Old masters of composition in the direction of film photography

[Helge]

Do you really think so.?
To "the masses" ,which is most people i suppose, i guess they are pretty unknown. But among followers of cinema i would think the DP is very well appreciated.?

I am just a "casual" fan of movies............Gregg Toland and Haskell Wexler are a couple of my faves.

Even among so called cineastes DPs are often at best an afterthought when discussing a given film.
A good DP, good casting and a good script can help make even a mediocre director to a masterpiece.

 

[bluechromis]

With regard to Kubrick (U.S. 1928-1999), a digression on the subject: when the director also has a career as a photographer..

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Kubrick not only started as a still photographer, but he also kept his own collection of cinema lenses. He said he couldn't understand why other directors did not do that.

 

[Algo después]

Kubrick not only started as a still photographer, but he also kept his own collection of cinema lenses. He said he couldn't understand why other directors did not do that.

​

His Planar 50/ f 0,7 for Barry Lyndon. Insane.

 

[bluechromis]

I thought someone revived this thread to talk about Joel Coen's recent work to showcase the photography of Lee Friedlander, reported last week in the New York Times, "Filmmaker Joel Coen Puts His Spin on the Photos of Lee Friedlander," May 1, 2023 (paywall). The article talks about how Coen and Friedlander's dealer, Jeffrey Fraenkel, worked to storyboard Friedlander's photographs into a narrative of sorts.

In the article, Coen touches on how "a still photographer and a filmmaker have very different aims." Coen explained: "I take photos with my iPhone like everybody else, but I was looking at a visual form that I have no connection to. The primary thing in cinematography is a narrative, and everything else is secondary. Often the director of photography will set up a shot that is so beautiful but so deficient from a narrative point of view. And the shot is scrapped."

I agree with Coen. I have heard some people gush about how every frame in the films of a master director was a masterpiece of a still photo. While there are similar aesthetics between cinema and still photography, one can go overboard on the notion that the goal of a filmmaker is to have every frame a great still picture or that that is the quintessential measure of a great director or a DP. Ultimately they are different media with different goals. For example, whenever there is something moving in a scene, the movement will capture the viewers' attention. They will be far less able to discern the details of the overall scene than with a still photo. When directors have long shots of static subjects, it is more similar to still photography, but you don't usually see a movie that has only those kinds of shots. When there is motion, it is of utmost importance to have the motion work well, and other aspects of the scene may be less important than with still photography.

 

[MattKing]

I thought someone revived this thread to talk about Joel Coen's recent work to showcase the photography of Lee Friedlander, reported last week in the New York Times, "Filmmaker Joel Coen Puts His Spin on the Photos of Lee Friedlander," May 1, 2023 (paywall). The article talks about how Coen and Friedlander's dealer, Jeffrey Fraenkel, worked to storyboard Friedlander's photographs into a narrative of sorts.

In the article, Coen touches on how "a still photographer and a filmmaker have very different aims." Coen explained: "I take photos with my iPhone like everybody else, but I was looking at a visual form that I have no connection to. The primary thing in cinematography is a narrative, and everything else is secondary. Often the director of photography will set up a shot that is so beautiful but so deficient from a narrative point of view. And the shot is scrapped."

Not this thread, but this one: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...coen-may-13-june-24-2023.198996/#post-2679719

 

[Algo después]

I agree with Coen. I have heard some people gush about how every frame in the films of a master director was a masterpiece of a still photo. While there are similar aesthetics between cinema and still photography, one can go overboard on the notion that the goal of a filmmaker is to have every frame a great still picture or that that is the quintessential measure of a great director or a DP. Ultimately they are different media with different goals. For example, whenever there is something moving in a scene, the movement will capture the viewers' attention. They will be far less able to discern the details of the overall scene than with a still photo. When directors have long shots of static subjects, it is more similar to still photography, but you don't usually see a movie that has only those kinds of shots. When there is motion, it is of utmost importance to have the motion work well, and other aspects of the scene may be less important than with still photography.

One thing does not remove the other. There are movies that have a couple of memorable shots and others that each shot is a masterpiece. Also those that simply don't have any. Obviously, this is subjective. Far away of the subject (oh well, not so far) you have a quote from Cindy Sherman tagged who could be one of the extremes. Her Film stills (from eighties) where a whole movie is just one single frame.

Here the obvious question is: is that cinema? of course not, but between the lines it is established that she was playing with the photographic aspect of cinema.

Cindy Sherman as Orson Welles... as John Ford... as Vittorio De Sica... as Alfred Hitchcock... as...

