You must admit that filmmaking is a multifaceted art. Some choose to use more or less of the filmmaking tools. I think all of the elements of filmmaking are equally important. It’s what’s done with them that makes the difference.
24FPS:
But that’s just the thing. Set design, acting, choreography, makeup, costumes are all more expensive and demand more of a time commitment than simply fiddling with the camera controls and doing a pan or cutting. And the latter is seemingly being used to cover up the lack of investment in the former.
And it is distracting. Life is visually interesting enough without distorting it with sepia tones and other camera effects.
I think it depends on the director and the material really. I think a movie like Mulholland Drive is enhanced by what’s done with the camera and some of the effects David Lynch employs while something like a Tony Scott(or most Hollywood flicks) movie makes up for bad writing and uninteresting characters by having a constantly moving camera when most of the scenes don’t call for it.
I think if you spend your money on movies like Book of Eli, you’ll have a very hard time finding more movies that you’ll feel are worth your money.
Landgabriel,
I agree with you about the over use of movement and focus though I can’t condemn them because they can be used for a supporting purpose. I look at it like my love for Impressionist painting, not exactly capturing a carbon copy of reality but adding the artistic element. Like everything else sometimes the camera and its effects are not used to good effect. I do have an appreciation for photography though.
There is a limit to what’s in the theater where I live. Not really many good films, and I like seeing movies in the theater on the big screen. But Hollywood with all its quick cuts and camera effects has monopolized that.
Regarding Mulholland drive, I do very much enjoy that film. But I think there are parts in it where the camera is used because Lynch couldn’t think of anything more interesting to put on camera, so he just threw in an effect or movement of the camera as filler. Surely much more interesting about Lynch’s films are the people, places and situations.
That’s like saying lyrics of a song are more interesting than the music.
You’re telling a story, and then are different ways to portray said story. Saying you prefer unequivocally one technique over the other is all well and good, but like CONGEALED LEAF said, it’s all subjective… anything can be interesting if executed well.
Again, one person says they think lyrics are the most important aspect of a song.
Another person says no, it’s the music.
You really think there is an answer. “Yes what actors do is more important then what the camera does, or No Visuals are more important than the content?”
Basically your talking about style versus content. Endless debate ensues, I go STYLE all the way, but many people will argue they prefer the content.
TLDR: ALL SUBJECTIVE AND SPECIFIC CASE DEPENDENT.
“Basically your talking about style versus content. Endless debate ensues, I go STYLE all the way, but many people will argue they prefer the content.”
Well using those terms, style is cheaper than content, which was one of the main points of my original post. It is always cheaper to move the camera than to move the actors. It takes less time commitment and less takes to get it right. Compare modern Hollywood dance films with those of Astaire. Astaire would rehearse all night to perfect something before putting it to film. Modern Hollywood films just cut away from something.
Another point I was trying to make was basically using a camera effect or cutting away takes away from the time it takes to get someone interested in something. People are infinitely interesting. Some people claim that Hollywood is simply reacting to the reduced attention spans of the modern population but I would assert that Hollywood is actually calling the shots here, so to speak. They are manufacturing desire for flashy, quick cut films, mainly because it is cheaper to make a film like that.
I think the motion pictures that cinema fans intrinsically, and automatically,
most admire are those pictures in which any overt camera device renders images
in concert (or sympathy) with the characters’ action.
In short, balance is achieved, and as a wise man once said, no one notices the scales
until they are tipped.
Miller’s Crossing,The Conformist, The Third Man, The Killers, and My Darling Clementine are examples.
I’ll wager that most of the distractions blamed on camera work (apart from the jumpy, hand-held business)
are largely a result of bad editing—on purpose or not.
The most egregious example of this I have seen so far takes place in some of the chase scenes
in Eagle Eye, which was preposterous on many levels, so why the filmmakers compounded this
hideous failure with wholly disorienting cuts and edits remains a mystery.
In some scenes, 3 shots PER SECOND was the norm, often from opposite perspectives.
This wasn’t Eisenstein establishing a symbology; it was merely a shrill, hysterical car chase
offering the visual chaos of a video game.
LandGabriel,
I agree with you. If a story is good, it is good. And the story is king.
Things show themselves to be ‘quality’ or not when quietly observed.
A good song should work with just voice and either guitar or piano accompaniment. If it can’t survive that, orchestration may make it louder, but not better.
The director and cinematographer have one of two choices: either to let the story play as faithfully and cleanly as possible, or to overlay a visual style that (depending on who you ask) is either too much “whipped cream” on the cake, or just the right complement to the story.
