Відео

The scene in The Usual Suspects where Kevin Spacey's character steps behind some random stacked stuff at the harbour kind of works as x-ray vision where the coat doesn't come out, and at the same time not. We start by following, then x-ray following until the camera stops and closes in on what we assume is the hidden coat having stopped to peak through some opening in the wall, only later it's revealed that we were never x-ray following the coat as the character tricked us, leaving the shot as soon as he was hidden, never reaching the assumed vantage point.

I love your videos and style, and I’m finally starting to understand the separation between film and director. I will say that I personally don’t put Scorsese films high on my re-watch list, but this gives me an appreciation for his directorial style. I agree with you on Oppenheimer. I actually like a fair bit of Cristopher Nolan’s filmography, but this was a miss for me. It was like it was trying to be JFK, but failed.

I think you said it all when you said 'realism'. Hollywood is obsessed with realism and political correctness. Modern people simply don't say or act the way they were portrayed in older movies, so, it's considered unrelatable to the audience. And of course, heaven forbid if you offend someone, unless it's white males, and their supposed to be "toxic" anyway, so they dont count... Right??!! ... LOL

Without a doubt, the BEST movie channel on this platform. Why so few subscribers? Moviewise, in the six short months since I found you you have taught me more about movies than I have learnt in the other 70 years I have been on this mortal coil.... and pointed out some classics I didn't know existed. Bravo!

What's wrong with visible directing?

I think the closeup craze is all about being able to control the pace of the performance from the editing room. As apposed to making choices and committing to a direction on the day of filming, they wish to make that choice at a different time

when i make something for an audience (like a youtube video for example), i have to *wow* them, in the first 15 seconds, and then constantly, to keep them engaged until the very end. if i don't do that, the audience will punish me with disinterest. not sure if mankiewicz could have made a living on youtube. i'm going to paint some ballerinas now.

Moviewise when is YOUR film coming out?

Your analysis is exceptional, but unsurprising. Because another difference between classical direction and "intensified continuity" can be seen not in just in the visual cues but audible ones: the delivery of the dialogue. Classical direction is far more THEATRICAL. In every sense of the word. The use of the set/location and the physical as well as emotional/vocal performance. Ralph Fiennes has no issues making use of that classroom because he is a classically trained stage actor. Redford, too, is that. I don't know how much stage acting Redford did in his day, but surely he studied acting for both stage and screen. It is the theatrical element that gives directors the appreciation for blocking, movement, and dynamic physical acting with longer, lingering shots that allow for actors, sets, dialogue, movement, blocking, staging, even lighting to work their magic in harmony. Then, intensifying a shot, a zoom, a closeup, is like a melody rising above the background music, a soloist's voice rising above the choir, or a crescendo in the score. It is the ebb and flow, the movement between ease to intensity and back to ease that tells the story in a theatrical production, because theatre actors and directors work with ENERGY. They have to capture the audience working with less. This is why is CGI, so overused nowadays, is getting long in the tooth: it lacks the power and energy that practical effects can often deliver. As in the theatre, when artists have less to work with, it forces them to dig deeper within themselves for inspired, imaginative, innovative, dynamic, interesting, unique, and ultimately magical solutions to problems. That superior energy born of a higher place within the creatives comes across on screen. Quick cuts, shaky cam, and other tricks FEIGN such energy...it is FAUX intensity. One could make the comparison here between erotica and pornography. True erotic cinema respects the subject matter, and the ebb and flow of sexual chemistry expressed in movement like a dance slowly increasing in intensity in a non-linear progression of smaller peaks and valleys leading to a crescendo (like a movement in classical music, or a 70's or 80's rock ballad). Pornography is nothing but incessant pounding... intensity that peaks 10 seconds into a scene and persists via repetitive movements and a few position changes until "the money shot" at the end (the equivalent of contemporary rap, hip-hop, or death metal). As you can see, in all the examples given, the respect for "the art" has degenerated over time. We can see the superficial symptoms, but to where can we trace back the underlying cause of the degeneration? Plato famously said that the stage was a sacred space. One honors the stage for its power to produce catharsis in an audience (to literally change peoples lives...even save them). Likewise musicians honor their craft for its ability to move listeners in ways few other artforms can, and again, change peoples' lives (even save them). Classical cinema has the power to move audiences to tears, to etch their stories into our memory forever, even alter our perception of ourselves and the world in transformative ways. The 'entertainment' was secondary to the underlying Truth, beauty, power, and universality of the storytelling...the humanity, if you will. Modern cinema, like pornography, seeks to titillate (ENTERTAIN) the mind, the emotions, and the body first and foremost. Classical cinema, like classical theatre, classical music, and all manner of high art, sought to move the soul first and foremost. Entertainment was a bi-product of an inspired vision...not the goal of the vision. Everything you point out can be traced back to this difference. As an aside, the current crop of 'woke' productions is an even further degeneration of the art form: propaganda seeks not to move the soul but program the mind by stimulating the inferior emotional centers of the human machine. Propaganda is the ultimate degeneration of art. If splatterhouse horror flicks is the pornography of fear, then propaganda is the pornography of control.