<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/g-roger-denson/before-there-was-cindy-sh_b_1312622.html" target="_hplink"><img alt="2012-03-05-Screenshot20120305at3.10.50PM.png" src="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2012-03-05-Screenshot20120305at3.10.50PM.png" width="300" height="66" /></a>

www.huffpost.com

 

[Algo después]

I continue with my digression: this Alec Soth´s vid about film/photo (sequence).

 

[bjorke]

Nykvist.

I've never met a DP who didn't have a stills camera somewhere nearby.

If you're looking for some astounding composition and shooting without CG, look no further than The Fall:


If you want great unfamiliar-to-Americans black and white, look at Bela Tarr or Akio Jissoji or really any of the Czech avante-garde e.g. Closely-Watched Trains.

 

[Algo después]

If you want great unfamiliar-to-Americans black and white, look at Bela Tarr or Akio Jissoji or really any of the Czech avante-garde e.g. Closely-Watched Trains.

Def Tarr is in my list. I never had the chance to watch, for instance, Sátántangó which is a must. Actually I would like to think that I will do it but it requires SEVERAL hours, a wishful thinking. Certainly in eastern cinema you can find a ton of marvelous movies with those contemplative shots where the encounter between photography and cinema is more explicit.

Thanks for sharing this name, Akio Jissoji. I didn`t know him.

 

[bjorke]

Not an "Old Master" but Edward Hopper's influence on movies has been huge. See the real deal while you can....

 

[Rolleiflexible]

If you want great unfamiliar-to-Americans black and white, look at Bela Tarr or Akio Jissoji or really any of the Czech avante-garde e.g. Closely-Watched Trains.

There’s also Roman Polanski’s first feature, Knife in the Water, which he filmed as a student in Poland. Remarkable cinema.

 

[Algo después]

Not an "Old Master" but Edward Hopper's influence on movies has been huge. See the real deal while you can....

... more about Hopper. Shirley: visions of reality (2013), Gustav Deutsch. Jerzy Palacz as dp. I had started it but never finished it.





Hopper/Hitchcok

some stills from Rear window (1954) (Robert Burks, dp)

Psycho (1960) (John Russel dp)




Even in cartoons. Birds Anonymous (1957), Friz Freleng. Here Boris Gorelick made the backgrounds so I think he deliberately is using the Hopper´s reference

 

[cliveh]

If you want to see the very best compositions in cinematography and visual poetry, just watch any film by Andrei Tarkovsky. Stalker is my favourite.

 

[Algo después]

If you want to see the very best compositions in cinematography and visual poetry, just watch any film by Andrei Tarkovsky. Stalker is my favourite.

When I was younger (around 2003) I thought that watching movies is an activity that you have to finish it ALWAYS in just one journey. Then I found Stalker. It took me 3 years to finish it. Don´t ask me why, I just simply wasn't able to continue watching this movie in that age. This experience taught me that sometimes I need to respect my body's own times. Since then, some movies can take me months or years to finish them, like any challenging book.

Here some stills. ...Also noticing that this movie had two or three dps: Aleksandr Knyazhinskiy, Georgi Rerberg...(1977) Leonid Kalashnikov...(uncredited)

Stalker (1979) - Full cast & crew - IMDb

Stalker (1979) - Cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more.

www.imdb.com

The change in cinematography along the film is brutal. The first part, for instance, seems to me like collodion shots.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Watched the documentary The Truffle Hunters recently. Has some of the most beautiful cinematography I've seen in a long time.

 

[snusmumriken]

Watched the documentary The Truffle Hunters recently. Has some of the most beautiful cinematography I've seen in a long time.

Yes, I agree about the photography. Wasn’t sure that it was strictly documentary, however? Same with Eagle Huntress.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Wasn’t sure that it was strictly documentary, however?

It is.

Filmmakers Get To The Root Of ‘The Truffle Hunters’

Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw spent nearly three years filming a secretive group of aging truffle hunters in Italy's Piedmont region for their documentary 'The Truffle Hunters.'

www.forbes.com

 

[Arthurwg]

I watched some of John Wayne's old movies. He was quite a good horseman in reality.

So was I when I was 14.

 

[Arthurwg]

One way Boogie Woogie (James Benning, 1977). This clip include his latter version: One way Boggie Woogie (27 years later). BTW, certainly you can see how Benning is influenced by Lewis Baltz probably...

Glad you mentioned Lewis Baltz. One of my favorites.

