painterly movies

[David Mullen ASC]

I gathered these random frames that I have pulled over the past year for various ideas. These were ones that copied classical paintings or had a painterly style, a subject that interests me. The DP's were Robert Krasker ("Henry V"), Ozzie Morris ("Moulin Rouge" & "Taming of the Shrew"), and David Watkin ("Jesus of Nazareth").

 

 

 

 

[Brad Grimmett]

David,

You've been posting a lot of frames from movies lately (thanks for that by the way) and I'm wondering where you get them. Are you just pulling them from the internet or do you have another source? If you're pulling them from a particular site or sites could you post the address? I'd be interested in checking out some other stuff.

Thanks.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

The top one you posted - I appreciate the cleverness, but I don't necessarily like it. It's almost like the first movies where they'd found zoom lenses - hey, look, we can do colour! Let's paint everything green. It's brash and unsightly.

 

Phil

[Jonathan Spear]

Hey,

 

""These were ones that copied classical paintings or had a painterly style, a subject that interests me.""

 

Me too. Have you seen 'What Dreams May Come"?

 

I thought "The Girl with a Pearl Earring" was brilliant too. Everything about it had that old-world Vermeer aftertaste to it, especially the lighting aspects of the film.

 

A friend of mine got me hooked on H.R. Giger's work (definately worth checking out), and the "Alien" movies hold true to his kind of dark, surreal style. Not classical, but interesting nonetheless.

 

The frames you submitted are cool examples, but as Phil pointed out, why is the first image sooo green? Not that I have anything against that color, it just seems a bit much.

Is that what they were going for?

Edited January 9, 2005 by TSM

[David Mullen ASC]

"Henry V" was shot to look like illuminated manuscript illustrations -- i.e. not realistic. I picked one with a green painted set, that's all. I'm sure there are illuminated manuscripts painted with large areas of green. I could have picked something else like these:

 

 

 

Only the wall & stairs on the right & top edge of the frame were painted green, and it's not a particularly saturated green -- so I'm not sure why that seems excessive to you. I've shot in green-painted rooms before. I've shot green-lit scenes before!

 

These were grabbed using the frame grab button on my Power DVD player software. That saves it as a bit map file - I drag them into Paint Shop Pro and reduce them and save them as jpegs. I have to resize them to take into account the pixel shape differences, especially if it is a 16x9 recording or else the frame looks skinny.

[Sam Wells]

" thought "The Girl with a Pearl Earring" was brilliant too. Everything about it had that old-world Vermeer aftertaste to it, especially the lighting aspects of the film."

 

But almost everyone is copying Vermeer now, one way or another.

 

-Sam

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

I just can't make myself like the way those old Techicolor movies were shot, particularly the one you've cited - perhaps because it rather uncomfortably recalls the hard, overlit, high-key flatness of current photography in this part of the world. It just looks like a crappy old movie that was lit for exposure on punishingly slow stock, and they didn't take the time to get rid of all the inappropriate shadows. Fine, it's just my opinion, but I really can't get on with it at all.

 

Phil

[Filip Plesha]

Well, thay were rather limited in style, but i think people don't like them

for some artistic wonders, but for their special charm, even if that charm

was a result of many limitiations.

[David Mullen ASC]

Saying you can't like the way old movies look for the way they were lit is a little like saying you can't read non-contemporary novels like by Dickens or Austin (or Shakespeare for that matter) because of the way they were written. You're denying yourself a whole range of artistic works just because they aren't made in a modern style.

 

Especially it's pretty pointless to complain about the flat lighting in "Henry V" when it went so out of its way to be flat deliberately to replicate the flatness of medieval art. It's not like Krasker couldn't do shadowy lighting -- this was the guy who shot "The Third Man" after all, not to mention "El Cid."

 

As for the multiple shadows, yes, that's an artifact of using so many lamps to get exposure, although it's mainly a problem in wider shots. But I'm not sure why one can't "get beyond that". It's like saying you can't beyond listening to a mono recording because it's not stereo, or b&w photography because it's not color. Or the special effects in any pre-digital age movie like "King Kong". Art is a product of its time; you deny yourself the pleasures of art made in the past, you end up with choices like "National Treasure." Give me an old Technicolor movie anyday.