I love these videos (I have been liked and subscribed so you know I am serious 😂). While I still struggle to see invisible directing unless I’m actively looking for it, I have definitely come to notice the lack of good staging in movies. The lack of visual language is jaw dropping in so many films today. Trying to sharpen my eye, I will dive into this man’s filmography post hast.

Tis a veritable film school! Literally!

I would like to watch Based on a True Story. It's been out seven years and I didn't even know it existed. Unfortunately, you can't find it anywhere in the US. I know you said it was mediocre, but Polanski is one of my favorite directors. The most recent movie I've seen of his is The Ghost Writer, which I loved.

Sleuth is one of my all time favorite movies and every time I watch it I still notice some new detail or theme to focus on and analyze. This is such a perfect breakdown of how the set design, acting and camera movements all dovetail to execute some amazing visual & verbal storytelling; some of the framing and movement details I hadn't even consciously picked up on until you pointed them out. Brilliant analysis of a criminally underrated film!

I haven’t personally watched this, but my wife just started watching the remastered version again probably for the fifth or sixth time knowing her.

I'm surprised that Spielberg, who is also excellent at setting a scene, didn't see that Mankiewicz also had that kind of eye for arranging his characters, props and camera to "show, not tell". Hitchcock was great in that regard, also. Yet only two of the three are seen as visual directors. Maybe the sublime screenwriting overshadows the directorial style. In any case, again, thank you for finding the hidden gem that others have overlooked.

Do a video about the remake.

I call them "Fireworks Movies". You wait all day for darkness to settle in to see a fireworks show on a Friday or Saturday. It has a basic theme, music blasts, and the sky is filled with beautiful colors, explosions, booms, patterns, you are enthralled!!! On Monday, at work by the water cooler, people ask what you did over the weekend... how do you explain it? "It was really cool, you just had to be there..."

I once read that the garden labyrinth opening the film was the chief inspiration for The Shining -- while the similarity is striking, though, I'd still be curious to know whether this was actually on Kubrick's mind, or just a coincidence. Still, fwiw, Mankiewicz's film beat Kubrick to the punch on that memorable set by almost a decade.

Best movie ever.

❤❤❤Thank you so much for taking the time to explain the BEAUTY of this masterpiece without an equal. Each scene is like a beautiful oil painting. I appreciate the effort everyone put into this movie from the Director, Tran Anh Hung, and his wife - the Artistic Director of the movie and the beautiful relationship between Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel expressed so naturally in this movie.

Ur directing of this video is all but invisible and damn do I love it. And now I have more homework too.

you chose one of the best , if not the best ,serial in history , of history .

15:07 - Compare this to the most recent Planet of the Apes movie where a similar reveal is done with clumsy insert shots. Leaving the audience question where did the gun go when then character uses both of their hands in basically the next shot.

Talking too fast. Takes away from content.

I actually saw this a few days ago, so your timing is perfect. And the camerawork, especially the pans and cuts to the objects in the house, is genius. And the way he handles the movement within the set always keeps the visuals dynamic and keeps the audience in constant rapt attention.

