Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Rest assured that it is not for sheer laziness that my selection for the best shot of Michel Gondry's indelible masterpiece, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, is the film's most famous one. So memorable was this frame that the distributors recognized its brilliance early on and used it as the film's poster. In the years since, it has become one of the most iconic images in film history; but familiarity isn't the only reason I cherish this moment most. Frequently, and paradoxically, the mark of a great film, or a personal favorite, is how much of it I don't remember, not how much I do. Perhaps it is because of the ability to surprise, to create the same genuine sense of wonder that I experience the first time I encounter these films on the screen.

Eternal Sunshine, in its entirety, and this shot specifically, exhibit that quality. They reveal whole new facets and redefine themselves in ways we never thought of before. The experience of watching the film isn't wholly dissimilar to that of Joel as he walks back and forth on a street that disappears on him bit by bit, plunging his memory into darkness. In the end, he and Clementine choose to rebuild the memories and rediscover the spark of the past; and so do I, with a film I have seen countless times, only to let it take over me, fill me with joy, bring me to tears and enchant me all over again.

When the shot above arrived, I was baffled to notice that I had completely forgotten about the cracks on the ice. How delicate and meaningful a touch! And yet, all I remembered was the two lovers wistfully staring at the stars. It is really that fracture though that instills this shot with so much emotion. Is it a sign that the foundation on which their love rests is beginning to crumble? Knowing what we know by the story's end, does its placement signify their past relationship or the future one? Is it a symbol of their doubts as they begin a new chapter or is it an indication to the audience, unbeknownst to them, that things will fall apart again? Did Joel and Clementine know that it was so close to them? Or is the fracture just their broken hearts materialized in physical form? Is it any surprise that a film filled to the brim with magical moments such as this continues to enthrall?


*Other entries for this episode of Hit Me With Your Best Shot can be found here.

Dead Ringers

*This post is part of the Hit Me With Your Best Shot series by Nathaniel at The Film Experience, and contains spoilers regarding the plot of David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers. 

One of the things that has always struck me upon repeated screenings of Dead Ringers - my favorite David Cronenberg film, which isn't saying as much as you'd think, since I generally don't obsess over the Canadian auteur's work like most other cinephiles - is how much mileage it gets out of its seemingly innocuous moments in creating suspense. The horror is in the moments that portend something horrific happening, or that imply a horrific thing has already happened, rather than showing us what actually happens.

This structure owes much to the perfectly cast Jeremy Irons, whose icy visage withholds emotions from the audience despite two superb, layered performances as the twin gynecologists. Irons opens himself up, breaks himself apart, moulds it all back together, and yet, there's always a certain distance. He is the core of the film's eerie atmosphere at all times by remaining impenetrable and emotionally unpredictable, as if no amount of crying with a broken heart can convince us that he's human until we see him bleed. And even then, one wonders whether he has become any more accessible or is really just a mutant man being operated on by instruments for mutant women.

This bleeding is central to my favorite shot of the film, but before I get to that, I shall take a moment to highlight the most iconic shot in Dead Ringers - the shot above - which is truly a stroke of compositional genius. In this scene, Beverly, one of the two doctors, is about to perform surgery on a patient. The procedure almost marks his last medical practice and his ominous pose and the crimson splash certainly foreshadow a gory end to his story; but what Cronenberg does here is to take body horror and turn it on its head. Bodies are the source of our uneasiness but it is not their presence, not their physical limits, but their absence and their nebulous outlines caused by intertwined superimposition.We are not scared because harm is being done to the bodies; we are scared precisely because these bodies seems to float in the ether beyond the limits of their skin, beyond our understanding of them.

Favourite shot

My favorite shot of the film also has the same poignancy in the way it induces fear in the audience. In this case, Cronenberg has built suspense up to this moment, effectively making it clear that the life of at least one of the brothers will end here or that something much more grotesque than death is at store, given the presence of the monstrous, self-designed medical instruments in the vicinity. Yet, when the critical moment arrives, what we see is a shot of Elliot's arm resting calmly on the patient's couch. All the density of the moment is then depleted through a stream of blood that starts to run from under Elliot's body, indicating that whatever grandiose display of surgical brutality we had braced ourselves for has come and gone with a fizz, not a bang. Few films have captured violence with as much elegance as Dead Ringers does and these final moments of Elliot's life encapsulate the formal restraint with which Cronenberg achieves such poise.

Best Shot: The Talented Mr. Ripley

For personal reasons, by which I mean starting a new job this week and a few family commitments, I've had the craziest time imaginable and haven't really had the chance to watch/write anything these past few days. However, I surprised myself by managing to squeeze in a screening of The Talented Mr. Ripley last night so I feel that, despite not having enough time to write a proper article, I should still go ahead and post my favorite shot because...well, I've chosen one, so why not?

The above shot is of Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law) playing his instrument by the window of a room in his villa in Italy - what a coincidence, by the way, that we're following up another 'American in Italy' film with this one for the series. The reason I'm choosing this shot - one of many candidates but a clear favorite for me - is two-fold. For one thing, the composition is absolutely beautiful and it fits in nicely with the rest of The Talented Mr. Ripley in producing a subdued, gentle imagery of Italy's beautiful architecture and the interiors of Dickie's villa. Minghella avoids almost every opportunity to magnify the scenery or the opulence of Dickie's possessions. The visual focus of his camera is always the characters and their human interactions. (Think of how he manages to juxtapose objects with people in ways that connects them together thematically, most obviously in the sequence of Miles' murder with the bleeding statue of a male head.)

