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    Ten Movies Every Photographer Should See

    Here then is my alphabetical list of Ten Movies Every Photographer Should Seesoon to be followed by a list of Honourable Mentions.

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    Baraka

    Baraka (1992) - In a review written several years ago, the author declared thatthis was his choice of a film for a desert island. If he had just one movie to

    take along to an isolated refuge away from the human race, this would be it.Certainly it would be one of my candidates as well. The movie has no plot but it's

    anchored by a riveting stream of images shot over 14 months in 6 continents and24 countries. A three-person crew, led by director and cinematographer RonFricke, employed a $4 million (U.S.) budget to capture scenes of beauty, mysteryand destruction in the expensive TODD-AQ 70mm format. Throw in a hypnoticsoundtrack and you've got a 93-minute feast for the eyes and ears.

    Baraka contains at least several dozen scenes any photographer would love tohave captured digitally or on film. One minute you're mesmerized by images ofthe very human-like faces of Macaque monkeys immersed in hot springs insnowyapanese mountains and sometime later you're watching burning-of-the-dead

    ceremonies on the Ganges River or Whirling Dirvishes spin in what I believe is aSyrian temple. It's all very captivating although the film is probably bestviewed in two or three viewings because there is almost too much to absorb in asingle viewing.

    For movie-goers who insist on a beginning, middle and an end, Baraka might bealittle bewildering because there is no narration or explanation and there isoften little context except, for example, that the viewer might know intuitivelythat certain scenes were shot in, say, Asia or Australia.

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    Ten Movies Every Photographer Should See

    While nature and exotic location photography anchor this movie, Frickeemployed

    a computer-controlled camera to record some wonderful time-lapse shots incongested locations such as Manhattan at rush hour or Tokyo on the crowdedsubway platforms. These are scenes that illustrate motion but they are alsoreminders that still photographers can capture motion through the use oftime-lapseexposures as well.

    It's no surprise that this film was supplemented by a nicely-printed andhandsome coffee-table book. It compliments the movie and photographer Mark

    Magidson describes the move-making process and shows the people andequipmentthat made the film along with a variety of images in both black and white andcolour.

    If the film seems a little derivative to some, it's probably because it bears aresemblance to Koyaanisqatsi, a 1983 movie that was the first film of the typeto dish up a well-constructed sequence of music-laced world scenes. Notcoincidentally, Koyaanisqatsi was filmed and edited by Ron Fricke.

    Baraka is an ancient Sufi word which can be translated, in part, as "a blessing".The film is just that, a gift to anyone who appreciates visual artistry. Prepareto be inspired.

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    Barry Lyndon

    Barry Lyndon (1975) - Okay, who out there has an f 0.7 lens? Well, among stillphotographers no one I know has such a treasure and even in the richly financedmovie industry, such an extraordinary piece of glass is very rare, possiblylimited to just one - the one director Stanley Kubrick used to film thelingering candlelit scenes in Barry Lyndon. For these moments, Kubrick had a50mm

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    Ten Movies Every Photographer Should Seelens built for NASA by the Carl Zeiss Company modified with a Kollmorgenadaptorused in still cameras. No artificial lighting was used with all the illumination

    coming from the candles. The warm light generated by the candles creates acompelling painterly look that is reminiscent of Thomas Gainsborough and otherartists of the era in which this movie is set.

    The movie focuses on the exploits of a scheming Irish rogue who wins the heart(andfortune) of a rich widow and makes a sideways entrance into 18th centuryaristocracy. There are some powerful battle and dueling scenes but it is thecandlelit scenes and meticulous composition that hold visual sway for

    photographers. The frame is often held and the action allowed to develop withinit. Often landscapes rather than people dominate the screen.

    Barry Lyndon is played by Ryan O'Neal who was never a great actor in my viewbutwho, nevertheless, manages to capture the rakish failings of a man who doesn'thave the moral compass to match his lofty ambitions. Barry Lyndon won severalawards including Academy Awards for Best Cinematography (the late JohnAlcott)

    and Best Art Direction & Set Direction and The Best Cinematography Award bytheBritish Society of Cinematographers. The film runs 184 minutes. In those threehours and a bit, I counted at least 22 scenes I would like to have recorded witha still camera. It is impossible not to watch this movie and not want to indulgein some portraiture of your own employing candles, perhaps employing a fewreflectors to spread the light.