 

And you can look at something like "Moulin Rouge" shot by Ozzie Morris and begin to see the use of soft lights -- you can see that in comparing the frame from "Moulin Rouge" to "Taming of the Shrew" made a decade later.

 

Also, remember that color was mainly reserved for comedies and musicals in the 1940's, so the number of examples of dark & moody lighting in 3-strip Technicolor are rare.

 

You guys don't think that all movies should be made with one set of lighting aesthetics? Not too desaturated, not too saturated, not too flat, not too dark, not too soft-lit, not too hard-lit?

[David Mullen ASC]

Here's a moodier 3-strip Technicolor shot:

 

 

Here's a green-lit shot from my own work (motivated by the green plastic curtains over the daytime window that I panned off of to this):

 

 

Now the softer single-source effect is a modern style but I picked this idea up from "Vertigo" plus my parents' bathroom which has green curtains:

 

 

There is a thread running through the past to the present, at least in my work.

[Jon Rosenbloom]

If nothing else, these frames show how colaborative a medium motion picture is. Without the extremely competent contributions from costumes, production design, hair and makeup, the lighting really wouldn't matter for much, and these frames wouldn't be very painterly.

[Jon Rosenbloom]

Also,

Is it really a big creative leap to shoot a movie about Vermeer so that it looks like a Vermeer painting?

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> Saying you can't like the way old movies look for the way they were lit is a little

> like saying you can't read non-contemporary novels like by Dickens or Austin (or

> Shakespeare for that matter)

 

There's a difference between "classic" and "old and kitschy." I find it difficult to take the performances in those historical epics really seriously, perhaps because they're stage actors who are now much too close to you. It just comes off as cheesy to me.

 

> Especially it's pretty pointless to complain about the flat lighting in "Henry V" when

> it went so out of its way to be flat deliberately to replicate the flatness of medieval

> art.

 

That comparison doesn't work for me. It just looks gaudy and overdone.

 

> multiple shadows.... I'm not sure why one can't "get beyond that". It's like saying

> .... b&w photography because it's not color

 

I guess my rationalisation would be this: black and white photography does not impose any changes on a scene other than the obvious - we already know we're looking at a photograph. The content could represent an actual event or a performance; we can't inherently tell from the way it looks. Having lots of shadows, painted backdrops, overblown performances when you don't actually need to have those things is a style choice that makes it too clear - for me - that they don't even care about what reality is.

 

This obviously just leads into a discussion of what level of hyperreality you or I find acceptable, but this is way too far for me. It's too staged,

 

> Also, remember that color was mainly reserved for comedies and musicals in the

> 1940's, so the number of examples of dark & moody lighting in 3-strip Technicolor

> are rare.

 

Perhaps that's it. Henry V is neither a comedy nor a musical; it was made at a time when people would have gone all out for a splash of colour, and they were spending hugely at a time when it couldn't have been easy to do so. Look at us, we can do colour/zooms/digital effects....

 

Phil

Edited January 9, 2005 by Phil Rhodes

[Filip Plesha]

You guys don't think that all movies should be made with one set of lighting aesthetics?  Not too desaturated, not too saturated, not too flat, not too dark, not too soft-lit, not too hard-lit?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

When you say you guys, are you including me in it?

 

I never said I dislike the way those films looked.

[Tim Tyler]

 

Looks like an early Star Trek episode to me :rolleyes:

[Mark Allen]

Back to the original topic.

 

DIVA - the french film from the 80s. I don't remember another film that made me feel so much like each film was a painting - not of a specific painter though.

 

Obviously there is Amelie which is going to great lengths to immitate a painter.

 

 

As for the discussion that followed. Style is temporary - that's why movies or paintings or photos that are "all about" style are quickly outdated, while the same media when using style to help tell it's story seem to stay relevant (as long as the drama stays relevant).

