μεταμορφώσεις

[Jeff Bernstein]

[Jeff Bernstein]

Roger Deakins : Genius Move

(32:15) Red Lens Flare, as if radiating from the killer as an aura of power.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

For Fun : Moving Camera Shadow

Psycho (1960), 11:15, bottom right.

Halloween (1978), 4:09, on the right wall.

The Thing (1982), 15:07, between the right doorframe and the refrigerator.

Fargo, 33:37, bottom right corner.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Kurosawa

Fargo, 30:22–32:45. Chasing after witnesses to eliminate them recalls The Hidden Fortress (1958), 1:24:14–1:26:07 :

[Jeff Bernstein]

Billy Wilder and John F. Seitz

(31:34)

[Jeff Bernstein]

The Wedding Ring.

(33:56) Her first shot.

 

 

 

Edited May 3, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Return of The Blue

The Conformist (1970), 1:25:35. Vittorio Storaro

Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant (1972), 4:24. Michael Ballhaus

The Thing (1982), 1:29:55. Dean Cundy

Fargo, 35:07. Roger Deakins

EWS, 56:28. Kubrick/Larry Smith

 

 

 

Edited May 3, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

The Wedding Ring.

(49:35). A potential suitor is on the telephone. This time we see the husband's wedding ring.

[Jeff Bernstein]

(35:44) Rare shot of religiosity in Fargo?

[Jeff Bernstein]

The Mist.

Throne of Blood (1957), 22:29

 

 

 

Edited May 3, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

“Stan, I’m thinking we should offer them half a million.” (45:52)

FATHER (to dying son) : “You can choose any place [sanatorium] you like! Never mind what it costs! Any place I can afford. Any place you like—within reason.” (Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Act 4)

[Jeff Bernstein]

Green.

(3:54)

(6:36)

(6:41)

(9:45)

(24:33)

(40:30)

(41:24)

(41:40)

(41:56)

(44:33)

(46:04)

(47:31)

(52:17)

(55:59)

(59:34)

(1:07:06)

(1:10:15)

(1:16:06)

(1:18:44)

[Jeff Bernstein]

Hitchcock.

(54:37)

[Jeff Bernstein]

For Fun : Team Smile?

(55:28). This is the second Stan of the film. // Stan + Melanie = Stanley? // As in Kubrick? // Melanie + Stan = Melanie Daniels, the Protagonist of The Birds (1963)? And . . . ? Or . . . ? What words are found in "Melaniestan"? Listen! Alinements an' ailments an' manias an' meanies alienate animals in time; lament silent slain. // Lensman saint animates neat, leanest, seminal tale. // Meet Team Smile.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Attention to Detail + Hitting the Mark?

(56:00) Note the bright white telephoto artefact, a caster of the comfy chair looking like a beacon of light. Now look what happens :

Held like this for 56:09–56:12. Coincidence? Or do geniuses with complex plans make lucky accidents happen?

[Jeff Bernstein]

If this conjunction has a meaning, what might it be? Perhaps it expresses visually that this character is entirely locked into her environment? Indeed, this character will solve the crime.

 

 

 

Edited May 3, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Famous Happy Accident

In Cold Blood (1967). Soon we close in on this character, and the shadows of the falling rain on his face look precisely like tears streaming from his left eye (2:10:36). Cinematographer : Conrad Hall.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms

(58:03) This minor airport employee is inconveniencing the plans of one of the film's principal characters. This is an oft-used storytelling device : how obdurate dogsbodies can potentially set awry important plans about which they know nothing. For example : No Country for Old Men : "Did you not hear me? We can't give out no information." (33:53) An ultimate use of this storytelling device may very well be in Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms (1929). In chapter 37, the two main characters have just survived a gruelling eight-hour escape to freedom, only for Swiss officials, two formally kind busybodies, to almost ruin the entire life-saving scheme with babble about "winter sport". Chapter 37 is brilliantly absurd writing inside one of the great American novels of the twentieth century.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 3, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Pathway of Light Leading Inward