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    The Conformist

    The Conformist (1970) - I saw this movie three times before I was able to fullydigest the complicated - some would say disjointed - plot that revolves aroundthe story of an ambitious professor in Italy in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

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    Ten Movies Every Photographer Should SeeIt's a time when Mussolini has risen to power and the professor convenientlydeclares himself a fascist. His commitment gets tested later, however, when hegets involved with the secret police and is given as assignment to murder one of

    his former university teachers who leads an anti-fascist resistance group.Disturbing psychological themes and sexual undertones abound. Freud almostdeserves a credit on this film.

    While director Bernardo Bertolucci didn't cater to viewers with a traditionalbeginning, middle and an end (the movie jumps around, as I said), what makesthemovie irresistible is the inspired and daring cinematography of Vittorio Storaroand the vision of Bertolucci. The movie features some of the most dramatic use

    of light and shadow I've seen. Often, unusual shooting angles or the use offilters to tint colours heighten the visual tension. Many scenes from the moviestay with me still such as the windshield wipers of a car sweeping across awindow or sunlight streaming through a forest or the daunting interior scenes ofMussolini's art-deco headquarters. Some of these scenes manage to be bothbeautiful and creepy and they are always powerful and often surreal. Still today,35 years after it was released, this film is capable of inspiring a stillphotographer to think outside the box - to create compositions that defyconvention.

    The movie is arguably Bertolucci's most intriguingly photographed film although

    some viewers might feel another Bertolucci movie, The Last Emperor (also on my

    list), is a more elegant contender for that honour.

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    Days of Heaven

    Days of Heaven (1978) - Still Photographers are often reminded that the besttimes to shoot are the "magic hours", the time around dawn and dusk. These arethe times when the light is warm, low and flattering to its subject. Moviedirectors enjoy the magic hours too but they have significant constraints such

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    Ten Movies Every Photographer Should Seeas budget and plot and onerous schedules. It would cost a fortune to havehighly-paidactors and crew waiting around just to shoot their scenes for one or two hours a

    day when it might not advance the plot.

    Nevertheless, back in 1978, shooting a film almost exclusively in the "magichours" is just what director Terence Malick did in a remarkable film called Daysof Heaven. Telling a story about a love triangle in the early 20th century,Malick employed the talents of two of the greatest cinematographers at the time,Nestor Almendros and, to a lesser extent, Haskell Wexler. For much of the film,the decision was made to only shoot during the "magic hours" and it paid off:Days of Heaven and Almendros won Best Cinematography at the 1978 Academy

    Awards.

    While the movie opens in a Chicago steel mill, the heart of the film ostensiblytakes place in Texas farm country when three of the main characters in the movie,

    including a young Richard Gere and Brooke Adams, join a wave of itinerantworkers following the farm season. In reality, the sweeping farm scenes wereshot in the rolling plains of southern Alberta which has never looked moreevocative. Fields of wheat ripple sensuously in golden light, a grand farm house

    often anchors simple, elegant compositions and trains packed with workers cutribbons through a dreamy agricultural landscape.

    The beauty comes under siege though when swarms of locusts descend on thelandscape and fires started to control the plague get out of control. Almendros,who started as a still photographer, builds visual tension with close-ups of thegrasshoppers intercut with tight shots of torches and he makes the scenes gofrom warm and romantic to hot and dangerous. Tension is also heightened by the

    plot which has Richard Gere's character getting trapped in a deception of hisown making when he pretends to be the brother of Brooke Adams rather thanherlover. Adams moves in and gets cozy with the terminally-ill owner of the vastfarm where they find employment and while it starts out as a way for Gere andAdams to inherit the farm, things don't go as planned. In all, the movie

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    Ten Movies Every Photographer Should Seepresents some low-key quirky acting but it's really the visuals that reward theviewer. A bonus is the soundtrack of Ennio Morricone, one of my favouritecomposers.

    Here are a couple of relevant quotes from Nestor Almendros given not long afterthe Days of Heaven was completed:

    Terence Malick told me it would be a very visual movie, the story would be toldthrough visuals. Very few people really want to give that priority to image.Usually the director gives priority to the actors and the story but here thestory was told through images. In this period there was no electricity, It wasbefore electricity was invented and consequently there was less light. Period

    movies should have less light. In a period movie the light should come from thewindows because that is how people lived.

    "Magic hour is a euphemism, because it's not an hour but around 25 minutes atthe most. It is the moment when the sun sets and after the sun sets and beforeit is night, the sky has light but there is no actual sun. The light is verysoft and there is something magic about it. It limited us to around twentyminutes a day but it did pay on the screen. It gave some kind of magic look, abeauty and romanticism."

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    Dreams

    Dreams (1990) - It's a challenge to pick one film by Japanese director AkiraKurosawa that ranks as my visual favourite. He was very prolific in his lifetimeand he displayed a knack for potent cinematography but, without a doubt,Dreams

    remains the most haunting of his films for me. In fact, Dreams is eight shortfilms, some quite melancholy and all born from his actual dreams and memories.The surreal, ethereal visuals in each of them is quite breathtaking.

    The mystical tone of the film is set in the first vignette when a boy witnessesan eerie procession of fox spirits in a wedding procession. It's visual poetry.

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    Ten Movies Every Photographer Should SeeAnother vignette involves a party of mountain climbers struggling through afierce blizzard. Another section includes a man, a former military leader, whoencounters the ghosts of Japanese soldiers he once commanded in a lonely

    tunnel.It's chilling to the bone. The same man is seen in the next vignette as hewanders through a Van Gogh painting and encounters the famous artist (playedbyMartin Scorsese).

    What this movie offers still photographers is imagination. I am guilty, as manyphotographers are, of sometimes failing to wring the most out of my creativeinstincts. Going beyond the tried and true is always a challenge. Commercial and

    editorial mandates don't always allow a photographer to blend illusion orfantasy or artistic licence into an image but it's my belief that we shouldalways try to pursue at least some personal work that displays creative flourishand imagination. We need more images that mirror, more or less, what isconceived in the mind's eye. Kurosawa did this with a far-ranging colour palettethat swings from the bland to the bold. He did it with purpose and thediscretion of a master but several of his films - this one especially -illustrate the joys of constructive whimsy. For me, Dreams tells me to play in

    the photographic sandbox a little more.

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    The Last Emperor

    The Last Emperor (1987) - Bernardo Bertolucci faced an enormous challengewhenhe decided to tackle the true story of Pu Yi, the last ruler of the 300 year old

    Chinese Ching Dynasty. Spanning the years 1908 to 1967, Bertolucci wassuccessful in turning the story of Pu Yi into a compelling (and tragic)historical epic.

    One of the very effective cinematic tools in the movie is the use of colour.Bertolucci and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro employed very specific colour

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    Ten Movies Every Photographer Should Seepalettes to symbolically reinforce and illustrate moods. Indeed, it's been saidthe real star of the film Storaro's cinematography and certainly such deliberateand brilliant use of colour is one of the reasons the movie won many Academy

    Awards including Best Cinematography. The film also serves to remind anyvisualartist of the power of colour to influence the response of the viewer.

    Scenes from Pu Yi's childhood, when his life was vibrant and literally colourful,for example, are enhanced by bright warm colours such as orange and yellow.Indeed, Pu Yi, wrote in his autobiography that as a boy he believed everythingwas yellow because he saw so much of it. Scenes set in chilly Manchuriaincorporate lots of cool indigo while scenes of the emperor's imprisonment and

    "re-education"during the sterile Maoist era are almost devoid of colour. When his Englishtutor arrives (played by Peter O'Toole), we see green for the first time. It'sthe colour of knowledge. Scenes of Pu Yi in his latter years have a morebalanced spectrum of colours which reflect his life at the time as well as thepolitical and cultural climate. The first time red is seen in the film is whenblood fills a sink in a suicide scene.

    The topic of colour in the film was the subject of an essay in the book,

    Bertolucci's The Last Emperor: Multiple Takes (1998) in which Storaro explainshow he exercised the psychology of colour. In the DVD, Vision of Light (which isreviewed below), Storaro also comments briefly on his use of colour in the movie.

    Photographers can benefit from this movie by being reminded that colour israrely incidental in an image. It may be subtle or it may be bold but it canengage the viewer (and photographer) in ways that often appeal to thesub-conscious.An additional benefit for those of us who have had the opportunity to visit or

    photograph The Forbidden City in Beijing is the way in which the movierecreatespart of the past of the venerable and hallowed structure. For those with stamina,there is a director's cut of The Last Emperor available on DVD. It runs 219minutes but I have heard at least once that the picture quality is less thanideal in places.

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    Ten Movies Every Photographer Should See

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    Raise the Red Lantern

    Raise the Red Lantern (1991) - Like The Last Emperor reviewed above, Raise theRed Lantern provides insight into China's not-so-distant history. The differenceis that The Last Emperor was directed by an outsider, Italian BernardoBertolucci, with the cooperation and approval of the Chinese government, whileRaise the Red Lantern was directed by Zhang Yimou and never sanctioned by the

    Chinese Government. Implicit in its story is a couched allegory about obsolete

    old men and the harmful traditions governing China and it is a condemnation ofthe feudal attitudes that still linger today. It's no surprise that the film wasfinanced by a Taiwanese distributor through a Hong Kong subsidiary.

