Thursday, November 12, 2020

Thursday Movie Picks #331: Cinematography

This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. This week's theme is a broad one, movies with favorite cinematography. There are any number of movies that are notable for their cinematography, such as Citizen Kane with its deep focus and camera angles courtesy of director Orson Welles and cameraman Gregg Toland. But I wound up picking a couple of other movies that are interesting to look at even if they're at varying levels of quality:

The Red Shoes (1948). Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's movie set against the world of ballet. Moira Shearer plays the ballerina who gets hired by a producer (Anton Walbrook) to dance a notoriously difficult ballet, the Red Shoes. Along the way, Shearer falls in love with the ballet's composer (Marius Goring), and faces the eternal conflict of what sacrifices one is willing to make for one's art. Cinematography is by Jack Cardiff, a master of Technicolor photography in the 1940s and 1950s.

Dersu Uzala (1975). Akira Kurosawa was at a low point in his career in Japan, so he took an offer from the Soviets to do a co-production, doing this story of a Russian surveyor in the early 20th century sent to survey unknown lands in eastern Siberia, and Dersu Uzala, the native who become's the surveyor's factotum. Dersu, however, isn't equipeed to handle encroaching civilization. This was a very difficult movie for Kurosawa, but there's some very beautiful photography of a very isolated region.

Service With a Smile (1934). Short about the owner of a service station that burns to the ground, and the owner has a plan to use the insurance money to rebuild and create the sort of service station you'd get if Busby Berkeley were running the place. Because we all want our gas pumped by chorus girls on roller skates. Part of the reason for mentioning this is combination of the choreography and cinematography; the other reason is because it's an early live-action three-strip Technicolor movie, and in the print that TCM runs (there's also currently one on Youtube as well), the color is absolutely gorgeous.

Mechanical Principles (1930). This short isn't worth describing; it has to be seen instead:

2 comments:

thevoid99 said...

I own a DVD copy of The Red Shoes from Criterion. One of my all-time favorite films ever...

Derzu Usala I think is one of the more recent Kurosawa films I saw a few years ago as I liked that film. Then again, I like a lot of what Kurosawa has done. I haven't seen your third pick.

Birgit said...

I love The Red Shoes and own a DVD copy as well. Their films were so unique so I chose Black Narcissus. I haven't seen the other 2 but the short sounds good to see. I watched that short with the gears. I can appreciate the cinematography and crispness of it.