(3:21)

(58:34)

[Jeff Bernstein]

Multishot

This one shot evokes how much information? A theoretical infinity? Let us tabulate only a few theories. (1) The green by Shep's head continues the color motif of "the crime"–of which Shep is now an unwitting accomplice. (2) The poster's illustrations resemble spears piercing his head, visually communicating the stress of a police interview. (3) Paperwork evokes the past (everything old, including mistakes), the present (official business taking place just now), and the future (threat of reabsorption into the so-called "Justice" system). (4) His pencil eraser is the ordinary red variety. (5) The strong vector of the window evokes a variety of resonances : the threatening onslaught of the police interview and the dangerously slippery slope of acting in the world; time's arrow leading to Fate; also prison bars; a futural 2001 : A Space Odyssey vibe (the "dismal tide" of time)–compare its future-cool texture to the quotidian wood panelling. The window also recalls Japanese fixtures (the Kurosawa vibe). And Shep's back is to the window : entrapment. The shot composition sums up the scene's theme at once : A precarious Shep vs. the Institution.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Vermeer, Lady Writing a Letter With Her Maid (c.1670)

Vermeer, The Geographer (detail), (c.1668)

[Jeff Bernstein]

PAUSE : out of server memory again.

[Jeff Bernstein]

iuncta tenet

 

Today all poets shall celebrate you (if the time is right),

Bacchus. Fragrant wreaths of flowers shall decorate the temples

of our heads, as we call to you by name over your own wine.

 

Once, in the midst of it all, when my fate had not yet fallen

as it has, you preferred not to miss me among the people.

So I remember. Now I stand on my own under the Bear,

in a crude foreign land on a far margin of the Black Sea.

 

In days gone by I occupied myself with peaceful study,

given life by the Muses—how easily they came to me!

Now I live far from home (having suffered on sea and on land),

surrounded by the powerful arms of the uncivilized.

 

Whether chance brought me here, or Heaven’s anger, or gloomy fate

already spun out at my birth, still you might have sustained one

devoted to your holy ivy. Or do the three sisters’ songs

surpass all power of the gods? Do gods and men both suffer?

 

You blazed a rightful pathway up to the palace of Heaven

on your own merit, a path of no little difficulty.

You, too, live far from your fathers, moving from the northern snows

to these warring strangers, to far-flung Persia, to the long Ganges

and all the waters drunk by India. Surely this was woven

by the Fates at your birth. And if I may note a parallel

with the gods, my life, too, has been a hard and difficult way.

 

I have fallen just as the bold warrior Capaneus

felt Zeus’ fire—as punishment for bold words—and was sent

away from Thebes. Yet when you heard Zeus strike a poet with his bolt,

you felt no sadness for me (though your mother is mother earth),

and you, Bacchus, did not say, “One of my own has gone away.”

 

O god of Freedom, give me strength—so another vine heavy

with grapes may release its wine! And the Bacchae and the Satyrs

shall come in the strength of youth, to honour you with wild cries!

And the bones of your perservering enemies shall lie vanquished,

and all the shades of the impious shall suffer forever,

while the stars in the endless sky glitter round your brighter

lover Ariadne. Come down to me now, beautiful god,

and raise me up. Remember me, for I am one of you.

 

Bacchus! Come now. Move Caesar’s all-encompassing will with your own.

 

All you poets as devoted as I am to our learning,

here and now and in the same way make this prayer for yourselves!

 

May one of you, remembering my name, raise the wine and say,

“Where is Ovid, who once sang with us?” Poets, keep my strength at heart.

 

Ovid, Tristia, V.III

(“iuncta tenet” / “hold together”)

[Jeff Bernstein]

Early lens flare–type effect?

As seen, for example, in Fargo, 32:15. Fresco, 3rd century. Catacombs of Priscilla, Rome. (207kb.)

 

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2023 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Glowing Paper?