More importantly, however, this is my favorite shot because it captures the essence of Dickie's character in a single frame. Cast in this silhouette, Dickie is at his most mysterious, hiding secrets and charming at once. With the golden shine of his instrument and the golden flow of his hair, Dickie's image is as enigmatic and alluring as it is cryptic. The shadow tells us nothing about him, while telling us so much at the same time: his elegance, his casual handsomeness, his love of jazz, his cool demeanor. After his death, when his persona is inhabited by Tom, he becomes an increasingly illusory figure for the audience. The boundaries between Dickie and Tom's impression of Dickie get murkier and we become disillusioned with all our knowledge of him; and the more unattainable he becomes, the easier it is for me to recognize that this one splendid mirage represents Dickie in ways a thousands words could not.

Best Shot: Summertime

When I watched David Lean’s Summertime for the first time last night to prepare for this post, I had a feeling it was the worst film Nathaniel had picked for this series over the years. To be fair, the standard of films we've watched so far is so high that “worst” doesn't necessarily entail a bad film, per se, but Summertime was just not my cup of tea. So I started writing my article about the film and its best shot, which opened with the following paragraph:

Maybe I’m jealous of Katherine Hepburn for spending her summer in Venice when I have to be in Toronto. Maybe I’m not the target demographic of this film. Maybe I’m not in the mood for summer yet even though it’s sunny and bright and beautiful outside. Maybe it’s because it’s sunny and bright and beautiful that I don’t like to be sitting inside watching a tepid romantic drama with little substance beneath a splendid façade. Or, most likely, I had sky-high expectations of a David Lean film because of the man’s otherwise stellar filmography.

You can see where I was going with that. Now, that’s not to say the film is entirely without its pleasures. For one thing, its absolutely picturesque photography makes it a perfect candidate for a series like this. The entire film reminded me of the opening scene of Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, where postcard-perfect pictures of Paris are shown back to back. Substitute Paris with Venice and extend the sequence to a feature-length film and you have the cinematography of Summertime. There are moments of great chemistry between Katherine Hepburn and Rossano Brazzi that play beautifully into the film as well. But overall, this film can’t touch the best work of either Hepburn or Lean’s career with a ten foot pole.

So I woke up in the morning, went to work and came back home to edit my post and lo and behold, I felt like discarding the whole thing. Having slept on the film and spent some time with it in the back of my head – because let’s be honest, we all think about films even when we're at work – I like it a lot more than I did this time last night. Not that I think its skin-deep treatment of middle-aged romance is any more substantial than it was last night or that its depiction of Venice as the backdrop for this story amounts to anything more than an excuse for culturally stereotyping, Euro-themed banter and a sightseeing tour. (For a much superior example of both middle-aged romance and geography as thematic centerpiece, refer to Abbas Kiarostami’s Italy-set Certified Copy.) I still maintain that the film suffers deeply from those issues but, in retrospect, I enjoyed it quite a bit too. Maybe it’s a film I’ll remember more fondly than I thought I would as I was watching it. Maybe under different conditions, I’ll give it another try and examine it in more detail.

Anyway, my about face on the film didn't affect my choice for its best shot, which comes really early in the film and has very little significance in the narrative. But, as some of the older readers may remember, I’m an architecture enthusiast and if the film is so intent on showing off Venice’s unique, exemplary architectural sphere, the only logical choice for me is to take advantage of that.

When Katherine Hepburn’s Jane Hudson arrives in Venice, having notified us earlier that the city is completely unfamiliar turf to her, she seems overwhelmed by the city, its inhabitants and its structural pizzazz. Once she gets off her “bus” and finds a guide to the hotel, we see her walk into a seemingly narrow alley following her guide. She looks upward with a look of bewildered admiration in her eyes while her helper remains nonchalantly unmoved. It’s a moment that completely captures my own sensations of every instance where I encountered new architectural types on trips, and the reaction of blasé locals to my excitement is always identical to the Italian man in this scene.

After we see shadows overtaking Hepburn's figure completely, the scene cuts to her perspective and we see for the first time what she’s looking at: an incredibly long strip of buildings on either side of this narrow walkway that seem to be closing in on her, and us. The shot lasts 13 seconds as the camera moves forward and the alley only seems to get narrower and narrower between these intricately designed buildings and their delicate decorations. The reverse shot then shows Hepburn again, this time her wonderment justified for the audience. Needless to say, the guide remains unenthusiastic. Whereas the rest of Summertime highlights Venice’s architecture with grandiose palettes, beautiful long shots and open spaces, the underplayed beauty of this sequence captures a more grounded element of Venetian architecture but an integral one. It's a rich thematic introduction to Hepburn's ensuing loneliness in the city as well. She's intimated and overtaken, as if she would remain in captivity if she doesn't find what she's really there to find.