One director you may or may not have seen is Roy Andersson. In “Songs From the Second Floor” and “You, The Living” he achieves something almost magical:
His shots are as “simple” as you wish, in terms of no camera moves, nothing to distract from the vignettes he tells, but the images are chock-full of texture and visual things both real and unreal. He manages to be simple and very complex, absurd and analytical at the same time.
Irreversible, to me, is an example of a film where camera movement is overbearing but still adds a lot.
Also, it’s not a requirement for a good song to work with voice and one instrument. Most do in pop, folk, those kinds of genres, but what about funk music, or any style that relies on polyrhythms?
-It is always cheaper to move the camera than to move the actors-
Do you mean cheaper as in actually less expensive? Not true. It would actually be less expensive to shot with a single, fixed camera with a fixed focal length lens, shot everything in master shots, etc.
As a writer I guess I can understand your motivation for taking an extreme position, but it seems to me your asking to strip away a lot of the flesh of cinema—Ophuls’ tracking shots are magnificent, as are Kubrick’s zooms in Barry Lyndon, as are some of Scorsese’s steadicam shots, as is the track-and-zoom shot in Vertigo, Peckinpah’s elaboration of Kurosawa’s technique of shooting action scenes with multiple cameras shooting at different speeds in The Wild Bunch. These are all integral to the expressiveness of the work. They don’t work everywhere in film they’re used, but that’s not a good reason to discard them wholesale.
Yeah, I see where the OP is coming from and I agree on a fundamental level, but there’s just so many examples where a film is both well-written and stylistically appropriate. Scorsese’s films usually contain a lot of movement like Taxi Driver (or my personal favourite, After Hours) or Goodfellas, but that doesn’t mean those films are substantially vacuous.
On the subject of Welles, Citizen Kane is a fine example, but Welles continuously pushed the limit of what a film could say and how it was conveyed visually. IMO, Welles’ Chimes at Midnight has a battle scene that is every bit as good as Kurosawa’s in Seven Samurai and it’s all done with (what is now common today) frantic cutting and multiple cameras. Welles’ F for Fake is a fine example of effective editing and yet, a story is certainly told and a deeper meaning conveyed.
On Kurosawa, he also had a pretty liberal use of camera movement in his films, but I’d challenge anyone to call a film like High and Low, Throne of Blood, or Yojimbo “all style and no substance”. Or take the Kurosawa film Drunken Angel which is commonly regarded as a “lesser film”, but it’s one of my favourite Kurosawa films and really shows how a filmmaker can tell a simple story very simply and yet still be enthralling.
A director I think the OP might find challenging is Peter Greenaway, who notoriously uses long, steady tracking shots in practically every film he’s made. Many critics cite Greenaway as a “substanceless” filmmaker, and in some cases I would agree, but all in all, his films really say a lot to me regardless of what they might mean to someone else and part of that attraction is “how” he chooses to shoot his films.
Someone mentioned Peckinpah earlier and that’s also a good example of “effective stylistic filmmaking”. Take Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (especially the newer “definitive” version) where the simple juxtaposition of the end and beginning of the story (through editing) provides a deeper existential meaning as well as an attractive stylistic flourish.
A good director is able to harness all aspects of filmmaking (cinematography, editing, sound, etc.) and use them so that the viewer doesn’t necessarily notice all that’s actually being done. Since film has been around for awhile, it’s only natural that filmmakers are moving further and further away from the kind of minimalist filmmaking that the OP seems to be describing. Sure, a film needs to be well-written in order to be worthwhile, but there’s also talent needed in order to accomplish the various stylistic flourishes that often accompany today’s films.
A wide diversity of consciousness styles abounds in the world, and therefore a diversity of cinematic styles have evolved to express, educate, and/or entertain such a variety of experience. I wouldn’t trust a filmmaker who says there’s only one way to depict a scene or who exercises only one method of depicting scenes.
Mat said:
“Do you mean cheaper as in actually less expensive? Not true. It would actually be less expensive to shot with a single, fixed camera with a fixed focal length lens, shot everything in master shots, etc.”
Actually I believe SFX, green screen and post production work is much less expensive than location shoots, costumers, makeup artists, expansive set designs, etc.
This is the difference I am talking about. It’s a matter of quality and it shows. But it is also a matter of content, yes.
I am not saying ‘no cuts’ or no ‘dissolves’. I am saying that in my opinion, categorically, what can be done during production, the coverage the camera gets, is more interesting than what can be done in post.
