Movie Shot of the Week - Shutter Island (2010)

Nolan Versus Polanski in Shot Economy

Jim Emerson elaborates with screenshots on part of a post by AD Jameson about all the ways Inception could be criticized.

Jameson takes, as one example, the first scene of the movie:

1. slow motion pan of waves crashing against a rock
2. slow motion shot of waves
3. close-up of Cobb's face as he lies on the shore
4. point-of-view shot of a boy on the beach making a sandcastle
5. reverse shot of Cobb's face
6. pov shot of the boy and a girl making a sandcastle
7. reverse shot of Cobb's face
8. pov shot of the kids running out of frame
9. shot of a gun being pointed at Cobb's back
10. reverse shot of a guard standing over him, holding the gun
11. reverse shot of the gun pulling Cobb's shirt up, revealing his own gun
12. reverse shot of the guard calling to another guard
13. long shot of that other guard

...And then we cut inside. (Note the three shots of the kids. Again, Nolan's concern is that we not miss a thing.)

(...)

Thirteen shots is a lot of busyness in a scene that doesn't really need it. All Nolan needs to establish at the start of the film is that:
1. Cobb has washed up on a beach.
2. He thinks he sees his kids.
3. An armed guard discovers him.
4. The guard is going to take Cobb to a Japanese mansion also on the beach.

Now, contrast that with the final scene of The Ghost Writer, Roman Polanski's slightly underrated thriller from this past year.

Matt Zoeller Seitz over at Salon chose this scene as one of his top ten scenes of the year and praises it for its economy:

The subject matter of his (Polanski's) movies is often disturbing -- jealousy, insanity, conspiracy, the triumphs of chaos and evil -- but his style is usually conservative, with a touch of elegance. He doesn't cover action with two or three or 10 cameras to produce enough usable footage to create the illusion of comprehensiveness. Polanski more often tries to plan and shoot action from one, maybe two angles, and he doesn't cut to a new angle unless he can get a better result than by staying where he is.

This video that Seitz provides,demonstrates what Polanski accomplishes with only 4 shots. (WARNING HEAVY SPOILER ALERT! THIS IS THE LAST SCENE OF THE FILM)

Movie Posters - Holiday Edition - Holiday Affair

Wishing Stairs - Black Swan

Seeing the trailers for Black Swan reminded me the Korean horror film Wishing Stairs from a few years back. I think it's available on Netflix streaming right now. The movie has a long, atmospheric setup, and, in the tradition of many Asian horror films, gets a little confusing near the end, but it is not too bad for the genre.

The beginning of the trailer below will show you a few of the similarities. (In Wishing Stairs, Giselle is the central ballet.)

Movie Posters - Holiday Edition - Planes, Trains and Automobiles

These two comic icons were also great comic archetypes - as well as a American socio-economic types. The use of white space is just about perfect. Notice how Mr. Martin crowds slightly out of the border on the left side?

And the angle brings your eye down to the literal and symbolic baggage that Candy's character tugs along with him throughout the film.

Movie Shot of the Week - Oh, God! (1977)

How, in a comedy, do you make the physical entrance of God memorable? Set it in the bathroom, and use mirrors to multiply the anticipated effect of our first seeing the film's big star, George Burns.

There is post work in the shot, so it isn't really pure. The bottles on the sink to the left give it away.

Kairo - and The "Pulse" of Loneliness

I was reading Roger Ebert's recent entries on his blog. He talks about loneliness, and a little about its relationship to social media or the Web.

What do lonely people desire? Companionship. Love. Recognition. Entertainment. Camaraderie. Distraction.

Encouragement. Change. Feedback. Someone once said the fundamental reason we get married is because have a universal human need for a witness. All of these are possibilities. But what all lonely people share is a desire not to be -- or at least not to feel -- alone.

You are there in the interstices of the web. I sense you. I know some of you. I have read more than 78,000 comments on this blog, and many of them have been from you. I know two readers who if possible would never leave their homes. I know more who cannot easily leave, because of illness or responsibilities. I don't know of any agoraphobics, but there probably are some. Just because you're afraid to go outside doesn't mean you're happy being inside.

I couldn't help thinking of Japanese filmmaker Kiroyishi Kurosawa's 2001 ghost film Kairo. The film's title has been translated to "Pulse" and the movie was remade into a relatively respectful, but ultimately unremarkable American film of that title.

Kairo is a somewhat complex film and is a little difficult to get a handle on with a first viewing, and the pace is almost too slow. But there is an undeniable artistry in Kurosawa's vision of the near future. A short summary of the "plot" makes it sound ridiculous. It is not.

The main idea of the film is that ghosts have found a way to bridge into this world through the internet. Apparently heaven is full and the ghosts figure that if they can keep people from entering the equilibrium will maintain. How the ghosts achieve this is one of the film's unexplained mysteries, but essentially the ghosts' victims sort of fade away and become large black stains on the wall that eventually disappear.



While the encounters with the ghosts are chilling, I will always remember the small moments of the film where suddenly the camera angle switches to the POV of the victims, still conscious inside an isolated existence. All the noise on the soundtrack cuts out as we hear the pitiful pleas that will never be heard: "Help me. Help me. Help me."

As the movie continues, the city becomes desolate as the remaining characters ride empty subway cars and drive through empty streets where every darkened corner appears to spread slowly across the screen, threatening to engulf them. A hopelessness and dread is woven into every second and every shot. This journey through lonely Tokyo contains the film's only nod towards the conventions of the large-scale apocalyptic epic - a military cargo plane drifts overhead slowly, flying way too low, crashing somewhere over the horizon. And even this effect is somewhat muted and quiet.

Indeed, the overall effect throughout is that of the world slowly disappearing, giving itself over to the impending void while the survivors hang on to the last threads of human connection, however slight they may be.