Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography
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Movie Reviews of Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography
Movie Review: Unfocused
Summary: 3 Stars
Sometimes you want to like a film so much it takes you a while to realize that you're not having nearly the fun you'd anticipated. Such was the case with VISIONS OF LIGHT, a rather loose and rambling celebration of the art of cinematography.
The film's strengths - conversations with a number of modern, world class cinematographers. Beautiful clips from movies from the advent of motion pictures to the 1980s.
Its weaknesses - no coherent thread or linear narrative tracking the development of the art. The movie bounces around a bit too much for that, and all that jumping about makes things a little disorienting.
It's as if VISIONS OF LIGHT wanted to make the case that motion picture photography is important and something to be appreciated in and of itself. I'm already convinced of that, and was hoping to see a more structured piece investigating the hows and whys of the art.
For instance, one scene deals with a scene from IN COLD BLOOD, a film on which Conrad Hall was the director of photography. VISIONS runs a clip from that movie that features Robert Blake in a prison cell, talking to a priest. It's raining outside the window, and the shadows of the rain plays on the expressionless mask the Blake character wears while talking about his father. As Hall puts it, the shadow of the rain cries for the Blake character. The rain was a lucky accident which really adds depth to the character and the movie.
VISIONS OF LIGHT is filled with such scenes, and the film has an anecdotal allure that makes it enjoyable; if it had gone a little farther behind the camera it may have been remarkable.
Movie Review: Very inspiring but not instructional
Summary: 4 Stars
I loved this DVD, it shows you history and theory but it's not instructional, it doesn't talk about light set-ups or specific techniques. If your looking for an instructional video as i was look elsewhere, I still enjoyed it though and I'd still buy it.Movie Review: Study of lights and shadows is visually enlightening
Summary: 5 Stars
"Director of photography. The person in charge of lighting a set and photographing a film. Also known as 'first cameraman,' 'lighting cameraman,' or 'cinematographer,' he is responsible for transforming the screenwriter's and director's concepts into real visual images." From Ephraim Katz's Film Encyclopedia.This collection of film clips and interviews with various DPs (director of photography) and camera operators such as Allen Daviau, William A. Frakeman, Haskell Wexler, and Nestor Almendros reveals their influences, the period during which they worked, what techniques were evolving, and anecdotes. Clips from about two hundred or so films are examined.
Yes, as Ernest Dickerson says, cinematography's the way one responds to light. Initially, there was just a director and cameraman, the director in charge of the actors, the cameraman in charge of everything else. And the stationary cameras didn't give them much to do, but of course that changed over time with the camera dollies and booms, and later, handheld cameras, made more effective by Steadicams, whose inventors won a special Oscar in 1977 in the technical field. But camera movement gave the DP greater ability to achieve his visual triumphs.
Other than the Katz quote, DPs were to tell the story visually and to make actors and actresses more handsome and prettier but to enhance special features. Actresses like Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo required special attention, but boy, did they sparkle! Dietrich's cheeks were made narrower with the lighting used in Shanghai Express. And small wonder Harold Rosson made Jean Harlow prettier in Red Dust--he even married her (lucky guy!) after her husband Paul Bern committed suicide.
This takes a chronological history of lighting, from the silent era up to the late 1980's, and puts it in context with the history of film. For example, the role of cinematography changed with the advent of sound. According to cinematographer John Bailey, the 1920's were the golden age of cinematography because at the time, the camera was unencumbered by sound and all devices accompanying verbal dialogue storytelling. And when anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen came to be used, DPs had to find some way to use that extra space on either side, as they did with Lawrence Of Arabia, like the scene of Lawrence, having rescued Qaseem, who is greeted by one of the boys, riding towards him. And with the gradual independence from the studio system, previous errors such as flaring lenses were deliberately used as new techniques.
My favourite era is the film noir era, which borrowed from the German Expressionism of the 1920's. Sparse lighting, slashes of light, dark shadows, dense rarified vocabulary of visual information, low angles define the characteristics of such films as The Killers, Out Of The Past, and Touch Of Evil. It's stark black and wide, hardly any greys.
But other uses of dark or darkly lit techniques were shown with the candlelit sequence in Grapes of Wrath, a clip from Fat City, and the accurate capture of period dramas, where there was no electricity and so thus families relied on light from windows.
As for best uses of technique, the pure visual accident in In Cold Blood, where Robert Blake's character is speaking to the chaplain about his father, and the light reflecting off the pouring rain on the window shone on Blake's face, making it look as if he were crying.
This collaboration between the American Film Institute and Japan's NHK Television is ideally for film students/buffs and for moviegoers of a more intelligent and inquisitive calibre, which I hope will comprise of enough people.
Movie Review: Amazing!
Summary: 5 Stars
My instructor showed my class this movie about an hour ago, it was terrific, I love how movies work even more than I did before I watched it........... if that's possible. I hope to someday be luckey enough to join this field of work.Movie Review: Eyes Wide Open
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great documentary.Across the course of the film, you may have your eyes opened as if for the first time: it comprises clips and interviews about the history of cinematography, or indeed the whole look and language of film.
While many of the clips show well-known moments in film, their compilation in this way offers one fresh and striking visual after another. The revelation is the strength of early and rarely-seen films, and the assertion that had sound films been invented a decade later, the visual language of film would have developed and intensified still further. As it is, the images are just ravishing, and it's really rather moving to watch.
This is a warm and thought-provoking look at cinematography, and is highly recommended. The only reservation is the mono sound on the DVD, but it's a small sacrifice when the visuals hold pride of place.
Be prepared -- you'll want to revisit many classics after this!