 

In looking at older films, though, it's sort of like looking at foreign movies. You know it's going to be in another language. If someone sent some of our movies back in time, they would be nearly incomprehensible to people watching movies back then until they acclimated to the distance use of close ups, the fast cutting, the thickness of the sound. As an artist working in film today - I think it's an obligation to look at the entir history of film with an eye for understanding and curiousity and seeking to understand its relevance.

[Bob Hayes]

Great topic David. First film that comes to my mind is ?The Duelists?.

[Annie Wengenroth]

I'm glad you're posting this stuff, David. I thought of "Barry Lyndon" as another example. And maybe even some parts of "Big Fish", particularly the Spectre scenes.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> Looks like an early Star Trek episode to me

 

Yes, it does, doesn't it... I couldn't put my finger on it, but you're right. I remember reading (avidly, over and over and over again) in "The Making of Star Trek" how they'd 'repaint' walls with light and save money - that's the result!

 

Annie, what's the avatar picture? I've tried looking at it all ways up.

 

Phil

[David Mullen ASC]

I put that example up from "Henry V" because one area of interest to me are movies that emulate non-realistic painting. I mean, it's MUCH easier to simulate a Rembrandt or Vermeer or Caravaggio or Hopper because they were painting more or less realistically in terms of light and perspective -- they are almost photographic themselves. However, it is much more of a challenge to incorporate ideas from Post-Impressionists or Early Renaissance or Gothic or Abstract Modernism into photography because they are less realistic, not conforming to rules of perspective, realistic light, etc.

 

I can't help but think that all the movies we regard as realistically photographed are going to look stylized and dated fifty years from now.

 

But I have an even harder time with someone saying that "Henry V" looks theatrical as if that's a mistake -- when it is obviously theatrical by design! It's like criticizing the perspective in a Picasso painting. It's supposed to look like a book illustration from the middle ages, not a recreation of Europe at the time of Henry V.

 

Also, I personally think the original "Star Trek" was pretty well-photographed for television standards of the day...

 

Carl Dreyer wrote an essay on color in movies in the late 1950's and said only three color movies made were of any note photographically, "Henry V" being one of them (the Japanese film "Gates of Hell" and a color version of "Romeo & Juliet" I think was third) precisely because it wasn't tied to any mundane notions of reproducing reality. "Henry V" was also in the ASC's list of Top 50 Cinematography pre-1960, so I'm not alone in noting its importance as a work of cinematography.

 

OK, so it's not your cup of tea...

[Bob Hayes]

Great topic David! I loved the look of ?The Duelist? . I like when films like ?Girl with the Pearl Earring? take on the look of the media of the time. Although patterned after photography rather then paintings I think ?Far From Heaven? captured the feel of house beautiful magazine photography and art beautifully.

[Jonathan Spear]

"""Also,

Is it really a big creative leap to shoot a movie about Vermeer so that it looks like a Vermeer painting?"""

 

I'm sure it's not as easy as you make it out to be.

[Ignacio Aguilar]

Barry Lyndon - John Alcott, BSC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ignacio Aguilar]

 

The Duellists - Frank Tidy, BSC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mike Williamson]

I was impressed by "The Leopard" as being a very painterly film, shot by Giuseppe Rotunno. And perennial favorites "Black Narcissus" and "The Red Shoes" shot by Jack Cardiff, can't forget Powell and Pressburger! Interesting that the first films that I think of as painterly were shot in Technicolor...

 

Since Tim Partridge and David Mullen have turned me on to David Watkin, I'm seeing the influence of painting on his work, the composition in the still from "Jesus of Nazareth" is impeccable. I just picked up "This Boy's Life" on DVD which also feels painterly to me.

 

Judging from the stills, the look of "Henry V" is very faithful to the look of the medieval paintings/manuscripts that I'm familiar with, you have to realize it's a very different conception of space from what we're used to seeing today. It's comparable to looking at "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" in that it tries to replicate a flatter, less dimensional world that is more expressive than realistic. The backdrops in the "Henry V" stills are great too, they really sell the look.

 

I agree with David that most of what looks realistic today will eventually look stylized because realism IS always a style. The same thing happens with acting, for example. Many "realistic" performances from the 1950's look very stylized to current audiences.