Best Shot: Double Indemnity

This week's episode of Hit Me With Your Best Shot is on one of my favorite films of all time, the Barbara Stanwyck-starring Double Indemnity. As you already know, I'm very busy with the Hot Docs festival these days, so I haven't had time to rewatch this film. If I did, I'd probably choose something with Stanwyck in it - most likely that glorious shot of her walking down the stairs - but for now, I'll stick to an image I'd posted here before, because... drive thru beer people! Drive thru beer!

A Star Is Born

*This post is part of Nathaniel's Hit Me With Your Best Shot series.

Generally speaking, I have a very weak memory of films. Even the films I love most and have watched repeatedly over time aren't ingrained in my memory with vivid detail. My recollections are limited to an assortment of shots, scenes, lines and moods. I remember how I felt watching a particular film, but ask me the details of its plot and I'll just stare back at you. In many ways, I see that as a blessing because it allows me to rediscover precious moments over and over again. I remain in awe of a film's achievements like the very first time I experienced them. The point being that I've almost never known what shot I wanted to pick as my favorite before I revisit the film Nathaniel assigns us. There are, however, exceptions to every rule and George Cukor's A Star Is Born proved to be just that.

I remembered four particular moments most vividly: the resplendent silhouette of Esther and Norman's first kiss after their secret marriage, against a backdrop of a Green neon-lit doorway (and reminiscent of that famous Green silhouette in Hitchcock's Vertigo produced four years later), Norman's portentous walk toward the sea against the orange hue of Sunset, Esther's heartbreaking public appearance after the passing of her husband (where her "I'm Mrs. Norman Maine" brings tears to my eyes every time), and the shot you see above.

In this early sequence, Esther, having saved Norman's grace with her astute theatricality on stage earlier, has retired to a worn out bar with her band for an after hours practice session. Norman, who's sobered up after his drunken public faux-pas, has been searching to find the unknown young actress who came to his rescue and he arrives at this location just as Esther is about to start her now famous rendition of The Man That Got Away. With her arresting voice, she mesmerizes Norman and the audience, alike, and when the song ends, Norman takes her for a ride that essentially begins the film's narrative.

Cukor frames Judy Garland as if she is at the center of a painting. She's under a spotlight where everyone else is faded to black.The lighting is at her service and so is the band. She seems to big to be contained in the frame. This one shot effectively encapsulates the entire progression of her rise to stardom, as if to reaffirm what being a star really means: the venues might be small but a star's light shines bright. The persona - Garland's and Esther's - is larger than life and here, that fact is materialized in image. A star is born, indeed.

Death to the Eagleman

*This post is part of Nathaniel's Hit Me With Your Best Shot series.

For the first time in the series, we're choosing favorite shots from short films; two short films, to be precise. I've seen one of them, The Eagleman Stag, countless number of times and the other, Death to the Tin Man, was new to me.

The strange thing about the endlessly fascinating, marvelously rich Stag is that multiple previous screenings didn't help one bit when it came to choosing a single favorite shot. Michael Please's curio is realized with such panache, with such innovative technique that every frame in its short running time packs an incredible amount of detail within its very, very simple construct. Though labeling it 'simple' rather downplays the beautiful achievement of this meticulously crafted film. (Just take a look at this must-watch making of video to see how the "mysterious white material from the back of the cushion" becomes the core of this elaborate design).

Usually the shot that I choose is one that thematically summarizes the film; or one that resonates with me emotionally; or one that is, for aesthetic or thematic reasons, the shot that I remember from the film most vividly. That approach fails me here, because The Eagleman Stag really has no fat to trim; and from start to finish, it maintains its mysterious splendor. So, for no other reason than its enigmatic beauty and its visualization of the film's title, I've opted for this image of Peter, the film's hero(?), as he momentarily begins to transform into a stag. It occurs during a sequence in which Peter's life, or a hallucinated version of it, flashes before his eyes as he lies on his deathbed. The insects he performed his scientific experiments on take over his memories as he shrinks to their size. In this particular shot, which lasts about 2 seconds, he literally becomes the eagleman stag.

In Death to the Tinman, Ray Tintori's sweet and bizarre romantic comedy, Bill, the protagonist, loses his body parts to a curse and multiple accidents. His best friend, Paul, a "disgraced engineer" who is unusually older than Bill for a best friend, redesigns every bit that he loses and produces them from tin. Bill, eventually made up completely of tin, with only his heart and eyes intact, loses Jane, the love of his life, to the meat puppet, a reincarnation of his own body - without the eyes and the heart, of course. To win Jane back, Bill becomes a revolutionary who steals from the rich and gives to the poor, redistributing the wealth as Jane had taught him from one of her university books.

It's a strange concept, but interestingly enough, the film comes off as anything but concept-y. There is a human truth to its almost one-note, simplistic exploration of love that fits well within its stripped-down aesthetics. And there are more laugh-out-loud moments in its 12 minute run time than the average Hollywood comedy playing at your local multiplex. In the lead-up to the shot above, Bill has run across town, wreaking havoc on the properties of the rich before coming to Jane's window to boast about his revolutionary heroics. Jane, who is visible from the window as she's talking to the meat puppet, rejects his advances and shuts the window. Tinman feels dejected but a fellow activist puts a hand on his shoulder and utters the hilarious words "the revolution needs you." For some reason, this one-liner made me laugh really hard and sometimes sheer comic value is enough to make a shot resonate more than anything else.

