Film thoughts: Photography

~ beetleypete

A long time before I ever owned a camera, I was being taken to the cinema every week by my parents. Most of the time, I just enjoyed the experience of being in the luxurious change of surroundings, staring up at the huge screen, the action playing out before my wide eyes, and the escape from the everyday working-class life it provided. I didn’t think much about directors, scriptwriters, casting, lighting, and editing. And I didn’t have a clue about cinematography.

Then something in me changed.

I was only ten years old when I was taken to see the film ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. I thought it was wonderful, one of the best films I had ever seen up to then, if not the best. The huge epic had it all. Wonderful scenery, a great cast, historical interest, and breathtaking set-piece action sequences. I couldn’t stop talking about how good it was for weeks. It was probably about another six months before it dawned on me why I thought seeing that film was such a magical experience, and why so many scenes were indelibly imprinted on my memory.

It was photographed. Just look at this.

As any real film-fan will tell you, pointing a film camera at a scene and yelling ‘Action’ is no guarantee of producing something wonderful to behold. Of all the tens of thousands of films made, really memorable photography is not something that is often mentioned. People discuss the performances of the cast, social relevance, new genres, special effects, costumes, and make-up. But whether or not a film is photographed is a topic that rarely comes up.

Once I had realised why I liked David Lean’s film so much, I began to watch films with a very different ‘eye’. I still didn’t own a camera, but I began to look out for scenes that were more like moving photos, than people passing by the lens of a camera. David Lean gave us so many more like this, from ‘Great Expectations’, to ‘Ryan’s Daughter’. Other directors featured heavily in my formative years of such appreciation, including the incomparable Akira Kurosawa, and Russian film-maker Andrei Tarkovsky.

But I always bang on about films with subtitles and British film-makers on this blog. So to highlight what appeals to me about a film being ‘photographed’, I will feature more modern films instead, and all made in America, with various casts, by a mix of directors.

In 1973, I had been very impressed with a film called ‘Badlands’, directed by someone called Terrence Malick. Five years later, I heard about a new film he had made, and went to see it. The romantic love triangle story was not my usual attraction to a cinema, but with a strong cast, and that name of Malick again, I decided to give it a try. ‘Days of Heaven’ was set in 1916, in Texas, but filmed in Canada on a very small budget. I sat looking in wonder at the screen. The plot was almost irrelevant, as I gazed at the wonderful images. This confirmed what I had suspected five years earlier. That man Malick knew how a film should be photographed. The Academy later agreed with me, giving the film the Oscar for Best Cinematography.

Twenty years later, and Malick caught my attention again. War films are rarely photographed. They concentrate on action, with huge casts, and lots going on. But in his film set during the Pacific War battle of Guadalcanal, he changed the rules. Can a war film be ‘beautiful’? You bet it can. From the idyllic beaches of remote islands, to the swaying grasslands of the interior, Malick manages to show us wonder, alongside the barbarity of war.

2007 was one of the best years for photographed films, with two outstanding examples that excited me a great deal. The first one I got to see was ‘There Will Be Blood’, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. I was attracted by the casting of Daniel Day Lewis, a British actor who famously immerses himself in any role. I read some surprisingly bad reviews of the film, but was still determined to go and see it. Twelve years later, and I can recall scenes at will. I can feel the heat off the screen, and smell the oil spurting from the wells. And mainly because this was a film that was truly photographed, allowing those scenes to imprint themselves on my mind.

I can take or leave a lot of films in the genre popularly called ‘Westerns’. I have seen a lot, and remember those I have enjoyed. Up to then, I probably thought of John Ford’s famous film ‘The Searchers’ as perhaps a great example of using photographed scenery in a film. But with a few exceptions, I never really considered Westerns to be ‘my thing’, especially when it came to being blown away by watching one. And then I went to see a film with an annoyingly long title, ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’, made by Andrew Dominik. I was attracted to the film not by the star, Brad Pitt, but by his co-star, Casey Affleck, someone I thought was one of the best actors of his generation.
What I didn’t expect, was to discover one of the finest examples of a ‘photographed film’ I had ever seen. It is just sublime to watch.

So there you have five examples, from 1962, to 2007. I could list quite a lot more of course, but I would prefer to know your choices.
Please add them, in the comments.