    What the two films, The Last Emperor and Raise the Red Lantern, have incommonis the eye-popping use of colour. When I first saw Raise the Red Lantern, it wasthe first Chinese movie that impressed me with its astonishing beauty. The plot,which focuses on the experiences of a reluctant young concubine in the house of

    a nobleman in the China of the 1920s, is a grim account of sexual or genderpolitics. As the fourth wife, Songlian, the main character, must figure out howto get along with the imperious master and husband and survive pricklyrelationships with his other wives. Tensions are often thin as rice paper as thehazards of polygamy are charted.

    While the tale is psychologically grim, the vividness of the many colours usedin the film is stunning and heightens the emotional content of the story. Themost potent colour is red because wherever the master chooses to spend the night

    is ritualistically lit up with opulent red lanterns (hence the title). The filmwas shot in the classic three-strip Technicolor process which allows a richnessof reds and yellow that are no longer seen in American films. The vivid coloursgive the movie a sensuous, vibrant quality, particularly in the use of fabrics.

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    Ten Movies Every Photographer Should SeeI like the film because, like The Last Emperor, it is a riveting movie madebetter by the abundant but careful use of colour. Until this film, I alwaysavoided brilliant reds in my work because they seemed, well, coarse and over the

    top. Raise the Red Lantern changed my mind and influenced my willingness tooccasionally search out or use more potent colours for maximum effect. WithPhotoshop and digital photography, we have the option more than ever toenhancecolours where the enhancements enhance the image.

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    The Third Man

    The Third Man (1949) - After writing elsewhere on this page about the glorioususe of colour in some films, it's comforting to be reminded that old-fashionedblack and white has just as much magic - it's just different magic. No filmbetter illustrates this in my view than The Third Man, a thriller which, inaddition to a great story, offers moody cinematography that won the film itsonly Academy Award (though it was nominated for three).

    I saw his movie recently for the fourth time, after not seeing it for many years,and was pleased to discover that this classic hasn't lost an ounce of appeal. Ifit's not my favourite black-and-white film, it's certainly a contender. (I'm notalone: The British Film Institute voted it the number one British Film of the 20thecentury.) It was the first movie I ever saw that had canted camera angles sothat unsettling tilted compositions heighten the suspense of some scenes.Wide-angledistortions and shallow depth of field also contribute to an unrelenting tensionand suspense but nothing grabs the viewer's attention more than the long

    shadowsand the striking use of light and shade that give the film its compellingvisuals and slightly nightmarish intrigue.

    Almost all of the movie was shot on location in post-war Vienna and it's basedon a story by British screenwriter and author, Graham Greene. Fellow Brit Carol

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    Ten Movies Every Photographer Should SeeReed was the producer and director and Robert Krasker the cinematographer.Themain character is American pulp-fiction writer Holly Martins played by Joseph

    Cotten. Another lead character, even long before he makes his entrance, is HarryLime, played by Orson Welles. His presence - or lack of it in the first half ofthe movie - is an inspired absence. Now some cinema buffs will note that bothWelles and Cotton, the former especially, anchored Citizen Kane, another greatand ominous black and white movie and they'll be wondering why I didn'tincludeit in my top ten. Well, as great as it is, it doesn't possess the visualintrigue of The Third Man.

    Greene's story tosses the naive but principled Holly Martins character intoVienna at a time when it's under the schizoid control of four Allied forcesincluding the British, French, French and Russians. The morality in the city isambiguous and there's all kind of illegal black-market activity and wheeling anddealing. Martins has come to visit his old and favoured friend Harry Lime butLime doesn't show up to greet his arrival and so the mystery begins. The climaxof the film occurs in the Vienna's sewer system, a murky labyrinth of rushingwater and mysterious tunnels, and it's here that the film-noir cinematographyand lighting underline the strength of black and white. Criterion has done a

    superb job of restoring this film and though the DVD is expensive, it's wellworth it. Watch it and you'll feel the urge to get to work on some black-and-white

    images.