Jackie Badass

*This post is part of Nathaniel's Hit Me With Your Best Shot series.

“Wow, you look really cool. It looks great. You wear that suit in a business meeting, and you’ll be the badass in the room.”

Indeed she is.

Jackie Brown, my favorite film in Tarantino’s oeuvre, has an understated visual quality; as if it romanticizes violence where his other works fetishize it. The relatively modest aesthetic means that unlike his other films, there are no particular shots or scenes that have entered the collective psyche. Sure, there are memorable moments like the sight of Jackie sliding across the blue-tiled wall in her blue suit, or Melanie touching the rim of Louis' glass with her toes. But they're not immediate standouts in the way Vincent and Mia's dance sequence is in Pulp Fiction, or The Bride wiggling her big toe and fighting the crazy 88 is in Kill Bill, or Aldo Raine pretending to be Gorlomi is in Inglourious Basterds, or... you get the idea.

The standout in Jackie Brown is not a scene or a shot. It's Jackie. She rules the film. Her presence is felt even when she's not on screen, which is unique for a director who's always the star of the show in all his films. But Tarantino knows that this one is the perfect marriage between artist and the material; and the artist here is Pam Grier. There's so much of her history and older pictures in this that it's unbelievable the final product still comes out a wholly original piece of its own.

So it was that every shot I shortlisted for this post featured Pam Grier, and immediately after I settled on this one, it hit me that there really wasn't anything else I could go for. It culminates everything I like about Jackie Brown. The lighting showcases the understated aesthetic Tarantino employs throughout the film and that image of Grier, coolly smoking her cigarette, brings back the memory of the salesgirl's comment on her suit earlier in the store. She's boiling on the inside. She's run through her lines, her every move, countless times to perfect it. But no one else will know it. The only thing they see is the badass in the room.

Forbidden Games, Forbidden Tears

*This post is part of Nathaniel's Hit Me With Your Best Shot Series.

In an attempt to finish this post in time for this week's Best Shot episode, I really had to rush the write-up, which is unfortunate, because Rene Clement's hard-hitting masterpiece deserves much, much more attention. I hadn't seen this rarely discussed, early winner of the best foreign language film Oscar since my francophone grandpa showed it to me as a kid. I remembered next to nothing about it and I was so immersed that for long stretches of its run time I completely forgot I was watching it to pick a favorite shot. It washed over me and touched me in a way few films have ever done; and though I tried my very best to hold it in me for fear of embarrassing myself in public - I was watching the film in the quietude of University of Toronto's library, where I'd borrowed the DVD - that exquisite final shot of Brigitte Fossey finally brought me down to tears.

Forbidden Games isn't necessarily a film that strikes the viewer as a visual triumph. Although there are frame-worthy moments in its low key lit, chiaroscuro compositions, its charms are not quite the product of decorated designs or cinematographic tricks, but of the fragile, often intangible, beauty of human interaction. Clement's story delicately shows the best and worst in all of us and the shots that subtly imply truths in those moments are the best in the film: that of an abusive father versus the innocence of children's affections for one another, the secret, passionate love affair between neighboring youngsters versus their parents' equally impassioned, tribal disdain for each other, the horrors of war versus the tenderness of motherly care.

In the end, my favorite shot in the film came down to two options. First was the aforementioned final shot of the film, but that's almost too perfect, too obvious a choice. So I'm settling for one of the moments that really struck out to me early in the film. Paulette, the film's young heroine, has just lost both her parents to an air strike by German forces. She's carrying her wounded dog with her when she's found by a fleeing woman whose overloaded carriage can barely fit an extra person on. She looks at the little girl's dog, noticing that he has already died and asks Paulette to toss it away before getting on. Paulette, who still hasn't quite grasped the gravity of her parents' death, looks at the woman in utter disbelief, then looks back at the immobile dog and asks "He's dead?" Seconds later, the old woman takes the dog out of her hands and throws it over the bridge into the running river; it's almost as if she's been stripped completely of her sense of compassion by the brutality of war. It's a shot that encapsulates, in one brief moment, the extent of all the little girl's troubles to come.

Paulette is taken aback, enough to jump off the carriage and follow her dog along the river - and start the film's narrative in the process - but she's still almost too distraught to actually feel emotions. Fossey maintains that sort of ambiguous, on-edge expressiveness throughout the film. Her performance miraculously manages to walk the fine line - or rather, create a fine line - between childish, carefree bliss and grave grief, as if she's young enough to forget her pains quickly but also old enough to rationally comprehend death and be cerebral about it.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Barbarella

*This post is part of Nathaniel's Hit Me With Your Best Shot series.

