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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Top Ten Cinematography Masterpieces?

Finner said:
Hi Tom,

I see your number 5 is Legends of the fall. I worked on that film and even though it has some very beautiful photography I am not sure how well I feel it actually helps tell the story. The best film I ever worked on (one of my firsts) was Unforgiven and I feel the cinematography in it does a better job to tell the story then Legends.

I have struggled over the last few years as my mind is changing on what great cinematography is. For many many years I had always felt great cinematography was the film with the most beautiful lighting and pictures. The last few years though I have begun to feel that great cinematography is what style and pictures best tell the story. An exampleof this for me this year was Children of Men. There are lots of shots and lighting in it that simply look very poor, but yet its look, style and feel do an incredible job to help tell the story and pull you in.

Just a few thoughts I have had lately on cinematography. As I mention I have begun to question how to define it and have not yet come to any conclusions on it.
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Finner,

I think it is true as you say it, for years the best cinematographers and directors did make films where every shot was looking incredible, so it is natural that you would favor this style during that time. But now something else is going on in our post punk environment. The most talented people are using images that are screwed around with and used in completely different ways, shaking camera, low fi, distorted colors etc. are part of the choices to make the story come through.

However as the topic list was "masterpieces" I couldn't make myself put down "the celebration", "inland empire" or "sin city" as they are pioneers into new ways of telling a story where the style is still evolving. There will be ways that digital will create a whole new mastery, and this is really interesting as well.

so to throw in a related image:
251_1171988009.jpg

inland empire
 
Hey Finner - You worked on Unforgiven!! That's one of my favourite movies. Come on man spill the beans what did you do exactly . . . . .brill
 
Some of my favs of the top of my head:
LOTR Trilogy
Hero
House of Flying Daggers
Last Samurai
Saving Private Ryan
Godfather
Casablanca
Shawshank Redemption
Man on Fire
Passion of the Christ
Usual Suspects
Seven
 
Tranquil_Light said:
Hey Finner - You worked on Unforgiven!! That's one of my favourite movies. Come on man spill the beans what did you do exactly . . . . .brill
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Nothing very exciting, just loaded in the dark room and laid marks got coffee's for the big guys. What I can say is Clint is an amazing man and deserves all the respect he gets as he gives respect to evn the lowest person on the crew.
 
Finner said:
Nothing very exciting, just loaded in the dark room and laid marks got coffee's for the big guys. What I can say is Clint is an amazing man and deserves all the respect he gets as he gives respect to evn the lowest person on the crew.
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Well good for you - I'd have paid to make coffee on that film! I'm a big Clint fan - ever since the Raw Hide days - He just gets better and better. Nice to hear that he treats everyone well - that's quite a feat when you're a living legend.

Thanks for letting me know. That's made my day!! If you're going to NAB I'll have to get you a pint of beer or what ever you fancy!

Let me know.

All the best, Phil
 
Looking through this thread I'm seeing that I have a lot of films in my top list that others do... But a couple mentioned here confuse me.

Blade Runner? Really? I kinda liked the movie. I'm a real sci-fi nut, but it didn't do it for me. I found it to be contrived, dry and somewhat forced in its satirical view of a possible future. If we're going to mention Blade Runner, why not Dune? I don't see where the cinematography in Blade Runner was anything special. Then again, I also feel that Hollywood still has yet to grasp what good sci-fi truly is. Most Hollywood attempts degenerate into social satire and are often cynical in nature. Or they're complete fantasy with little or no basis on reality. Or they're dumbed-down to the point where my dog could comprehend the story if he had another 20 words in his vocabulary, in order to cater to a broad audience.

Some of Hollywood's biggest disasters often fall into the realm of sci-fi -- and even more fitting, disaster movies. ;)

I agree with Finner on Legends... Some beautiful shots in that film, great photography overall. I thought the script and cast were overly ambitious for the actual story being told. The whole movie just didn't feel right is the best way I can put it. Almost like it was trying too hard to be more than it was.