 

[cliveh]

 

[Algo después]

Glad you mentioned Lewis Baltz. One of my favorites.

I like a lot Baltz. BTW I found this essay by David Campany who has been writing very interesting things about contemporary photography for years. Those paragraphs are about Baltz´s book: LEWIS BALTZ: COMMON OBJECTS - HITCHCOCK, GODARD, ANTONIONI.


"When I first saw Baltz’s epic Candlestick Point (1987-89) it seemed to me like a scene from a movie comprised of the shots that might be left if you removed all images of the actors. This remainder would include the establishing shots, mood shots, and the visual notations of place and time of day. Candlestick Point is Baltz’s response to a postindustrial landscape of waste and dejection, a place caught somewhere between its past use and future use. It seems quite appropriate therefore that the artist presents it, or re-presents it, as a suspended narrative of fragments. On the gallery wall Candlestick Point is exhibited as rows of eighty-four small prints interspersed unevenly with gaps of the same size, as if to suggest there are missing images, or missing moments. We must move between the pleasures to be taken in looking at the images and the suggestion of social forces beyond and between the frames.

Candlestick Point evokes the cinematic in the same way that Antonioni evokes the photographic in the celebrated coda of L’Eclisse (1962). The film’s dissolute lovers (played by Monica Vitti and Alain Delon) agree to meet where they have been meeting already, but on this ocassion neither decides to show up. However, the film does keep the promise. Antonioni shoots the location with a series of almost static shots, editing them together in such a way that the space becomes charged with the absence of the lovers. We see “seven minutes where only the objects remain of the adventure”, as Antonioni put it."

Candlestick Point (1987-89)

Candlestick Point (1987-89). Details.

L'eclisse (1962), Antonioni. Gianni Di Venanzo (dp)

Il deserto rosso (1964), Antonioni. Carlo Di Palma (dp)

Lewis Baltz, Cinema and the Intuition of Nothing | David Campany

davidcampany.com

 

[Arthurwg]

A most interesting thread. Amazing amount of cinema knowledge.

 

[Algo después]

A most interesting thread. Amazing amount of cinema knowledge.

 

[halfaman]

When I was younger (around 2003) I thought that watching movies is an activity that you have to finish it ALWAYS in just one journey. Then I found Stalker. It took me 3 years to finish it. Don´t ask me why, I just simply wasn't able to continue watching this movie in that age. This experience taught me that sometimes I need to respect my body's own times. Since then, some movies can take me months or years to finish them, like any challenging book.

I really like Andrei Rublev and Solaris has some interesting points, but Stalker... I started 2-3 times and only gather enough temper to finish it once and then regret doing it. A collection of tedious sequence shots and boring philosophical monologes that completely dilute any possible plot or underlying theme will be my summary. Never again!

 

[Algo después]

I really like Andrei Rublev and Solaris has some interesting points, but Stalker... I started 2-3 times and only gather enough temper to finish it once and then regret doing it. A collection of tedious sequence shots and boring philosophical monologes that completely dilute any possible plot or underlying theme will be my summary. Never again!

This can happen with this type of contemplative cinema or with various proposals whose density requires levels of concentration or a certain cultural backgrounds that go far beyond cinema as a form of entertainment. Sometimes this relationship with the viewer requires time, at other times it is more easily bearable and at other times it is simply unattainable. With Tarkovsky and other similar directors, a lot goes from being read as philosophers of the image, with this they sin (perhaps?) of being too hermetic for various sensibilities and that may be fine. You cannot standardize the thought or the taste.

Many times the representations of "time" in the cinema are minimized through cinematographic language: quick changes of shots, the addition of music within the plot, etc. but when certain directors activate the presence of time as a discursive entity, the viewers may become impatient. Perhaps that explains why many people can marathon the 9 hours of Lord of the Rings and not resist a 73-minute movie like Sokurov's Mother and Son.

I remember when I saw Andrei Rublev, it was more than anything an experience of resistance, perhaps due to a factor unrelated to the film itself, but now I cannot separate it from my reception experience. That day I was tired and the air conditioning of the film club where it was being shown had broken down, so the slow rhythm, the black and white, and the state of drowsiness was like a caesarean section in an operating room. I exaggerate of course. I decided never to see it again but now over the years I remember that experience as a symbolic conquest (similar to Captain Ahab from MobyDick trying to catch the whale).

Diametrically opposite proposal but it also happened to me at the time with Fargo. Several years later I decided to give it another try and have now discovered that I love it.

Here´s my fave Fargo´s shot