A few years ago, when I was still in university, I took this course called ‘Cinema and Sensation: Sex’ with Professor Bart Testa. I think it was in the opening lecture that we watched Roger Vadim’s first film And God Created Woman starring former sex symbol, current hateful racist Brigitte Bardot. It was a safe choice to reassure the students – at least the straight male students - who had opted for the sex course over the action and horror equivalents in the ‘Sensation Series’ that they'd made the right decision. Bardot essentially rose to the heavenly skies of stardom and sex kitten-ness with the opening frame of Vadim's film; and a shot that iconic, that swelteringly sexy, is a fantastic way to start a class.

Brigitte Bardot in And God Created Woman

It was also a great way to start visiting the career of a man whose filmography doesn’t quite receive – nor does it exactly deserve – as much credit as the other directors of nouvelle vague, but was nevertheless immensely influential. Vadim spearheaded a revolutionary movement in the embodiment of sensuality in cinema. His vision chaperoned many artistic and many, many more pseudo-artistic sexual films that Europe produced regularly in the two or three decades that succeeded And God Created Woman. (See: Radley Metzger) But his finest hour remains his very first film in my opinion.

Fast forward twelve years and there's Barbarella, a film that is, despite more than a few similarities, almost exactly what Woman isn't. For all the taboos that Bardot's vehicle exposed, there remained something innocently subtle about it. Its sensuality was as much a product of the heated locale it took place in and the repressed sexuality of its inhabitants as it was of Bardot's lush nude shots and uninhibited demeanor. Barbarella has none of that. It's garish and over-designed and shrill. I've never liked it much, to be honest. This type of campy science fiction cult film has never been my cup of tea and Barbarella is a particularly silly one.

Last night's screening was the fourth time I've watched this film; a fact not born of any affection for the film itself but of watching Jane Fonda, one of cinema’s greatest beauties, rolling around scantily clad on furry rugs or sweatily out-orgasming the Excessive Machine – a scene arguably more exciting than anything the porn industry has produced in the past three decades. You'd have to be insane not to want to revisit that. My favorite shot, however, is something less overtly sexy, but it's the one that pops up in my head as soon as I think of the film.

Barbarella, upon crashing on planet Tau Ceti, is found by murderous children who trap her using carnivorous dolls. She is rescued by a Catchman who saves her life and asks her to make love to him in return. Barbarella explains that people on Earth haven't had intercourse for centuries, instead using some unbelievably dull pill-induced palm on palm action for pleasure, but she gives in and goes to bed. The intercourse is not shown so the scene cuts away to Jane Fonda humming in sheer bliss as she lies in the Catchman's vessel as he offers her some of his fur for clothing. The next shot, filmed from outside the vessel, shows Fonda's nude figure blurred by the vessel's opaque nylon walls. It's almost a mirror image of Bardot's aforementioned introduction in Woman and it goes against all the oversexed imagery of planet Tau Ceti. It's delicately suggestive and juxtaposed to the rest of the film, it's particularly memorable for being unlike any image that comes before or after it.

Hit Me With Your Best Oz

Hit Me With Your Best Shot, Nathaniel's magnificent weekly blog-a-thon is back over at The Film Experience. If you're reading this but not participating, I'd take a moment to persuade you to do otherwise. More is always merrier when it comes to projects like these and this one in particular is always full of goodies. Join in the fun!

Season Four starts with Victor Fleming's timeless classic, The Wizard of Oz, which provides an abundance of options partly because of subtly shifting undercurrents in the way its photography highlights characters, but chiefly because of the fantastical beauty that Dorothy and Toto encounter in Munchkinland and Oz. I could have gone for any of the sequences in Oz's castle and I hesitated on the sepia-tinged sequence where Dorothy's Kansas home twists and turns up in the air as the tornado takes her to Munchkinland too, but in the end I settled for the shot that almost immediately succeeds it.

When her house lands on the ground, Dorothy, naturally confused as to where she can find her family, gets up from her bed and opens the door to encounter a psychedelically technicolor-ed garden of magical plants and buildings. The color vs. sepia boundary is obviously non-diegetic and meant to emphasize Dorothy's distance from home, but Judy Garland's childlike wonderment at her surroundings makes the audience second guess whether she didn't actually live in a mysteriously sepia Kansas.

The camera shows us Munchkinland from Dorothy's perspective - over her shoulder, to be precise - but then it cranes upward and right as it gradually reveals more of what had Dorothy starry-eyed in wonder: a collection of pint-sized houses draped in flowers, with an ethereal river running under a bridge and the famous spiraling yellow brick road right at the center. The camera turns completely to come back to Dorothy's face as she takes in the scenery. It's a setting that looks oddly, and deliberately, synthetic; grandiose, but paradoxically small. But these curiosities only make Munckinland look more magical. We, the audience, look at it with the same sense of awe that Garland does.

"Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

Hit me with a dream role: Buster Keaton in Sherlock, Jr.

When Nathaniel assigned us Sherlock, Jr. for this week’s edition of Hit Me with Your Best Shot, the first thought I had before rewatching the film was that my favourite shot would end up being one with Buster Keaton’s face front and center. For, with the sole exception of Maria Falconetti, Keaton is the only actor whose face always registers with the exact same impression in my mind upon hearing his name: the perfect contours of his brows and lips, the expressionless stare that conveys ennui, resignation, innocence and hope despite itself. 