I'm still thinking about what would be in my top 10 list. My take on a lot of it is that great cinematography should be more than just pretty photography, it must immerse the audience within the story.
 
1. Days of Heaven
2. Citizen Kane/Best Years of Our Lives (two sides of Tolland)

Not sure anything else really matters. These are the standards by which I judge everything else. (And, tellingly, beauty is above function and innovation.)

I'm surprised there are so few commercial/popular directors here.

What about Spielberg/Kaminski, Bay, and Bill Pope? Even Richardson should get more mention, imo.
 
My very uncomplicated view of the concept of "best" cinematography is simply this:

Giving all due respect to high-standard production values in footage, I believe that there is no universal "best" cinematography - but only a "best" cinematography choice to most effectively tell the story of each individual production.

Beyond that definition, I believe all else is merely subjective comparison...
 
I gave it some more thought and I've got a top 10... Actually, I'm still flip-flopping on a couple of them, even ones I don't have listed, but here goes. And not necessarily in any sort of order, just alphabetical.

Apocalypse Now
Braveheart
Citizen Kane
Dances With Wolves
Forest Gump
Lawrence of Arabia
Road to Perdition
Saving Private Ryan
The Shawshank Redemption
Shindler's List

Honorable mention:
Around the World in 80 Days
Ben-Hur
Far and Away
The Last Samurai
LOTR Trilogy
O' Brother Where Art Thou?
Titanic
Unforgiven

...Others that have been mentioned that I really liked for their pioneering style or flair of sorts are Seven and Man on Fire. And I know we're crossing into the realm of Animation, but I thought Tim Burton did an amazing job with The Corpse Bride. It's a fun little film that does such a great job of telling the story, great use of color, lighting, and the shot/set/character design were perfect.
 
We don't care about "best", but "favorites" is a better word since everyone has those...

For pure cinematography -

Old Skool Style -
L' Avventura
Lawrence of Arabia
2001


New Skool Style
Requiem for a Dream
Traffic
Irreversible


Man, just too many to list...
 
AppliedVisual said:
Oliver Twist? ;)

...I'll give a thumbs up for Repulsion, though!
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I liked his Oliver Twist, starts off pretty standard but towards the end it gets odder and odder. Might be worth a rewatch if you weren't to impressed on first viewing.
I can live without The Fearless Vampire Killers though!
 
1. Citizen Kane / Welles
2. Battleship Potemkin / Eisenstein
3. 8 1/2 / Fellini
4. Stalker / Tarkovski
5. Vertigo / Hitchcock
6. L'Avventura / Antonioni
7. Red / Beatty
8. 2001: A Space Odyssey / Kubrick
9. Seven Samurai / Kurosawa
10. The Godfather / Coppola
 
Sanjin: Why not list the cinematographers for those films? ;)

I really like the lighting in Godfather 1 & 2 though. I didn't like the lighting in 3 at all... it felt way too much like a Hollywood blockbuster movie.

2- Perhaps lighting is like the visual counterpart to music + sound design. It sets the mood and feeling of the story. And like music, it's more important in some genres than others... i.e. horror. Although you could argue that for film noir, lighting is important but music not terribly so.
 
#1 - Apocalypse Now Redux - Vittorio Storaro
#2 - The Element of Crime - Tom Elling
#3 - A Space Odyssey 2001 - Geoffrey Unsworth
#4 - Stalker - Aleksandr Knyazhinsky, Georgi Rerberg
#5 - Saving Private Ryan - Janusz Kaminski
#6 - Blade Runner - Jordan Cronenweth
#7 - Blood Simple - Barry Sonnenfeld
#8 - Kill Bill Vol. 2 - Robert Richardson
#9 - Requiem For a Dream - Matthew Libatique
#10 - Evil Dead 2 - Peter Deming
 
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