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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2023 4:46:19 GMT
... in cinema?
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Feb 1, 2023 5:07:17 GMT
No, if I'm not narratively invested, I don't really care how pretty it looks...
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Archie
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Post by Archie on Feb 1, 2023 5:09:54 GMT
No, if I'm not narratively invested, I don't really care how pretty it looks... Someone please show this to Sam Mendes.
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on Feb 1, 2023 5:31:16 GMT
I think the visual beauty needs to work in service of a story. Not necessarily a "written" narrative, but at the very least an idea being communicated visually (ex. Koyaanisqatsi). Then again, I also don't require a film to be beautiful in its visuals, but the aesthetics should help to articulate the story as it unfolds (ex. 12 Angry Men).
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Nikan
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Post by Nikan on Feb 1, 2023 10:45:23 GMT
No, and I think modern cinema is in a terrible, terrible place rn because so many people behind the camera do - and get awarded for it.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2023 23:16:50 GMT
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SZilla
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Post by SZilla on Feb 1, 2023 23:21:54 GMT
Definitely story. Maybe he's on my brain due to a post in another thread mentioning him, but Tarkovsky's movies are all visually stunning but the ones that really left an impact on me were the ones that had a story I connected to.
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Film Socialism
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Post by Film Socialism on Feb 1, 2023 23:43:02 GMT
there are more movies i would call great that have no story than there are movies i would call great that have no visual beauty
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Post by Mattsby on Feb 1, 2023 23:56:21 GMT
Content over form, always baby. There are beautiful-looking movies out every year that I rate low bc the rest of it is bunk. It's why I can watch and enjoy crummy playback-tapes of old tv episodes, any taping of a play, or all those '70s movie-of-the-weeks or stuff shot on camcorders like In the Dark (2000). I think composition and movement is more important than hi definition and lens flare or w/e veneer of beauty - camera should work with, suggest, inform, braid with the ideas of the story or theme - Polanski is especially good at this. Movies don't have to be beautiful.... but they do need to be interesting!
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Post by stephen on Feb 2, 2023 0:07:39 GMT
Honestly, it depends. Sometimes style can be the substance, and there's so much that can be taken from the presentation that evokes the vibe of what the filmmaker is going for. Refn is a key example of this. His stories may not be as dense as some of his contemporaries', but I think what he is able to do with color and composition is ingenious enough that I immediately am transported to whatever realm he wants to take me to.
I will always prefer a film to have a strong story and a great visual look, but it ultimately comes down to a case-by-case basis.
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Post by DeepArcher on Feb 2, 2023 0:14:34 GMT
No, but a movie can't be just a good story. It's all about story told in an engaging and exciting way, which may or may not involve visual beauty. (As Mattsby said, movies don't need to be beautiful, they need to be interesting.) What matters most is how the tools specific to the medium are used to tell a story (or express theme or emotion in a non-narrative form). Otherwise, you might as well go read a plot summary!
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Post by pacinoyes on Feb 2, 2023 0:15:33 GMT
The narrative to me almost always comes first ..........but I think it may be a weakness in me on some level too.....movies play the part that books once did for me (I used to read A LOT) - but I'd "like to like" movies that do more than just spit back my own "narrative" worldview back to me too. In the same way music can make you see colors that lyrics that mention colors do not etc. There was a movie I saw a couple years back that I think about a lot (reviewed it on MAR btw) - that was pictorially eloquent and narratively baffling ( The Edge of Daybreak (2021)) and my beloved Hagazussa (2017) is silent for its last ~ 1/3rd or so......those are films where the specifics of the narrative doesn't matter as much as the effect of the images ....that's rare though for me.....
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Post by Martin Stett on Feb 2, 2023 1:38:06 GMT
I just saw The Batman last week. Very pretty movie. Trainwreck of a script. The Riddler is horribly inconsistent, the Penguin IS NEVER EVEN ARRESTED, there is a hilarious moment when the bat signal is activated and both Batman and Gordon show up and are asking "did you turn it on?" but apparently any random loser can walk into this seemingly abandoned building WITH A KIDNAPPED POLICE OFFICER and turn it on, Batman never even feels entire magazines of bullets being pumped into him at point blank range, Selina straight up forgets about her girlfriend as soon as it is convenient for the movie (hoooo boy are there issues with the girlfriend as well), the Alfred subplot is completely forgotten midway through the film and doesn't change a single thing about the characters... It's a disaster. No matter how good the cinematography and production design and costume design are, they can't do anything more than mask a rotting corpse of nonsense with aesthetically pleasing images for a few seconds.
Movies shouldn't replace actual screenwriting basics with spectacle. Consistent characterization and ACTUAL CONSEQUENCES FOR ACTIONS are the key to nearly all great stories.
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Post by stabcaesar on Feb 2, 2023 3:20:32 GMT
If the script is stupid it doesn't matter how pretty the movie looks. See Zhang Yimou who's been the biggest offender of garbage substance and good visuals for decades. Nicolas Winding-Refn is another prime offender.
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Post by urbanpatrician on Feb 2, 2023 4:27:02 GMT
Pleb up there^^ bashing Zhang Yimou. Unless you're specifically talking about his Hero and after output, which I understand the criticism, but I don't think any of those movies are bad. Maybe not as good as Raise the Red Lantern and Houzhe, but I think all his kung-fu films are all good films.
But.... if I had a few picks to go with here....... I guess Terrence Malick and Nicolas Winding Refn are pretty good examples of derivative visual cinema driving the engine, but besides one or two films from each (Valhalla Rising, The Thin Red Line) - most of their movies feel like a style that was effective up to a point in the timeline, but eventually the critics got tired of their shtick and relegated them to a precipitous downfall. 2012/2013 was where it all went wrong for both, and that's because you can only get away with copying yourself again and again so many times.
