I recall a conventionall narrative film and, although it has some great

Steadicam shots and won big at Cannes, the first 98% of it is about the most boring conventional

narrative that could be. Sure, it may show how ordinary life can explode by first showing

a regular hum drum day but in my opinion its only redeeming aspect is the camera work.

In my mind 'Elephant' can hardly be called a conventional narrative film. Not much happens in the film on purpose so there is obviously no real narrative at work here. There is no three act structure, you do not identifiy with the characters who are not very developed anyway, there is no cause and effect driving the plot forward, etc... I can understand that people find this film boring, but that is probably because they are looking for narrative tension and there isn't any.

 

To me this film is about the experience of the space of this school. The film creates this slow but spellbinding rhythm that takes us through these buildings, allowing us to take in the different looks, sounds and atmospheres of this school.

[Tim O'Connor]

In my mind 'Elephant' can hardly be called a conventional narrative film. Not much happens in the film on purpose so there is obviously no real narrative at work here. There is no three act structure, you do not identifiy with the characters who are not very developed anyway, there is no cause and effect driving the plot forward, etc... I can understand that people find this film boring, but that is probably because they are looking for narrative tension and there isn't any.

 

To me this film is about the experience of the space of this school. The film creates this slow but spellbinding rhythm that takes us through these buildings, allowing us to take in the different looks, sounds and atmospheres of this school.

 

Okay, a fair objection, yet I would argue that it is conventional in that it's "once upon a time there was a

quiet school where nothing unusal ever happened and then one day...!"

 

Is there such a thing as a two act movie? If so, that's what you have in "Elephant". The first act is

really long and never sets anything up beyond a well shot tour of a quiet place on a quiet day and

then the blurry short second act has something inexcplicable but familiar happen. If the shootings had been

replaced with an earthquake or an atom bomb it would be the same movie.

 

I remember a teacher saying that it's okay to write a story about a boring person as long as the story isn't

boring.

 

We've all likely heard how some police officers say that their jobs are extremely ordinary, even slow and

tedious, and then a fraction of the time their jobs become life and death situations.

 

I think that "Elephant" is an example of showing the boring part of an environment, modern day high

schools, that are usually fairly ordinary but can explode without notice into killing grounds.

 

However, ordinary doesn't have to be dull and boring. Even in a quaint, prosaic town unaware that two of

its young residents are about to unleash carnage, there is color and lyricism and poetry and humor and

even drama that in the lives of those experiencing it, such as a kid asking for a date or going up for a job

or making the team, is important even if those things aren't apparently dramatic to the rest of the world.

 

 

I think that "Elephant" would have been far more spellbinding if it wove a spell by showing us the high drama

and light airs of the young and innocent students, and even the older and unexpecting teachers, who are in

their own bubbles, as most of us have been, although unlike most people are about to be slaughtered.

 

It seems to me that what you call a spellbinding rhythm in "Elephant" is to me as hypnotic as an hour plus of

boring surveillance camera footage, or an hour plus of footage shot for a documentary that got cut because

a minute of nothing happening goes a long way in saying hey, nothing much ever really happens here.

 

For those who saw "Elephant" did you know before you saw it what it was going to portray? If you didn't,

even though you might have thought well something is bound to happen, would you have watched the entire

film?

 

"In Cold Blood" and "Badlands" show places where hard to understand murders occur in normally quiet,

staid environments. I may be going afield here and could be challenged by someone saying that Mr. Van

Sant has the right to make the movie he wants to make but I suspect that part of the problem is that it's

not a three act movie because he, nor to be fair perhaps anybody, knows the "why" of school shootings that

could have made this a good albeit different film.

 

This is a complaint that I have about a lot of stories. A friend of mine showed me her film and it was about a

different subject yet quite similar in its incompleteness. It showed a case of perceived discrimination and

the serious consequences but nothing else. Her film and "Elephant" are like stylized news reports. Yeah, I get

it. I know that happens. Why are you showing me without at least offering even a guess at some insight?

 

Good news reporting offers facts and, while often spellbinding, doesn't editorialize. Art tells stories and

goes beyond the facts to imbue some meaning to the events. This is a particularly useful function of

art when the stories seem to be senseless.

 

I watched a cable movie last night that had far less of the technical artistry of "Elephant" and didn't seem to

have any great meaning or wisdom but hey it was funny and had lots of gags and entertained me and that

gave me more meaning than the banal blueprint of high school life in "Elephant" that explained nothing

about high school shooters, despite some cool camera work.

 

 

 

Chris, another recommendation: "The General" with Buster Keaton It's a film from back in the days when

they didn't cut to swap out the stunt performer for the star and it's therefore so compelling when you see

gags played all the way through without cheating cutaways.

[Tim O'Connor]

Then I would recommend you watch "In The Mood For Love". Beautiful cinematography.

 

 

Thanks. I'll start with that!

[Max Jacoby]

I don't think one can critizise 'Elephant' for its lack of narrative, because Gus Van Sant just wasn't interested in offering one. In my mind we should see a film for what it is, not for what we expect it to be.

 

Van Sant was inspired by the films of Bela Tarr and Andrei Tarkovsky among others They all made/make films where not much happens, but still they created a rhythm. Obviously these films are not for everyone, but if you like these kind of films and watch them repeatedly like I do, that's because of the experience they offer, not because of the narrative.

[Tim O'Connor]

I don't think one can critizise 'Elephant' for its lack of narrative, because Gus Van Sant just wasn't interested in offering one. In my mind we should see a film for what it is, not for what we expect it to be.

 

Van Sant was inspired by the films of Bela Tarr and Andrei Tarkovsky among others They all made/make films where not much happens, but still they created a rhythm. Obviously these films are not for everyone, but if you like these kind of films and watch them repeatedly like I do, that's because of the experience they offer, not because of the narrative.

 

I'll go along with that. I'd rather listen to 90 minutes of rhythmic music in which not much happens

than watch a film of that style but I agree that a film should be given a chance

to work on its own merits rather than my demands.

 

Chris, some interesting films for cinematography (and production design) might be "Dick

Tracy", "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" and "Metropolis".

[David Auner aac]

"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" and "Metropolis".

 

Second those. And add M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Moerder aka Murderers Among Us. These are really great.

 

Cheers, Dave