It was a surprise, then, to find an entirely different shot lingering with me after watching the film last night. In the film's dream sequence of sorts – which lasts for more than half the film's duration – Keaton, who plays a theatre projectionist and an aspiring detective, enters the world of the film he’s projecting, replaces the characters with those from his own life, and materializes his ideals by becoming the world’s greatest detective Sherlock, Jr. 

In the opening of this part of the film, the projectionist has an out of body experience as he falls asleep and enters his dream. And I think this long take speaks to the powers of Keaton both as a great director and a superb actor. While his framing sits us with the audience in the theatre and Keaton himself up there by the screen, his comic physicality dominates the entire sequence. Like the projectionist, we’re in awe of the magic of the cinema as we watch a story unravel on the big screen. Like him, we’ve all wanted be the hero of our own film. We’ve replaced a character with ourselves and lived their lives, or projected our ideals onto an imaginary story. Here, while Keaton the director makes us long for our part in the film, Keaton the actor does what he does best. This is him at the peak of his slapstick powers, running and chasing and falling with his clumsy gestures and naiveté, going after his dream girl and making us laugh along the way. 

 

Food Dreamin'

*This post is part of Nathaniel's Hit Me With Your Best Shot series. 

To be perfectly honest, How to Marry a Millionaire doesn’t really go to the top of the list of films I’ve watched for this series. It’s because of its stars - particularly Monroe who’s as charming, sexy, and funny as she’s ever been - that the film is worth watching at all today. 

Visually, the film is a bit of mixed bag with gorgeous mise-en-scene that doesn’t quite come off right. It seems specially unfair to criticise a film that pioneered a new era in cinematography in its own way, but what we see on the screen is, inevitably, more of an early experiment than a satisfying showcase. 

Thematically, too, the film doesn’t resonate so much with a 21^st century audience; its premise and its jokes feel equally outdated. I'm not saying there isn't enough to make it worthwhile, just that Nathaniel has really set the bar high with his choices recently.

When it came to choosing my favourite shot, I found myself undecided between two options. The first was to pick from a couple of scenes that highlight the costumes – one of the film’s strong suits.* The second was going for a silly laugh and this is the one I opted for.

Early in the film, when the three leading ladies have just met their potential husbands, each of them dreams in her sleep about the luxury that marriage can bring to her life. Schatze (Bacall) imagines the man’s oil refineries and cattle farms and all the jewelry she can buy.  Pola (Monroe) sees herself flying a golden plane and receiving exotic gifts from Arabia. Loco (Grable) sees this.

Silly, really, but this is the shot that made me laugh the loudest. It’s what we watch comedies for, right? Plus, that meal does look pretty damn delicious.

* Tim has selected one of those shots for his post. That his choice is also one of my favourites is par for the course.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: The Royal Tenenbaums

*This post is part of Nathaniel’s Hit Me With Your Best Shot Series at The Film Experience and contains SPOILERS.

One of the things I really appreciate about Wes Anderson’s films is their distinctive visual identity. I admit upfront that I’m not his biggest fan; I’ve always found his work to lack an emotional punch, though his last two films – Fantastic Mr. Fox and Moonrise Kingdom – have shown significant improvement in that department. But irrespective of what one thinks of his films, I’d argue that all it takes is looking at a single frame from any of them to recognize the man behind the camera. With dioramic settings, flattened central compositions, costumes perfectly coordinated with the decoration and brightly saturated colours, Anderson has created an aesthetic character for his work that belongs only to him.

The Royal Tenenbaums, one of Anderson’s stronger films, is filled with such delicious images. I could have chosen any of the shots featuring the identically clothed Ari and Uzi for their sheer comic value, or any of the ones featuring a desolate Gwyneth Paltrow with a cigarette in her hand. In the end, the shot I found myself drawn to the most was the one that moved me the most.

Richie (Luke Wilson), former tennis professional who’s heartbroken ever since his adopted sister and love interest married another man, enters the bathroom. He stands in front of the mirror and cuts, first, his long hair, then his beard, and then his wrists. Though Wilson’s dialogue portends what’s about to happen, the outcome still comes as a shock both because of its graphic nature and because in a film with generally manufactured emotions, it feels uncharacteristically, intensely real.

Road to Perdition's Best (Gun)Shot

*This post is part of Nathaniel’s Hit Me with YourBest Shot series and contains GRAPHIC IMAGES.

I’ve always thought Sam Mendes’ second feature doesn’t get as much credit as it deserves. There is so much to admire, from performances that transcend the characters they inhabit to a story that, while never fully exploring its potential, manages to dig deeper than the machinations of the crimes at its centre. But among all the film’s powers, legendary cinematographer Conrad Hall’s Oscar-winning work takes the cake. 

Choosing a favourite shot from such an abundance of options isn’t easy. Hall’s somberly lit atmosphere captures the era beautifully. His lens gives a poetic quality, however colourless, to the violence. It’s the type of cinematography that attracts attention to itself, but when it seems so fitting, so elegant, it isn’t something to complain about. 

