What is (are) your favorite frame(s)?
Boy A:
People have already pointed out some of my favorites-
train station in 8 1/2, race in jules et jim, driving in pierrot le fou- as well as the scene in 4- that is the films profile picture, La Haine had a few good ones, profile picture for Rashomon as well. Manhattan- when Andy is standing next to the skeleton. A few scenes from Andrei Rublev could be up there too.
Mirrormask:
Simon—I don’t now how much I like those individually, but I love the rhymes of colors and tone between all those you chose!
I’ve been searching for my favourite images from Thief of Bagdad, Pierrot le Fou, Tales of the Taira Clan, The Colour of Pomegranates, to add some colour to my selections, but it’s been a struggle. I also wanted a superb image at the end of the 1912 silent film The Flying Circus by Alfred Lind, in which a tightrope walker approaches the top of a tower, with a python sliding down to meet him! But this will do.
Still Life (Jia Zhangke)
Tied Up Balloon aka The Attached Balloon
http://www.binkadoc.com/images/Pictures/TheAttachedBaloon/photos/photo3.html
Ah thanks for the link- i’ve not seen these before, but there’s a short clip on youtube, from the documentary, with the girl i was on about elsewhere.
Pandora’s Box
might make an interesting pair with the more timid final shot of Mizoguchi’s career, in Steet of Shame
Heath Ledger embracing shirt in Brokeback Mountain
The Red Balloon:
Ah yes, very beautiful, Eggman
The Sacrifice (Tarkovsky)
There are a ton of good ones from The Fall
I’ll show two
Oh my oh my, Simon!
Story of the Late Chrysanthemums (Mizoguchi)
The Still Life one is another great one Kenji.
Oh, how I love the films of Hou Hsiao-hsien
Your earlier Sansho, Kenji, made me think about my favourite shot in the entire film…
The shot framing the two men staring out over the hazy construction site in Tsai Ming-Liang’s “I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone”. It is by no means my “favorite” frame, but it certainly is special. There are also a handful of brilliant single images in Theo Angelopoulos’ “Landscape in the Mist” and Lynch’s “Eraserhead”. Just off the top of my head.
Well, Col.Dax, it’s one of the most touching endings in films- as you know.
I have a blog dedicated to my favorite film stills so I’ve got about a bajillion of ’em piled up.
From Un homme qui dort
From Le Samouraï
From Céline et Julie vont en bateau
From The Falls
From Drowning by Numbers
From Nouvelle Vague
From Naisu no mori: The First Contact
From Tales of Terror
From Sans soleil
From My Neighbors the Yamadas
From Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
From My Neighbor Totoro
From Spirited Away
From Howl’s Moving Castle
Our Hospitality
Syndromes and a Century
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
Last Tango in Paris
Nobody Knows
Maborosi
After Life (sorry if it’s grainy)
Kore-eda’s my favourite Japanese director working today.
Well, we’re agreed on the hidden treasure that is Maborosi; i need to spend more time looking for the perfect image from it that suits me
I already got it. Her face is so full of emotion, and restraint, at the same time, it’s amazing. I think that’s the only close-up in the film, and goddamn is it powerful.
Some great frames from Guy Maddin’s Brand Upon the Brain!:
The last shot of “The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums” is also one of the wonderful shots made by Mizoguchi.
Col.Dax, yeah in Maborosi, there’s certainly a shortage of close ups. So that shot does carry more impact. Mizoguchi was also sparing of close ups- it’s more often emotion from a discreet distance, we can see the body language in a larger frame, but of course he did use them, especially in the later years, as your Sansho shot shows.
Duck Soup
W.R.Mysteries of the Organism (Makaveyev), a film that dosn’t seem to get much attention these days
oh, Col Dax, on Maborosi, of course it’s a marvellous, moving and expressive image you’ve picked, the more i look at it the more beautiful it becomes- what a film of elegance, mystery, restraint and yet deep feeling it is. I was just wanting something at the sea, the final section is so beautiful and mysterious
Simon
Stranger than Fiction:
