HIGH NOON: Pure Visual Storytelling

Former marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper) is preparing to leave the small town of Hadleyville, New Mexico, with his new bride, Amy (Grace Kelly), when he learns that local criminal Frank Miller has been set free and is coming to seek revenge on the marshal who turned him in.

When he starts recruiting deputies to fight Miller, Kane is discouraged to find that the people of Hadleyville turn cowardly when the time comes for a showdown, and he must face Miller and his cronies alone.

 

 

 

 

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OSCAR RACE 1952

Best Actor in a Leading Role – Gary Cooper
Best Film Editing – Elmo Williams and Harry W. Gerstad
Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture – Dimitri Tiomkin
Best Music, Song – Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington for “Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin’”, sung by Tex Ritter

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REVIEWS

Film Review

The New York Times Review

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VIDEOS

Official Trailer

 

The final showdown

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Amongst the many qualities of this controversial western, there is the clarity of a visual storytelling design to build up tension and suspence.

See below examples of framing patterns and motifs.

Framing the passage of time

 

The railway and the bad guys waiting

Lonely Hero

The waiting montage

 

The Arrival and Shoot out

 

The hypocrisies of a good town

MUNICH: a question with no answer in sight.

Synopsis

After the murder of 11 Israeli athletes and their coach at the 1972 Olympics, the Israeli government secretly assigns Avner Kaufman (Eric Bana) to carry out a series of strategic retaliations. With the help of a driver (Daniel Craig), a forger (Hanns Zischler), a bomb-maker (Mathieu Kassovitz) and a former soldier (Ciarán Hinds), Avner conducts a worldwide operation, targeting 11 individuals.

As the assassinations pile up, Avner begins to doubt the morality of his actions.

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Oscar nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Steven Spielberg), Best Editing (Michael Kahn), Best Music (John Williams) and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay Tony Kushner and Eric Roth) this difficult production received zero statuettes.

A difficult subject matter and an ending with no clear (or easy) answer to the central question have made this movie very controversial, even misunderstood.

At the end, after that Avner asks “what did we accomplished?” with vengeance, the camera reveal the Brooklyn skyline and the Twin Towers in the distance. Considering that the movie was shot in 2004, the towers were of course added in post production.

Although Spielberg has tried to reduce the importance and the meaning of this final shot (like in this interview for the German Newspaper The Spiegel, http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2006/01/steven_spielber.html), this final statement is clearly available for everybody that want to see it. But not everybody apparently can.

In the many times I’ve shown this movie in my classes, most of the students missed the meaning of the presence of the Twin Towers and they think it’s just a nice shot that reveals the famous Brooklyn skyline.

This example allow me to repeat, as I often do in class, that the word “just” doesn’t belong to filmmaking. It takes time, money and commitment to point the camera in a certain direction.

There is always a reason.

But maybe, beyond politics and critics, the recount of the Munich terrorist attach and Israeli Secret Service’s mission, might be one of Steven Spielberg’s finest achievement.

WARGAMES: a lesson still to be learned

In 1983  this teenage movie written by the young Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes was nominated as Best Screenplay against screenwriters like Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill, co-written with Barbara Benedek), Ingmar Bergman (Fanny & Alexander), Nora Ephron (Silkwood, co-written witn Alice Arlen) and Horton Foote (Tender Mercies).

The movie was also nominated for Best Cinematography (William A. Fraker) and Best Sound (Michael J. Kohut, Carlos de Larios, Aaron Rochin and Willie D. Burton).

And for director John Badham (that was called to substitute Martin Brest and correct his approach considered by the producers too dark) this was a second movie in a year that attracted the Academy attention. The other was Blue Thunder, nominated for Best Editing.

But besides recognitions by the peers WarGames became quickly a cult movie. A movie for the young generation of computer nerds that finally found a movie that gave them justice and, even, the status of heroes.

Original Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OyoNR4kiJ0

“Ordinary People” a forgotten gem

I decided to open a new series of screenings for my students at the Santa Monica College with one of my all-time favorites: a forgotten gem called Ordinary People. Great, Oscar worthy script by Alvin Sargent (from Paper Moon to Spider Man 2 and 3) adapted from Judith Guest masterpiece, impeccable directing by Robert Redford and extraordinary performance by the entire cast: Timothy Hutton (first time on the screen, first time Oscar Nominated and Winner), Donald Sutherland (underrated, amazing performance), Mary Tyler Moore (out of her confort zone, Oscar Nominated) and Judd Hirsch (with one of his finest performance, nominate for an Oscar against Timothy Hutton).

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The Original Trailer

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A legendary oscar race.

Talking about the quality of films throughout the years and how the list of extraordinary movies that every year deserve the famous Academy statuette is getting smaller and smaller.

Remember this: in the year 1981 when ORDINARY PEOPLE won best Picture, amongst the competitors there were: Raging Bull, Elephant Man and Tess. Robert Redford won best Director against: Martin Scorsese (Ragin Bull), David Lynch (Elephant Man), Roman Polanski (Tess) and Richard Rush (The Stunt Man).

TED must see: “The unheard story of the Sistine Chapel” (by Elizabeth Lev)

TED must see: “The game that can give you 10 extra years of life” (by Jane McGonigal)

TED must see: “Your body language shapes who you are” (Amy Cuddy)