As is often the case when I participate in this series, my favourite shot in the film is one that’s been etched in my memory from previous screenings. It’s from an early sequence in the film. Michael Sullivan Jr. has hidden in his father’s car to ride with him and Connor Rooney (Daniel Craig) to a meeting. As his father (Tom Hanks) and Connor confront their associate Finn McGovern (Ciaran Hinds) things get out of hand, Connor shoots Finn and Sullivan Sr. is forced to gun down his guards. Michael witnesses the proceedings through a hole in the wall. 

The Blue Eyes of Moulin Rouge!

*This post is dedicated to Nathaniel’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” series.

How does one choose a favourite shot from Moulin Rouge!? It’s virtually impossible. Moulin Rouge! is the biggest visual spectacle in recent memory. Every frame is packed with so much detail, be it the colourful extravaganza of the costumes or the self-indulgent delights in the settings, there’s something to marvel at in every shot of this film.

Take a look at the shot above for instance. Making such a finely crafted and vibrant set from the mundane elements of a backstage washroom is no easy feat. The production designers of Moulin Rouge! though gave just as much attention to this room as they did to Satine’s boudoir, the aerial shots of Paris and the elephant, and the stage of the Moulin Rouge theatre in the film's finale. These colourful details are what make Moulin Rouge! the unique visual treat that it is.

But instead of facing the challenge of choosing from this long list of fantastic shots, I opted for what I remembered best from my first experience with the film several years ago. In the abundance of busy, colourful and vivid imagery that shapes Moulin Rouge! from start to finish, Luhrmann insists on close-ups or even extreme close-ups of his actors tens of times. Whether in the film’s noisiest moments of song and dance, or in its intense hide-and-seek conversational games between the Duke and others, or in Christian’s romantic serenades for Satine, or even the few moments of quietude, Luhrmann relies on the power of their gazes for expression. Seduction, love, jealousy, hatred, anger, illness, confusion, joy, surprise, passion, grief, despair... you name it. Everything can be read in their blue eyes.

In the end, I found it too difficult to even narrow these close-ups down to one favourite, so I settled for all the ones I loved.

P.S. On a side note, isn’t McGregor’s performance so underrated? At the time, it got no awards love – typical of awards bodies to ignore male romantic leads – but even now, nobody mentions it as one of the film’s strong suits. I’m happy for his comeback after The Ghost Writer. Hopefully he’ll get more roles of this magnitude.

The Beast's Love of Architecture

Watching Disney films after a long while feels like catching up with a really good old friend. You always pick up where you left. It always feels like the last time was only yesterday. Nathaniel’s choice for this week’s Hit Me With Your Best Shot fills me with joy as it made me catch up with a film I boundlessly loved as a kid, but hadn’t seen in precisely eight years: Beauty and the Beast. The film is packed with some of the greatest music that Disney ever produced and with such a memorable array of characters, from the two protagonists all the way down to every supporting character. Beauty and the Beast is a staple of my childhood along with 101 Dalmatians. I used to watch them every day. EVERY SINGLE DAY! Needless to say, so many images from this film were etched in my mind so for the first time, I knew which shot I was going to write about the minute Nathaniel announced the film for this episode.

You see, as a civil engineer and (crossing my fingers) prospective architecture student, buildings are the only thing more prominent than film and food in my life. The signs of this interest in structures were probably evident from those early days, since the images I remembered most vividly are those of the beast’s castle. On the film’s part, there’s no shortage of direct or indirect references to architecture. I don’t think any other Disney film relies so heavily on the atmosphere it creates purely through architecture.

The first use of the castle in telling the story is the early juxtaposition of the dark and light sides in the shot above from the opening scene. Before we even get a glimpse of the prince as the beast, we already expect a drastic change of appearance based on what we’ve seen happen to the castle. But that shot is just the first of many, where the animators convey meaning and feeling through architecture.

Later in the film, when Maurice, Belle’s father, enters Beast’s castle for the first time, the filmmakers get so much mileage from the castle’s heightened gothic towers and the haunting figures in the interior to show his solitude and helplessness in this foreign house (just as they do when Belle walks into the forbidden west wing a few minutes later).

Or look at how masterfully they use the architecture of the lustrous library to intensify the Beast’s effort in stealing Belle’s heart. Or the famous dance scene to the enchanting tune of Beauty andthe Beast, with the (animated) camera pan across the ballroom. The majestic stairs, the impeccably decorated dining room, and the ballroom with its gold-hued walls and illustrious chandelier are no less exquisite than Belle’s gown.

This emphasis on the castle’s design isn’t even limited to the imagery. The filmmakers, who had an obvious knack for architecture, go one step further to openly talk about their creation. But without sounding too sophisticated or out-of-place for a children’s film, they play the scene so casually that it makes for one of the film’s funniest and most heart-warming moments. In the scene, as Cogsworth and Lumiere give Belle a tour of the castle, Cogsworth points out:

“As you can see, the pseudo-facade was stripped away to reveal a minimalist rococo design. Note the unusual inverted vaulted ceilings. This is yet another example of the neo-classic baroque period. And as I always say, if it’s not baroque, don’t fix it. Ahhaahaa haha.”

Finally, my favourite shot in the film – at which I remember cheering every time it played – comes in the finale, during Beast’s transformation into the prince charming. Obviously, a film that mingles with architecture throughout doesn’t restrict itself by showing only the beast and his servants, but gives us a beautiful shot of the castle’s transformation as well. Here, as the golden raindrops fall on the castle, the dark gothic grotesques change shape into the white innocent saints.

