Hit Me With Your Best Shot: 'The Conversation'

by Nathaniel R

a wonderful 'establishing shot' not of a building but of a man (Gene Hackman), his targets (in photographs), and the tools of his trade.

Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974)  is nothing if not elusive. So many of the images in this paranoid mystery are obstructed. Coppola and the cinematographer Bill Butler are continually adjusting focus and searching for the subject and his targets. The protagonist, an 'unreliable narrator' type albeit without the narration, is Harry Caul (Gene Hackman, brilliant) and he's often hiding in the corner of frames, or with his back turned to us. The film begins with a full circle, as Harry is spying on a man and a woman as they walk around a city park. For what reason we do not yet know and might never know. Though we see his targets frequently, there are constant visual interruptions from trees and people and their own movements. We understand this to be Harry's view, figuratively if not literally, since people can't move like a crane shot or zoom in for a closeup...

Click to read more ...

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: All That Heaven Allows (1955)

by Nathaniel R

Cary: I suppose these old beams are rotted.
Ron: No they're oak. They're good for another 100 years

Do any of you remember that short burst of retro Douglas Sirk-enthusiasm in 2002? Todd Haynes, Pedro Almodóvar and François Ozon (all of whom cite Sirk as an influence) all had new very stylized films out, and the lost art of melodrama was suddenly in the air and being discussed. Sirk was briefly exalted (especially in Haynes' Far From Heaven, a direct homage to All That Heaven Allows our topic today). Those were good times. It should happen every few years, trotting Sirk back out again, to marvel at his gifts.

Realism has not always been the most prized end-game of art, but for most of our lives the consensus, from critics audiences and awards bodies has wildly favoured it. Give us something real and gritty! Melodrama, then, is a hard ask for many moviegoers though we've never understood why...

Click to read more ...

Interview: Edu Grau on "Passing", queer cinema, and first time filmmakers

by Nathaniel R

Black and white photography has been the hot trend this past year. Despite that, the incredibly specific and resonant visuals of Passing have been underdiscussed.  Some of that we attribute to the quiet nature of the film itself; the watchful, perpetually anxious drama focuses on Irene (a splendid Tessa Thomson) a woman in 1920s Harlem who is shocked to discover that her childhood friend Clare (brilliant Ruth Negga) is living as a white woman, and not just "passing" but boastful about her subterfuge and marriage to a proud racist (Alexander Skarsgård).

We were thrilled to meet with the cinematographer Edu Grau to discuss his fascinating movie. We broke the ice talking about his changing name in film credits. With a self-deprecating laugh he explained that he went by Eduardo at the beginnign of his career because it sounded more serious but changed his mind. "Only the police use Eduardo," he says laughing "Everyone calls me Edu". There are a lot of Edwards and Eduardos in America, he adds, reasoning "Edu is more special!" The Film Experience agrees and suggests that people should commit the name to memory...

Click to read more ...

ASC and CAS nominations: 'Dune' & 'Power of the Dog' make both lists

by Nathaniel R

The American Society of Cinematographers and the Cinema Audio Society have released their nominations for outstanding work in film and television last year. As with the Art Directors yesterday, there are surprise omissions of notable contenders. West Side Story, for example, is not nominated for cinematography while another musical tick, tick...BOOM! misses with the sound guild. It's all leading up to an Oscar nomination morning that could be volatile.  The full list of nominations with notes after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Chart Updates: Film Editing, Production Design, Cinematography!

by Nathaniel R

All of the Visual categories in the Oscar charts have now been updated save Costume Design which we tend to give its own articles -- playing favourites, sorry! But looking over the charts and the possibilities, it does beg the question: are Dune and West Side Story just going to be nominated in every category? And will any other films core as many nominations?  The year isn't short on films that are visually remarkable of course. There's Power of the Dog, Nightmare Alley, Tragedy of Macbeth, The French Dispatch, The Green Knight, Passing, and more.

But the question is always what are voters actually watching and what are they liking? Being remarkable only gets you so far...

Click to read more ...