66 thoughts on “Film thoughts: Photography”

  3. Excellent post, Pete. Photography absolutely makes a film, but it isn’t often addressed. How the West was Won, The Sound of Music, and Last of the Mohicans had spectacular photography.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  4. Some great films on here! Really great post. Another brilliantly photographed film I saw again recently was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. While there is a lot done in the edit with after effects, David Fincher and cinematographer, Claudio Miranda did a great job on this film.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  5. Great post 🙂 Another great cinematographer was Vilmos Zsigmond. He has photographed some films for Robert Altman, Brian de Palma and Steven Spielberg to name just a few. He also photographed Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate. Quite a filmography. Anyway, keep up the great work as always 🙂

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  7. You and I have similar tastes in film Pete. Lawrence is my favorite film of all time. I saw it when I was home on leave from Eritrea with my wife. I found it astounding. When I went back to base and was riding in an open jeep across the desert I could hear the theme in my head. The beer helped. I told everyone about the film and when it played in the base theater the place was packed. I never missed a David Lean film afterwards. Ryan’s Daughter was also a great one. My wife loved it. I’ve also watched The Thin Red Line a number of times. Besties.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

    1. Thanks, Roland. Powell-Pressburger did have a ‘signature’ look, wonderfully demonstrated in ‘Black Narcissus’. Like Douglas Sirk, their films were distinctive for the use of colour, which was often saturated and unrealistic. But it was always a joy to watch.
      Best wishes, Pete.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  10. The 1962 film, The Longest Day: https://www.google.com/search?q=the+longest+day&rlz=1C1PRFI_enUS836US850&sxsrf=ACYBGNRiXVcnDLTMzRazAiqf0DriXEi7pw:1561228327303&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=l92-PbKjI0e5BM%253A%252CNQeaGtHDiMb3GM%252C%252Fm%252F04v89z&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kT8xuDWxJgCZvRrrzqAnwdb3dY8BQ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjrqPLe3P3iAhUxNH0KHVAjBuIQ_B0wKXoECAwQAw#imgrc=l92-PbKjI0e5BM: The black and white photography did it for me when I went to see it in the theatre when I was 18. I still play some of those “photographs” in my mind at 75.
    Warmest regards, Theo

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  12. Having lived in Jesse James country, I’m a bit embarrassed by the fact that I haven’t seen “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.” There are some great “photographic” westerns, but the one that immediately comes to my mind is “Once Upon a Time in the West,” which I usually cite as my favorite oater.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. Thanks, David. I have seen that Leone classic, but I didn’t care for it as much as everyone else did. I know how much it is loved by both audiences and critics though. As evidenced in this review excerpt,
      ‘Nobody has made a better Western since. In fact, nobody has made a better Western, period.’
      Kim Newman
      Empire Magazine.
      Best wishes, Pete. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  14. Great post!

    Others directors who are great from that point of view are Michael Mann, Terry Gilliam, and Quentin Tarantino, to name three. Actually, the latter claimed once that a movie is just a series of pictures, there’s no movement, just the illusion of it.
    Oh, and in Mad Max: Fury Road by George Miller each frame is like a painting, it’s amazing!

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. I have never seen ‘Hugo’, and although I have ‘Life of Pi’ on DVD, (it was a gift) I still haven’t watched it. I think both those films rely heavily on CGI though, rather than ‘photography’. But I could be wrong! 🙂 🙂
      Thanks, Kim.
      Best wishes, Pete.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  16. I loved Lawrence of Arabia and have my own copy 🙂 will have to watch some of t he others on this list of yours. I would also add Ridley Scotts directorial movie debut The Duellists, which is just gorgeously shot.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. Oh yes. ‘The Duellists’ is one of my favourites, with every scene like a 19th century painting. The same can be said for much of ‘Goya’s Ghosts’, and ‘The Girl With A Pearl Earring’. This could have been a very long post! 🙂
      Best wishes, Pete.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  17. Thanks, Pete.
    I think I’ve always been slightly more attracted to a good film’s cinematography than its plot. The big outdoor scenes are immediately impressive but I appreciate the unusual methods employed too, for example, something that struck me, I remember, with The Ipcress File was the peculiar and interesting angles used to shoot character scenes. Also the use of montage, split screens etc., though it can be a bit cliche.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. I do recall being very impressed by the use of split-screen in the original version of ‘The Thomas Crown Affair’. Then again, I was only 16 at the time, and I haven’t seen it since.
      Best wishes, Pete.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. Thanks, Robbie. I am sure that you would see ‘photography’ in these films. Sometimes the action just pauses and looks like a wonderful photo, especially in ‘Days of Heaven’. 🙂
      Best wishes, Pete.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  19. I saw Lawrence of Arabia as a young girl and it has stayed with me forever. It created in me a love for the desert. So well filmed and has stood the test of time. Days of Heaven was filmed in my part of the world and just watching the trailer made me homesick.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  23. Great post, Pete! I’d have to add The Last of the Mohicans (1992). Michael Mann managed to make scenes like a simple passage of a carriage over a bridge look like Renaissance paintings. Coupled with the hauntingly beautiful music, it made for a surprisingly memorable film.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

    1. Thanks, Janet. I completely agree about ‘The English Patient’. Sadly, I now live a long way fro a ‘decent’ cinema, but would make the trip to enjoy something exceptional.
      Best wishes, Pete.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

All comments welcome

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.