SHOTS THAT WERE INSPIRED BY PAINTINGS

Post film shots that were inspired by paintings, whether it’s something the director officially admitted or just your opinion.

Official :

Heat – 1995

Pacific (Alex Colville)

In my opinion :

The insider – 1999

Monk by the Sea (Caspar David Friedrich)

There are surely thousands of them in film, but these two immediately come to mind -

Solaris and Rembrandt

Official?:

Just a detail.

Ophelia (1851-1852) by John Everett Millais (not the best picture quality, but you get the idea)
Fire with Fire (1986) by Duncan Gibbins
Ergo Proxy (2006) by Shukō Murase

The last image is not from a film, but I found it on some Tumblr blog and thought it was relevant. For a few more based on the same painting, there’s always the Wikipedia page.

Cool topic.

@AJ

Actually, the first still made me think of The Hours (The one about Virginia Woolf, although I don’t know if the film replicates the painting.

The Golden Years [Balthus, 1945]

Black Moon [Louis Malle, 1975]

I saw Star Wars for the first time in over a decade the other day, and the two suns scene made me think of this Friedrich painting:

Empire of Light (René Magritte)

The Exorcist – 1973

Hopper’s “Nighthawks” also was virtually recreated in a scene from Wim Wenders’ The End of Violence (1997).

The entirety of Peter Greenaway’s Nightwatching.

http://mubi.com/lists/painters-and-films

“The Mill and The Cross” (2011) by Lech Majewski, inspired on Pieter Bruegel’s painting.

http://alwayswatchgoodmovies.blogspot.com/

the whole of Barry Lyndon is and feels very Constable inspired also…

@Jazzaloha
This sequence? Although the comparison with Ophelia makes sense (a woman going “mad”, suicide by drowning), it seems the movie doesn’t replicate John Everett Millais’ painting.

Can’t you do anything right, Stephen Daldry? j/k

Tired Sounds — In the ever-expanding rolodex of films I’ve watched, I know that I’ve seen the one pictured above but I fail at remembering its title. Was it a Bresson? Remind me, please.

Ivan’s Childhood

Bah.

Jean Renoir with A Day in the Country…

…his father Pierre-Auguste with “The Swing”!

I imagine few Mubians will catch this ref, but from the wonderful Terayama-infused anime Shoujo Kakumei Utena :

The Origin of the World (Courbet)

Anatomy of Hell – 2004

I thought that was Étant donnés by Marcel Duchamp.

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen Anatomy of Hell. Great movie. Odd coincidence that I mentioned it last night and here it is in my world again. I guess it’s time to revisit it. :)

Godard’s Passion has a bunch. This isn’t the best example.

@Daniel

In that shot from Anatomy of Hell we can’t see the woman’s arms or hair, there’s a clear fragmentation of the female body and the vagina is facing us, just like in The Origin of the World and unlike in Étant donnés.

There was an astounding shot in Vidor’s The Citadel, after Donat’s character delivers a child. And while I cannot say it was directly inspired by, immediately reminded me of Caravaggio. Unfortunately I cannot find an image of it online….

Well, Balistik, I would say there are as many dissimilarities and similarities as with Courbet’s when it comes to pose and setting. What about thematically? Maybe that’s too hard to say considering just how ambiguous Duchamp’s artwork tends to be, and especially concerning that specific piece.

Going with the Balthus painting I posted above I would like to point out that even before that shot took place I was reminded of Balthus, with the upper-class furnishings and the themes of sexual awakening and, more literally, the unbuttoned blouse of the actress in the film throughout most of that scene (although not easily noticeable in that exact shot).

Surprised no one’s mentioned this:

Andrei Zvyagintsev’s The Return.

Andrea Mantegna’s “Lamentation of the Dead Christ.”

Vulva.

@Daniel
I think there are more similarities with Courbet’s painting but the director may very well have been inspired by both.

Her book Pornocratie has the painting for a cover. It’s a well known painting but it might have a special significance for her, though considering her work… it seems natural.