It’s like what Bordwell alleged a Hong Kong cinematographer said: “The handheld camera covers 3 mistakes: Bad acting, bad set design, and bad directing.”
I am simply taking the above statement to its logical extent. Not only does hand held camera cover the aforementioned mistakes, (with the addition of bad writing), but almost any editing technique is much the same. A way to cover mistakes made during a rushed, clipped production that occurred with minimal rehearsal and little preparation.
And expense is a part of it. It is much more inexpensive to pay some geek to sit at a computer for a month adding a CGI monster to a film than it is to build an animatronic monster.
I do like Scorcese. And I must admit part of this whole diatribe is the result of the CGI craze in Hollywood. But I think there has been the tendency from before CGI to rely more on camera work than on staging.
And I used to adore Hitchcock’s work but now I am beginning to perceive it as being gimmicky and cheap. He relied too heavily on using unorthodox, disorienting camera angles rather than thinking about the action and the story, and how the story was being told.
^"It’s like what Bordwell alleged a Hong Kong cinematographer said: “The handheld camera covers 3 mistakes: Bad acting, bad set design, and bad directing.”
Probably…in the case of a movie with bad actors, bad sets, and a bad director.
But handheld camera used with intention by a great director probably turns out GREAT.
I’ve loved that quote since the first time I heard it, but I think it applies only to instances when it is POORLY USED (say, in the case of a hack filmmaker), not as a rule FOR ALL FILM THAT HAS COME BEFORE OR SHALL COMETH AFTER!!!!!
(I guess I just feel like Hitchcock often used unorthodox, disorienting camera angles because he had carefully selected after thinking long and hard about the action necessary for telling his story…)
Ben:
What did you think of Cuaron’s ‘Children of Men’?
When I first saw it I thought it was great. So visual. So textured and with great staging.
Then on second viewing the hand held (I think every shot in the film was hand held) was totally distracting. I hated it. I just wanted to focus on what was going on on screen. Instead I kept getting distracted, as if I could envision the camera operator moving the camera. I found it totally artificial and distracting.
I could most definitely get on board the diatribe bandwagon about the CGI craze. That trend bugs me.
Love it…great movie. Amazing handheld. Very well used and incredibly, deliberately, meticulously preplanned to correspond with the special effects necessary to flesh out the film’s universe of daily terrorism and urban warfare. So Cauron was wise to utilize such a style available to him for just such scenes that were active, and about action, and about people urgently engaging in action (or who have been thrown unexpectedly into it).
But some of my favorite shots in the film are those in which Cauron relies on different styles. The ironic cut away from an important, heated rebel meeting at the farmhouse down to Clive Owen’s POV of the kittens pawing at his legs for loving attention. Or the wide, long take of the car while Owen pushes it down the hillside to escape the farm, chased by not only the band of armed and dangerous rebels, but the two large hounds who are barking in excitement because they want to join the fun of the chase, oblivious to the actual stakes at hand. Genius! Such a great use of a long take, fixed camera set-up in a movie otherwise renowned for handheld.
Ugh. Not me. I am particularly remembering the hand held when Owens is crying after the gravity of his situation sinks in.
The thing about hand held is that it moves more than the human eye would move in real life. The human body, with it’s multiple articulations and eyes is MUCH more akin to a steadicam than a hand held.
I don’t care how panicked I am, I never move that much. I never wander around like a drunk person. And it’s distracting. It does not serve the story at all in my opinion.
The action was really well staged in that film though. But even in action scenes, a hand held effect is going to be more akin to a journalistic effect. Rather than placing the person there, in the action, it is more like watching film of the action.
I much perfer steadicam over hand held. I think slight movements can add a realism to it but hand held is impossible to keep steady and almost always ends up with this roving, uneasy effect that is, ultimately, artificial.
-It’s like what Bordwell alleged a Hong Kong cinematographer said: “The handheld camera covers 3 mistakes: Bad acting, bad set design, and bad directing.”—
I’d read that remark before and it’s funny (and probably true, particularly in the HK film industry, which functions quite differently than the US and Europe) . . . yet Bordwell also adores the work of Johnnie To, a very overt visual stylist.
“I don’t care how panicked I am, I never move that much. I never wander around like a drunk person. And it’s distracting. It does not serve the story at all in my opinion.”
Try developing an anxiety disorder. These movies will start making WAY more sense…
See! The Monique posted photos of those kittens from CHILDREN OF MEN that I was mentioning. (Catch ‘em before they’re moderated!)
The trolls are getting lazy—the exact same pics that were posted last time.
More bounce to the 40 ounce!
