peterm1
Mentor
I am a bit of a film buff and have lots of DVDs of films I have bought over the years. (Too many in fact - how the heck to store them accessably is the problem!)
Like many film buffs I have become interested in foreign movies (well, there are only so many crappy Hollywood comic book based movies one can watch in his life and have any hope of not reverting to the mental age of a 13 year old boy). I recently stumbled on the work of a Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu. Ozu started as a cinematographer in the silent era when cameras were very static (almost no camera movement, no panning and even very few tracking shots) and he carried this style through out his life - even with more modern cameras. As a result he developed a style of camera work very, very like a stills photographer. He shot almost exclusively with a 50mm lens incidentally to keep it "real".
Here is a nice video on him and you will see immediately how so many of his shots look like stills. In fact this is a theme of the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ra0xEQ8yaU
And another video on how he interspersed his movies with little scenes that often seemed just to have the purpose of making it contemplative and to set the movie in a time and place. You can readily see how many of these are composed as a stills shot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhQwFxhiVQs
As I posted in the comments section of the first video, at 0.57 seconds into that video, for example, there is a scene with a woman and man in the mid range eating from bowls and in the background a child. He has aligned them diagonally with their bodies broadly describing a line from top left to bottom right and they are framed by the door of the home and the dark interior of the home - all of which add visual interest. It is pretty much exactly how I would aspire to compose the shot if I had a choice. And the same goes for the shot that precedes it at about 0.52 seconds - two people on a seawall fishing framed by the rockwall below them and the two verticals of the lighthouse and the electricity pole. Ozu, unlike almost any other director was about composition of the shot - aiming for beauty. Just like a stills photographer.
I thought I would share these videos (and some others may find Ozu's work interesting though his movies are very quiet and some would say boring though I love them when I am in the right frame of mind - quiet, contemplative etc) but I also thought I would ask - is there anyone else who directs and shoots more or less like this? Ideas?
Kubrik a little, perhaps???
Like many film buffs I have become interested in foreign movies (well, there are only so many crappy Hollywood comic book based movies one can watch in his life and have any hope of not reverting to the mental age of a 13 year old boy). I recently stumbled on the work of a Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu. Ozu started as a cinematographer in the silent era when cameras were very static (almost no camera movement, no panning and even very few tracking shots) and he carried this style through out his life - even with more modern cameras. As a result he developed a style of camera work very, very like a stills photographer. He shot almost exclusively with a 50mm lens incidentally to keep it "real".
Here is a nice video on him and you will see immediately how so many of his shots look like stills. In fact this is a theme of the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ra0xEQ8yaU
And another video on how he interspersed his movies with little scenes that often seemed just to have the purpose of making it contemplative and to set the movie in a time and place. You can readily see how many of these are composed as a stills shot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhQwFxhiVQs
As I posted in the comments section of the first video, at 0.57 seconds into that video, for example, there is a scene with a woman and man in the mid range eating from bowls and in the background a child. He has aligned them diagonally with their bodies broadly describing a line from top left to bottom right and they are framed by the door of the home and the dark interior of the home - all of which add visual interest. It is pretty much exactly how I would aspire to compose the shot if I had a choice. And the same goes for the shot that precedes it at about 0.52 seconds - two people on a seawall fishing framed by the rockwall below them and the two verticals of the lighthouse and the electricity pole. Ozu, unlike almost any other director was about composition of the shot - aiming for beauty. Just like a stills photographer.
I thought I would share these videos (and some others may find Ozu's work interesting though his movies are very quiet and some would say boring though I love them when I am in the right frame of mind - quiet, contemplative etc) but I also thought I would ask - is there anyone else who directs and shoots more or less like this? Ideas?
Kubrik a little, perhaps???
B-9
Devin Bro
Interesting!
I have found myself evolving from stills to film/cine.
It feels fresh and new after over a decade focused on the still camera culture.
Thanks for sharing.
I have found myself evolving from stills to film/cine.
It feels fresh and new after over a decade focused on the still camera culture.
Thanks for sharing.
Yokosuka_Mike
Abstract Clarity
Yasujirō Ozu’s 1953 movie “Tokyo Story” is the most wonderfully depressing movie I have ever watched - a true masterpiece.
All the best,
Mike
All the best,
Mike
nukecoke
⚛Yashica
Andrei Tarkovsky for sure to me.
Quentin Tarantino, at least talked about it:
https://youtu.be/BON9Ksn1PqI?t=52s
Quentin Tarantino, at least talked about it:
https://youtu.be/BON9Ksn1PqI?t=52s
john_s
Well-known
....Kurosawa!
Contarama
Well-known
Me too. Nice to hear this on this board as I sort of figured I was alone. I am still in the study phase with regard to the cinematography. I will have to explore the TS original post topic before I can comment. I have been putting the still camera on a tripod and pretending I am filming lately. Also been buying and watching tons of dvds, movies and television stuff, basically watching what the camera and lighting is doing instead of the stories so much.
peterm1
Mentor
I guess I am beginning to explore this too. Its become easier in the past few years with excellent digital video functionality built into what would otherwise be conventional stills cameras.
DwF
Well-known
Bernardo Bertolucci immediately comes to mind for me. While that one horrible scene in Last Tango and his treatment of Maria Schneider has brought damnation to this film, it remains (IMHO) visually stunning. And sensually beautiful with the soundtrack and the way it is all choreographed. The Francis Bacon tableau that inspired the director that introduce the film set a stage for "still style" in the cinematography.
Michelangelo Antonioni is another director who obviously treasures the still image. Blow-Up of course centers around a photographic moment, but The Passenger stands out for me as a study in visual stillness for cinema that informs the way the actors behave on screen as subjects for the visual set.
Michelangelo Antonioni is another director who obviously treasures the still image. Blow-Up of course centers around a photographic moment, but The Passenger stands out for me as a study in visual stillness for cinema that informs the way the actors behave on screen as subjects for the visual set.
peterm1
Mentor
Like most I came to Japanese cinema through Kurosawa and now have probably 10 DVDs of his movies. I think there are certainly similarities but I find him much less quiet and still as Ozu. Ozu seems to just dwell on moments for the heck of it. But having said this Kurosawa can compose with the best of them - I am thinking of the battle scene in the middle of Ran. WOW! is all I can say. Just Wow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7wvb7HRPTo
peterm1
Mentor
Yes a masterpiece.
Tokyo Story is an acquired taste but I love it and have it on DVD. I struggled the first time I watched it as nothing happens but I persisted as I like movies with lots of character development and dialogue and ended up believing it to be one of the most finely crafted movies made. (Some critics rate it THE best movie ever made. Though I think this is a long stretch of the bow it certainly rewards persistence).
Also an Autumn Afternoon. Unfortunately DVDs of his movies are a bit hard to find and quite expensive to buy even on eBay.
NickTrop
Mentor
Ozu -- yes. But I'd argue this is true of many Japanese directors from that era. Here are some others:
1. Chris Marker. His claim to fame film, La Jetee, is a short science fiction film made up of nothing but still black and white photos.
2. Sam Peckinpah -- watch The Wild Bunch. I've thought it almost too static and composed, every scene looking like a photo shoot. Still a great flick.
3. Although not directed by him, The Fifth Cord is a 60's Italian "giallo" (means "yellow" -- an Italian 60's-70's thriller/mystery subgenre that's way varied and way fun to explore) and early work by Vittorio Storaro and his best work in my opinion. Amazing "still photo-like" compositions.
4, Kubrick falls into this category, I'd ague.
5. Much of 60's Jean-Luc Godard, especially Alphaville (required viewing)
La Jette is public domain. Mandatory viewing, link below... The Fifth Cord is often up on YouTube. Also mandatory viewing for its breathtaking composition and lighting -- a true tour de force.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLfXCkFQtXw
1. Chris Marker. His claim to fame film, La Jetee, is a short science fiction film made up of nothing but still black and white photos.
2. Sam Peckinpah -- watch The Wild Bunch. I've thought it almost too static and composed, every scene looking like a photo shoot. Still a great flick.
3. Although not directed by him, The Fifth Cord is a 60's Italian "giallo" (means "yellow" -- an Italian 60's-70's thriller/mystery subgenre that's way varied and way fun to explore) and early work by Vittorio Storaro and his best work in my opinion. Amazing "still photo-like" compositions.
4, Kubrick falls into this category, I'd ague.
5. Much of 60's Jean-Luc Godard, especially Alphaville (required viewing)
La Jette is public domain. Mandatory viewing, link below... The Fifth Cord is often up on YouTube. Also mandatory viewing for its breathtaking composition and lighting -- a true tour de force.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLfXCkFQtXw
cz23
-
When Pawel Pawlikowski, the director of "Ida," won best foreign film, his competitors complained that he didn't make a movie but rather a collection of stills.
You can see that in the stills gallery on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2718492/mediaindex.
One scene after another of beautiful, lingering compositions. And a great story as well.
John
You can see that in the stills gallery on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2718492/mediaindex.
One scene after another of beautiful, lingering compositions. And a great story as well.
John
Mackinaw
Think Different
Several John Ford "westerns" come to mind.
Jim B.
Jim B.
maddoc
... likes film again.
Wim Wenders comes to my mind.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
I don't know who the directors were, but two films that come to mind are The Godfather and the 2011 film adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. In both of them, every scene seems like a beautifully composed still image.
benlees
Well-known
Can't beat La Jetee. It was made from stills. It is short, however.
Steve M.
