Movie photography

[Gianluca Drago]

I know much more about the art of filmmaking than I do about photography, not from having practised that art myself, but from having enjoyed it.
One of my favourite directors is David Lynch. He has beautiful hair, a squeaky voice that only says interesting (and sometimes wise) things, a great sense of humour, and he has always been one to experiment. Even though he is based in Los Angeles today, he is not a losangelino. D.L. is a painter, musician, sculptor, photographer, filmmaker, Youtuber, actor, smoker and more. He is a multi-artist.
Especially since I've been frequenting this forum, when I watch a film or TV series, I notice the details of the cinematography and realise how many of the shots included in a film would make great photos. I used to do this even before I joined the forum, though.
When the final season of David Lynch's ‘Twin Peaks’ series came out, seven years ago I think, I thoroughly enjoyed it, I re-watched it three times and took screenshots of the most significant scenes or the most interesting shots. If you are interested, at the time I had put the screenshots into this toy-site, there are 500 of them: http://twinpix.altervista.org
Some of these stills remind me of some of your photos.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

I looked at five or six, Sammy, and got bored, sorry. I'm not a fan of Twin Peaks, so you lost me before the start, but as to your more general point of seeing photo possibilities in films - or should we say moving pictures - I am right with you. With some directors, such as the brilliantly-poetic Andrei Tarkovsky, it is clear he was working from a still-image concept.








And we must mention Stanley Kubrick, whose book of photographs is stunning. Were he not one of the most famous film directors, we would laud him as one of the finest photographers, which I believe he is.

 

[Gianluca Drago]

You are talking about giants, I give you credit. But neither Tarkovsky nor Kubrick can compete with Lynch when it comes to hair (I don't think you can argue otherwise, and I know I'm talking to an expert on the subject!).

Joking aside, even in certain TV series of today (where often between episode and episode the direction and even the photography changes), I sometimes see masterpieces of shots that leave me stunned and that as stand-alone pictures would work perfectly fine, even without the support of acting, music, plot and whatnot of moving pictures.

 

[Gianluca Drago]

Just to be clearer:
- the Twin Pix toy site is one of several disposable sites I have created over the years to amuse a small group of friends with whom I share some cultural interests. I did not create it for the purposes of this forum;
- my selection of stills at the time was not the selection of the most photographically interesting scenes. The choice was based on several criteria: the highlights of the story unfolding in the TV series, its most interesting characters, the quirks, the somewhat kitschy or approximate things that characterise a certain Lynchian production, and above all David Lynch's obsessions (e.g. electricity, numbers, obsolete technology, etc.). This does not exclude the fact that some of the images selected (a smaller percentage) are very beautiful to me and remind me of some of the images that have been posted in this forum, but now don't ask me which ones because finding them again would take me a long time;
- the site itself wants to have an obsolete look, it wants to be a bit kitschy and appear amateurish, as if it were a work from twenty years ago.

It was a game. Certainly if I had to identify a director whose photography excels I would not suggest David Lynch, but many others. Forgive me and grow a hair worthy of respect

 

[Rob MacKillop]

I have the same hair dresser as did Einstein.

There the resemblance ends.

 

[Gianluca Drago]

Ein Stein im Salon,
der Frisör schmunzelt leise:
„Chaos, doch Genie!“

 

[Gianluca Drago]

A stone in the shop,
the barber quietly smiles:
"Chaos, yet a genius!"

[Thanks ChatGPT"]

 

[Charlotte Ortelli]

Speaking on this topic, I rewatched The Lighthouse last night, and I had forgotten just how beautiful the cinematography was.
The choice of an (almost) square aspect ratio, and the XX film stock made for such a visual spectacle. I now want to shoot more 6x6, even if its so hot outside... inspiration is just the worst!

 

[Gianluca Drago]

Good suggestion, Charlotte. I have not seen the film, but will try to watch it.

 

[Ivar Dahl-Larsen]

Film as in theatres or still photography, is all about like and what springs to mind.

 

[Bill Brown]

I am a fan of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger films.