How charming...

Is there another Disney movie I don’t know of that so intimately concerns itself with architecture? Have you seen Beauty and the Beast recently? Do you think Disney has made a better film than this one? This one’s quite hard to top!

Favourite Shot from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho

*This post is part of Nathaniel’s “Hit me with your best shot” series. I couldn’t participate last week because of school work, although the great shots that contributors chose from A Streetcar Named Desire are definitely worth a look.

Few directors have become so closely associated with a particular genre in film that the name of the genre itself immediately brings back to mind memories of their films – characters, shots, music, and dialogue. Alfred Hitchcock is certainly one of them. He’s done to thrillers what Woody Allen later did to romantic comedies. He made it his own.

Top: Close-up of the cop. Bottom: The same cop, lurking on the other side of the road

Hitchcock knows how to use every element of cinematography and mise-en-scene to his benefit in creating a creepy intensity for Psycho’s atmosphere. Take the policeman in the beginning of the film for instance. His introduction, with this powerful close-up, the dark glasses and his sombre tone couldn’t have been more intense. If this shot doesn’t make us suspicious enough, Hitchcock gives us another glimpse of him when Marion stops to change her car. Even though it’s obvious why the cop is observing Marion from afar, Hitchcock’s setting makes us as suspicious of him as he is of Marion.

Top: The bedroom door sliding open. Bottom: Arbogast shot from above as he walks up the stairs. Notice the door on the right.

Many of the film’s more elaborate shots are taken inside Norman Bates’s house. My favourite is probably the scene of the murder of Arbogast, the private detective who’s looking for the 40000 dollars. The camera shoots him from above as he walks up the stairs to get to the bedroom. We still don’t know who the murderer is at this point in the film and the camerawork hides the identity so masterfully, I couldn’t leave it unmentioned.

My favourite shot in the film however, comes a bit later. When Arbogast doesn’t return from the Bates motel, Lila, Marion’s sister convinces Sam, her boyfriend, to go on his own detective mission to find him. When he arrives at the motel, he calls for Arbogast but can’t find him. The camera cuts to Norman, alone in the dark of the woods, who looks in the direction of the voice, but doesn’t move. This is his last moment of solitude before Sam and Lila’s return to the motel and the eventual exposition. He listens hopelessly to Sam’s voice, as if he’s pondering his next move. The confused and scared look in his eyes and the smirk on his lips make for a perfect combination of menace and vulnerability, and heighten the suspense that ensues.

If you have never seen Psycho before, put it all the way up your list. It’s easily one of the best films ever made.

Best Shot: Memento

*This Post is part of Nathaniel's "Hit me with your best shot" series.

Polaroids may be one of my most favourite things in life. Aren’t they just so much cooler than digital photography? Or any type of photography? It’s so awesome to have the photo right there in your hand just as you take it! The point is to say that I wasn’t surprised when I rewatched the film for this post that my mind kept going back to the moments where Leonard takes his Polaroid pictures as my favourite shots. Of course, the film opens on one of those shots, played backwards as the image on the Polaroid fades into white. If you haven’t seen the film yet, these Polaroids, along with Leonard’s notes and tattoos guide him to solve the mystery of his wife’s death. While most of these images are merely explanatory, like the Motel, the car, or even Dodd and Teddy at their most present state, my favourite moment in the film comes when Leonard shoots Natalie. Natalie’s photo is different in that it doesn’t even show her clearly, but it nevertheless reflects her mysterious character. Like the photograph that hides her face, Carrie Anne Moss avoids emotional expressivity in many of the film’s critical moments, and creates the only character in the film that is more puzzling to us than to Leonard.

If you haven’t seen Memento yet, please do so ASAP. It might not have the high-budget production value of his later films, but it remains his most clever and original film to date. Plus, Natalie is Nolan’s best female creation. Do you think Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman can take her spot?

Best Shot: The Night of the Hunter

*This post is part of Nathaniel’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” Series.

Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter tells the story of two kids, John and Pearl Harper, whose father is executed on charges of murder but leaves a large sum of money behind, hiding it before his arrest and only telling the kids of its place. When Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) spends a night with Harper in jail before his execution, he finds out about the money. Once out of jail, and posing as a man of god, he marries the widow of Harper (Shelley Winters) hoping to obtain the money, but things go awry.

The is a majestically photographed film and there’s an abundance of shots to choose from. Stanley Cortez's work with shadows is simply unimprovable. He manages to create intensity, eeriness and tranquility, define characters and set moods all with his noir-esque lighting.

My favourites can be narrowed down to these:

Second Runner-up:

That house! Because every time there’s a long shot of the house, it promises something unexpected, important or scary happening. The same shot of the Harpers’ house is repeated several times during the film and then there's a shot of Cooper's house; but each time it got me excited to see what was next.
Runner-up:

Two creepy shots of Robert Mitchum.

Favourite shot:

Because very early on, this shot summarizes the essence of film. John is rendered black in a silhouette, as if he is in hiding, and Powell, sneaks up on him, as he chases him during the whole film.