I am watching Aronovsky’s ‘Pi’ right now and ten minutes in the camera still hasn’t stayed on the protagonist long enough for me to get to know his idiosyncrasies.
I am beginning to think that film directing as a whole is a conflated, over self-important role. Much more important are the actors.
A lot of the time a directors job is to mask bad actors, unprepared scenes, bad writing, or any combo of the three (or more).
Maybe it;s all in my head but quick cuts are REALLY starting to bother me.
Maybe it’s all just your personal taste and opinion? yeah maybe.
maybe you should see Andy Warhol’s Empire, sounds like the perfect film for you
All kidding aside, editing/camera movement/handheld camera work is not mutually exclusive with staging/acting/mise en scène. You are probably not looking at the right films if all can come up with is the latest blockbuster or some indie director’s student film.
Well then there is the issue I brought up of Hollywood’s push towards post production rather than production. Altering the footage has become more prominent than altering what the footage captures, and I believe Hollywood is doing it because it is cheaper. CGI is cheaper than animatronics, SFX makeup, locations, and set design.
Not only that, it’s easier to churn out movie after movie with gimmicky camera cuts and effects than it is to actually come up with a good script, rehearse the actors well, stage the scenes.
What we have, is a bunch of camera movements in place of a good story.
So my personal taste is for a good story. And I think the action IS the story. And the action of a camera or the action of digital effects is lower quality action than the action that a camera captures to begin with.
“All kidding aside, editing/camera movement/handheld camera work is not mutually exclusive with staging/acting/mise en scène.”
I disagree. One must come at the cost of the other, and to increase the prominence of one decreases the prominence of the other. A film with less cuts, less camera movement, needs better acting, and better ON camera movement.
landgabriel
This is a topic about quality. The basic premise is that camera movements, focuses, effects, sfx, are all cheap. What the camera does is cheap compared to what the camera captures. And less interesting.
There is the tendency with contemporary films to lean towards using the camera as a tool more than using the sets, actors, and props as a tool.
And there is a dichotomy between the two, or at the very least, for the purpose of this thread, I wish to draw a distinction.
I recently finished my first screenplay, and I realized that my pre-visualization of it was devoid of camera effects. I envisioned the whole thing in the characters, costumes, action, and sets. No focuses, no pans, no effects. Just what was going on on camera.
Perhaps my background in stage has forever tainted the way I see films. But it is becoming very distracting. Every time the camera does something conspicuous, like altering focus, zooming in drastically, jerking, I am starting to get distracted by it. It distracts me from what is going on on camera.
And I think this might have something to do with simple economics. To make a film more interesting, quick cuts, camera effects, special effects are all very much cheaper than having the actors rehearse it, get it right, staging everything in a choreographed way, investing in detailed sets, great makeup.
Hollywood seems to be waging a campaign of shock and awe with the camera. But it is merely a way to cover up blemishes on mediocre productions. It may seem cutting edge to the audience, with the camera all over the place, shaking, panning, zooming, focusing, but in actuality I think it cheapens the film.
I am increasingly more interested in the actors than the camera. I am more interested in the sets, the action, the costumes and makeup.
This may seem sacrilegious but I have yet to see ‘Citizen Kane’. But now I want to see it more than ever. I want to see how a stage director put together what many consider the greatest film ever made. I want to see what Welles did with the camera, and contrast it to what
he did with what was going on on camera.
It is rare that I see a movie in the theaters that leaves me feeling as if I got my money’s worth. Most recently I found ‘Inglorious Basterds’ to be a satisfying cinematic experience. Long shots without excess camera movement gave me time to actually watch the people and happenings on camera, rather than distracting me from what was happening on camera. The result, a three hour film that kept me interested for its duration.
People are interesting. Environments are interesting. To no end. I am endlessly fascinated with the world and what is going on in it. For this reason I have come to the conclusion that a camera is basically good for capturing what is happening, not filtering it and changing it.
This is not to say that I am only keen on realism. I enjoy abstraction, surrealism and absurdity. I enjoy hyperreality.
But this can be achieved through physical lighting. Through crazy acting and SFX makeup, as opposed to digital, camera effects.
A recent fail for me was ‘The Book Of Eli’. The sepia tone throughout was a total distraction to me. It would have been MUCH more effective to just film it as it is, and to rely on the acting and set design to convey its intentions.
Most of the time I just wish directors would get out of the way and let the actors do their work. Much like John Ford, who said: “Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals. Directing is not a mystery, it’s not an art. The main thing about directing is: photograph the people’s eyes.”
Any thoughts are appreciated.