The Red Shoes is considered to be the best implementation of Technicolor although I think An American in Paris is a feast not only for the eyes but also the ears. There are some amazing in camera effects in the Red shoes such as the dancer and a newspaper as it blows through the scene. Shot after shot in the Red Shoes could stand as single frames and the color palette is just glorious. My most viewed film of this duo is The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. It hits me on so many levels visually and philosophically. The final ending frames and dialog ring true to me and seem so poignant.

I never tire of watching my Criterion Collection disc of this film. I'm a big fan of supplemental material and the CC discs often abound. Just FYI, I'm not a streamer. I prefer going to my cinema library and choosing.

Back in the 1990's I was a laserdisc aficionado. Films presented in their original aspect ratio and in digital sound. My home presentations were often better than the theater. I still have over 300 laserdiscs and a working player. Up until 2009, when we moved from our home that we designed and built, I had a dedicated A/V room with incredible acoustics. My wife designed the rest of the house around my custom listening room that I designed and constructed. I was the contractor/builder and cut no corners. I also did much of the custom trim carpentry myself.

This room was sonically detached from the rooms surrounding it so I could watch a movie or listen to music without bothering anyone else. Still miss that room and my audio equipment. I'm digressing so forgive an older mans reliving of the past glory days.

 

[Gianluca Drago]

Bill, I understand you are not one for streaming, but you are a fan of Powell and Pressburger. Therefore, if you haven't already seen it, I recommend watching ‘Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger’ a 2024 documentary film by David Hinton. It is currently on MUBI and if you don't have a subscription you can do a one-month free trial and then cancel. https://mubi.com/it/it/films/made-in-england-the-films-of-powell-and-pressburger

 

[Bill Brown]

In recent years I've gotten out of the Cinema loop. I did not know about this so THANKS for enlightening me. I will definitely track it down in some form.

 

[Gianluca Drago]

The documentary is very enjoyable. There is a lot of archive footage featuring Powell and Pressburger being interviewed together from which you understand what their respective roles were. And then the commentary is done by none other than Martin Scorsese, always prepared, punctual, objective, never over the top.

Of Powell and Pressburger I think I have only seen a couple of films. ‘Peeping Tom’ is the one that impressed me the most, I may have watched it four times. It is so weird, but so enlightening about the meaning of capturing images, whether still or moving.

It is also the film that decreed the end of Powell's career, accused of ‘lurid sexual content’. But maybe that was not the real reason for banning that film, maybe there was a commercial motive. It is interesting to read about the history of colour cinema and how Eastmancolor had discovered a new technique to render colours as vivid as or more vivid than those given by Kodachrome film. It was a pioneering technological war that was eventually won by Kodachrome. If you look at the credits of Peeping Tom they say that the film was shot on Kodachrome film, but that's not true, that was Eastmancolor film (only agreements of commercial convenience changed the facts in favour of Kodak).

Significantly, at the beginning of the film a shot lingers on a Kodak film being thrown into the garbage.





There are films that exploit voyeurism to bring the viewer to a higher level of awareness.
Each of them practises voyeurism through the technological enhancement of video and audio, through cameras, binoculars, microphones and other technical equipment. Films that are meta-cinematographic in that they reveal the professional make-up; the viewer learns not only the particular story of the film, but also something about the filmic process with its unique selective representation of reality as an artifice of reality.

To make a comparison, imagine that you go to the supermarket for your weekly grocery shopping, and that on such a day instead of letting you lead the trolley through the aisles a courteous and resourceful saleswoman puts you at the checkout. It would be an upheaval of viewpoint for you for which you would not be prepared. You are now on the other side, beyond the mirror. Here, these are the films that put you to work at the till.

Think of:

- Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock 1954.
- Blow-up, Michelangelo Antonioni 1966 .
- The Conversation, Francis Ford Coppola 1974.
- Blow Out, Brian De Palma 1981.
- A Short Film About Love, Krzysztof Kieślowski 1988.
- Red Film, Krzysztof Kieslowski 1994.
- Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick 1999.
- The Lives of Others, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck 2006.

These are just a few examples. With them you stop seeing to watch, stop hearing to listen.
The emphasis of communication not only rests on the narrative mechanism, but also winks at the production mechanism.