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    Visions of Light

    Visions of Light (1992) - Okay, technically this isn't a movie. It's adocumentary about movies, covering the history of cinematography and some ofthemovies mentioned on this page are illustrated or discussed. And yes, there arelots of talking heads but almost all of them engage the viewer/listener andoffer genuine insight, the kind that makes you exclaim "Oh, wow!". We meet

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    Ten Movies Every Photographer Should Seesuchfascinating individuals as Nestor Almendros, the lead cinematographer of Daysof

    Heaven (see above), who was interviewed shortly before his untimely death in1992. Vittorio Storaro, the award-winning cinematographer who won awards forThelast Emperor (see above) and Apocalypse Now, is another of the many wise menofthe camera presented in Visions of Light.

    In some instances, cinematographers acknowledge the vision and influence ofcertain directors such as Roman Polanski. His role in determining the

    composition of a scene in Rosemary's Baby is one of the many interview clipsworth waiting for. It reveals how an unlikely move just a few inches in onedirection made all the difference. The cinematographer on McCabe and Mrs.Millerdiscusses how colours were altered and muted in the film to instill the feelingof the late 1800s. Anyone who works with Photoshop and has had to create thelook of another era will enjoy this section.

    Another worthwhile interview is with Conrad Hall who photographed the

    chillingIn Cold Blood back in 1967. Hall recounts how they were setting up a key prisonscene where a murderer played by Robert Blake is about to be hanged. Rain wassplashing the window outside and Hall noticed that if the lighting outside wasplaced at just the right angle, it projected the shadows of the raindrops onBlake's face, giving the appearance of tears as he discusses his bleak childhoodwith a Chaplin. Rarely has there been a more heartbreaking scene in a movie.

    Inevitably, the strength of the movie though are the hundreds of film clips it

    presents . After its 92 minutes are up, you can't but help come away deeplyimpressed by the talents of the great magicians behind the cameras. Indeed, anystill photographer with a heartbeat will be inspired by their vision and abilityto render magic results with light and technique. What the many film clips inVision of Light do is help train our visual instincts and ability to recognizeand respond to and perhaps even create the kind of light that makes for an

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    Ten Movies Every Photographer Should Seeunforgettable picture, still or otherwise.

    The documentary is divided into three sections and right from the get-go, with

    excerpts from the early silent films, we are surprised by the quality of picturemaking. Even back in the early days, there was genius. The second section of thefilm deals with the black and white era after the introduction of sound (an"evolution"that is lamented by some because sound handicapped the mobility of cameraoperators). The third section of the film focuses on colour movies and exploreshow the use of colour can influence viewer response. We are made aware of great

    composition as well as depth of field and, of course, the power of light and

    shadow to capture and hold our attention.

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    Winged Migration

    Winged Migration (2001) - I'm a sucker for a good wildlife film and they don'tcome any better than this breathtaking effort by French director Jacques Perrin.He gives the viewer a strong sense of what it must be like to fly and soar in

    the skies. Indeed, the inspired cinematography is one of the reasons why Irecently returned to wildlife photography after focusing on other subject matterfor Masterfile, the stock photo agency that has represented me for many years.This might seem a tad naive. After all, Perrin had millions of dollars as abudget and a crew of over 450 people who used gliders, balloons and smallplanesequipped with ingeniously-designed cameras to film migrating flocks up, closeand personal and from all angles. He also followed bird migrations through allkinds of weather and perilous situations through 40 countries and seven

    continents over four years.

    Such advantages don't dissuade me since there's also great magic in a singlestill shot of a bird or mammal. It's just a different vehicle for remindingpeople that there are millions of creatures the deserve our consideration.Millions upon millions of dollars are spent annually on special effects in

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    Ten Movies Every Photographer Should Seemovies and often with dazzling effect such as with The Lord of the Rings. In myopinion, however, it is the natural wonders of nature that trump just about allthe special effects and wizardry humans can concoct.

    Capturing wildlife doing what it does naturally isn't easy (I speak frompersonal experience), however, some clever and persistent wildlifephotographerssuch as Franz Lanting and Jim Brandenburg, to name a couple, have managed toachieve this. The potential of a film like Winged Migration is to inspire bothdocumentary cinematographers and still photographers to find fresh ways tocapture the magnificence of nature or just to persist in the quest to sharenature's wonders through pictures. Just so beginners don't get discouraged with

    early results, it's worth mentioning that for every 225 feet of exposed filmshot for Winged Migration, only one foot made it into the movie.

    The DVD offers a 50-minute behind-the-scenes documentary that shows how theamazing photography was achieved in Winged Migration. It also reveals thatsomeof the birds were trained from birth and even exposed to the sounds of airplanesand film cameras while still in their shells.

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