Mentor
Stanley Kubrick is my idea of a director that shot films like a photographer because he started out as one. He always had that eye for framing a composition. Barry Lyndon is one of the most beautifully photographed movies I have ever seen (disclaimer: it is also one of the most slow moving movies around).
When he was starting out to make 2001 A Space Odyssey on 70mm film, he had some opening shots in his head that he wanted to start the movie with, so he sent 3 teams of large format photographers to Africa for several weeks to shoot sunsets and sunrises. They went to different locations and shot them on color transparencies. Each day they got maybe 1 minute of shooting time. When they brought the developed slides to Kubrick, he had no way to project large format slides so he had to make a projector, including the huge condensers that sometimes got so hot they melted the slides.
Once he had that working, he had to find a way to project the landscapes in back of the actors, and none of the backdrops were able to reflect enough light for the camera. So he found some sort of space age mylar that was highly reflective and stretched that out for the 80 feet required for the background. The camera was now able to capture the projected images, but it also showed the seams where the long pieces of mylar were joined. This was resolved by having his crew tear the background into small irregular shapes and then glue it all back together. Now the camera lens didn't pick up the seams.
The whole movie was a series of new and difficult technical problems that Kubrick managed to successfully solve. 2001 is a masterpiece of film making (and yes, it moves very slowly, is often confusing and overly long, and it's a little boring at times. You can't have everything!).
In the second link, you see Kubrick capturing himself in the mirror taking the shot with a Leica Barnack camera and what appears to be a 50 Elmar.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/ga...stanley-kubrick-early-photographs-of-new-york
https://www.boredpanda.com/vintage-...oogle&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic
When he was starting out to make 2001 A Space Odyssey on 70mm film, he had some opening shots in his head that he wanted to start the movie with, so he sent 3 teams of large format photographers to Africa for several weeks to shoot sunsets and sunrises. They went to different locations and shot them on color transparencies. Each day they got maybe 1 minute of shooting time. When they brought the developed slides to Kubrick, he had no way to project large format slides so he had to make a projector, including the huge condensers that sometimes got so hot they melted the slides.
Once he had that working, he had to find a way to project the landscapes in back of the actors, and none of the backdrops were able to reflect enough light for the camera. So he found some sort of space age mylar that was highly reflective and stretched that out for the 80 feet required for the background. The camera was now able to capture the projected images, but it also showed the seams where the long pieces of mylar were joined. This was resolved by having his crew tear the background into small irregular shapes and then glue it all back together. Now the camera lens didn't pick up the seams.
The whole movie was a series of new and difficult technical problems that Kubrick managed to successfully solve. 2001 is a masterpiece of film making (and yes, it moves very slowly, is often confusing and overly long, and it's a little boring at times. You can't have everything!).
In the second link, you see Kubrick capturing himself in the mirror taking the shot with a Leica Barnack camera and what appears to be a 50 Elmar.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/ga...stanley-kubrick-early-photographs-of-new-york
https://www.boredpanda.com/vintage-...oogle&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic
peterm1
Mentor
Funny you should say this but Wim Wenders went to Japan back in (I think) 1985 to make a documentary about Yasujirō Ozu - who I featured in my opening post. It was called "Tokyo Ga". I came across it when it was included as a bonus feature in the DVD I bought of "Tokyo Story.
It is a pretty safe bet that Wenders is a big time fan of Ozu. And no doubt sought to emulate him in some ways. (Though I am not myself particularly familiar with Wender's work......yet......I suppose its a new line of obsession for me......:^)
Incidentally I wonder how much Ozu was influenced by Zen. It certainly seems to reflect in his work. Also his gravestone in or near Tokyo does not even have his name on it. Just the character "Mu" - nothingness.
Steve M.
Mentor
Just Mu on the gravestone. I love it. That's about as Zen as it gets.
I also loved Jules Dassin's gorgeously shot Night and The City, a 1950 film noir with Richard Widmark in the starring role. Most of the movie was shot at night, and the cinematography is just something else. You can watch it for free on the link below, but it's worth the $2.99 to rent it on youtube because the picture quality is much better.
https://www2.putlockerr.is/11772-watch-night-and-the-city-1950-online-free-putlocker.html
I also loved Jules Dassin's gorgeously shot Night and The City, a 1950 film noir with Richard Widmark in the starring role. Most of the movie was shot at night, and the cinematography is just something else. You can watch it for free on the link below, but it's worth the $2.99 to rent it on youtube because the picture quality is much better.
https://www2.putlockerr.is/11772-watch-night-and-the-city-1950-online-free-putlocker.html
aizan
Mentor
Adding on to the previous recommendations of movies with little or no camera movements:
Tom DiCillo - Stranger than Paradise
Christian Berger - Cache
Roy Andersson's films
Tom DiCillo - Stranger than Paradise
Christian Berger - Cache
Roy Andersson's films