I'm a fan of good (and invisible) directing. I heard your rant about myopic critics who don't know how to watch a well crafted movie. Paused your video around 5:15 because I didn't want to spoil the discovery of it myself. I immediately started watching the movie. In the first shots I was overwhelmed by the precise and deliberate filmaking taking place. All the intro, from the sound bringing the character away from the door we expected him to ring at, the aerial point of view of Milo wandering in the maze, the cuts to the source of the sound being a tape playing and Andrew stopping it to start recording himself, the shot with the wall separating them and then the trick of it turning revealing a pathway. I was just pumped to the top: it's so clear, with perfect editing rythm and interesting (and meaningful) shots. The whole manipulation games about to unfold are clearly hinted in this intro. Just from the start I was baffled about critics not giving the director the praise it deserved. The rest of the movie just confirmed all the amazing blocking, camera work, framing, editing I was expecting. There's so much great directing ideas, it's full packed (like the lingering shot of Milo's hands on the railing having a great payoff later, the focal switching to wide angle for close ups in the end, the first apearance of agent doppler in front of a litteral gigantic target, and more I can't say here without spoiling too much...). You can start the movie randomly at any point, an watch a single minute, and there's always a good filmaking idea to see. I don't understand how any movie profesionnal could be blind to it. Got back to your video just after. Totally on track with everything you say. That's an amazing and fun video to an equally amazing and fun film. Thanks so much for the discovery.

Brainstorm is a good one, but I think some releases don't have the different aspect ratios.

I’d never pretend this channel is the only film expert but I Will say this channel is a movie expert 🎉

Mankiewicz entire oeuvre is Queer. Melodramatic and 'over the top' - and not in a good way. He made films that were for 'at best' grandmothers, at worst... hysterics. It may all be beautiful(?) from a directorial standpoint. But the final product is mostly unwatchable.

Mankiewicz is more invisible than John Cena and that's saying something

Great to see Sleuth getting the acclaim it deserves!

Can you name a few examples of modern horror/slasher movies with clever, visual direction, blocking and staging?

Lift to the scaffold with the unforgettable Jeanne Moreau and more so because she’s half Irish ☘️

I remember watching this show as a kid.

Expertly directed. A craftsman type. Not Showy. But with Bette D chewing the scenery what Camera work would be better than the choices he made? A crane shot? He knew precisely what was appropriate -and his brother wrote the same way. On Kane at least.

Very selective apparently. Reclusive.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I taught a film class for 18 years where I got to train directing students how to act and the last third of the semester I got to direct them in scenes from a screenplay. I took this opportunity to train myself in the art of blocking. Your appreciation and understanding of great blocking is like a breath of fresh air. I find so many modern directors to be so lazy or indifferent to blocking.

My only hope is that just as Every Frame a Painting was able to get Marvel Studios to understand the importance of good theme music and how to shoot and edit action scenes like Jackie Chan, Moviewise can convince Hollywood of the importance of blocking and framing again, because god have they gotten bad at it!

Cinephiles tend to be rather snobbish. Mankiewicz's style is very much the style of a studio multi-cam television production, like the kind you might see in an early episode of The Avengers (UK). Cinesnobs have no respect for (& often even downright abhor) all televisual conventions. In their minds, the directing style needs to justify why the movie was shot single-camera: a far more time-consuming/expensive affair than shooting in a multi-cam setup where the editing is done live via vision mixing. They want to see big, frontal, close-ups of faces (no zooming), proving that a single scene had to be shot over & over again from different angles with different lenses, where the lighting, camera, sound etc. had to be totally rearranged to accommodate every, individual shot. Likewise, cinesnobs are very forgiving with the flaws that are outgrowths of the single-camera setup, like the constant continuity errors & the complete lack of blocking. These things seemingly never get criticised, because: better a cinematic flaw than a televisual strength.

another banger

I'm a film school graduate and I'm learning more from your videos that I did in 2 years and university.

First time I saw _Sleuth,_ I rented it on VHS, on a recommendation. Saw the MPAA had rated it G, and the blurb on the back described it as a "lighthearted mystery romp". It has got to be, hands down, the most unsettling G rated film I've ever seen.

remind me of Fincher. Quietly exposing threw his staging.

you would enjoy I Am Not Madame Bovary, a Chinese movie that does a lot with Drake masking. Not as crazy as your German guy but beautifully composed and impactful

This is just incredible!!! what did you study? how do u know so much? where are you from? how are u not famous? btw I just learnt because of you that David Bordwell passed away and I'm just sad.

I’m a J-graduate from USC and nobody took the time to give me such fascinating language lessons. I was going to learn Spanish. 🥺\/ErY gOOd

You mentioned that you found Pearl's reaction strange when she happily ran to the Preacher when he finally found the two children. The film is very faithful to the book, and that is exactly what happens in the book. Pearl's reaction always seems to me to add a bit of complexity to the film.

I had to stop the video, went to watch the film, and now I'm back.

I have to mention "The Walls of Jericho" from "It Happened One Night"

I don't get it. Blocking is all about characters sitting down?