I know people bash Zack Synder for the same thing, but I disagree. 300, Sucker Punch, and Dawn of the Dead were very good. Man of Steel is..... decent-to-good tho not the best Superman adaptation by any means. He always had great ideas, and his movies can exist only on that kind of format of visual cinema otherwise they won't be as effective.
Ultimately I think it's about utilizing medium tools, and great technical mastery. Chris Marker is the most technically gifted director of all time. La Jetee mastered the format, the creativity, and artistry from the school of the left bank - and which is why I think it's ultimately more about technique and fundamentals than visuals. You don't necessarily need to paint a painting with every movie.
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Post by futuretrunks on Feb 2, 2023 4:36:14 GMT
No, if I'm not narratively invested, I don't really care how pretty it looks... Someone please show this to Sam Mendes. Hardly his problem. More of a Malick problem. His schtick worked in The New World, where it's a legit revelation, and To The Wonder to a lesser degree. Mendes went pretty in one movie, Road to Perdition, and the cinematography in that movie is downright gorgeous. Tess is a better shot film than Barry Lyndon, by the way.
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Post by stabcaesar on Feb 2, 2023 5:00:51 GMT
Pleb up there^^ bashing Zhang Yimou. Unless you're specifically talking about his Hero and after output, which I understand the criticism, but I don't think any of those movies are bad. Maybe not as good as Raise the Red Lantern and Houzhe, but I think all his kung-fu films are all good films. Oh I definitely mean his post-Hero output. Before that he had style AND substance.
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Film Socialism
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Post by Film Socialism on Feb 2, 2023 5:27:52 GMT
cannot believe in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty three there are ppl seriously saying style is separate from substance. i don't think that's what the OP is asking, but seriously, where is the delineation here?
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Post by Lord_Buscemi on Feb 2, 2023 6:45:09 GMT
It's one and the same, you're using visuals for the purpose of storytelling. However, a "good story" is worthless if a film doesn't use the inherently visual draw of the medium to elevate the experience.
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Post by ibbi on Feb 2, 2023 10:38:00 GMT
No, and I think modern cinema is in a terrible, terrible place rn because so many people behind the camera do - and get awarded for it. I would say a greater problem in movies the last couple of years, in the age of streamers and content, is exactly the opposite. Banal, flavourless, flat without an ounce of visual style. You do have examples of the opposite too. I'd throw Bardo out there as a current one, but they seem fewer and farther between, and at least can be notched up as noble failures that tried and missed rather than just disposable crap made with barely an ounce of heart.
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Post by PromNightCarrie on Feb 2, 2023 12:27:20 GMT
Story, for sure. Story above everything, really. Visuals might be one of the components of a film I praise, but it ranks beneath narrative, character and acting in importance for me. It's a bit like how it is with scores. I've seen many films with the most beautiful scores, but the writing is so bad, it's a waste of time sitting through it.
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Feb 2, 2023 12:58:23 GMT
I gravitate more towards the story but there has to be strong enough elements of both. I don’t want to feel I’m watching a play or reading a book when I watch a film. It’s still a visual medium at the end of the day. But the visuals still need to support the story.
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Post by JangoB on Feb 2, 2023 13:07:11 GMT
Not visual beauty per se but I definitely gravitate towards movies in which I feel that the aesthetic side of things has been given proper thought. It can be a flashy aesthetic (e.g. the one-take trickery of 1917, the neon shenanigans of Only God Forgives, etc.) or an incredibly simple one (Éric Rohmer's contemporary tales) but as long as I sense its presence I'll already be at least partially happy with the movie (unless it completely shits the bed on all other fronts). Story is also important but in the battle of "what the movie's about" vs. "how it's about it" I lean towards the latter.
Sometimes I get pure cinematic joy from things that probably wouldn't matter to most viewers - the colors, the contrasts, the lighting, the position of the camera, stuff like that. And it can definitely feel a bit stifling to watch movies where actors just stand in a boringly and anonymously composed frame and perform. Even if the material/acting is great. But in an ideal world all those things should be up to snuff.
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Post by MsMovieStar on Feb 2, 2023 13:48:41 GMT
Oh honeys, I don't expect there's anyone here who will understand what I'm talking about but when you're cursed with beauty, story is much more interesting... (although sometimes they pay you not to speak).
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Nikan
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Post by Nikan on Feb 2, 2023 15:18:21 GMT
No, and I think modern cinema is in a terrible, terrible place rn because so many people behind the camera do - and get awarded for it. I would say a greater problem in movies the last couple of years, in the age of streamers and content, is exactly the opposite. Banal, flavourless, flat story being played out without an ounce of visual style.You do have examples of the opposite too. I'd throw Bardo out there as a current one, but they seem fewer and farther between, and at least can be notched up as noble failures that tried and missed rather than just disposable crap made with barely an ounce of heart. The fact that they can not tell a story to save their lives is definitely an issue... but I've come to wish that they were to be stripped from any ounce of visual style somehow..... then everyone will realize how empty at core movies have become, sooner - and may try to find a solution. Sending our visionary filmmakers of the day back to the script-writing classes might help... somebody close to Baz "just made his best movie" Luhrmann better like him enough to say " hey... we just wrote those two pointless love scenes for da king of Rock'nRoll... maybe spend the next hour try and build something true between them so the final airport scene actually has anything of emotional substance to the offer the poor viewer?" ... or make Robert Eggers sit for a while and think to himself " Gee, I did my best getting those Scandinavian mythologies details super-duper right and the landscapes look gorgeous! How a 50+ yrs old revenge flick awakens more care in the viewer than my movie? Hell, how a Tarantino martial arts patiche from 20 years ago works better? " ... Won't call whatever I've seen in recent years as ounces of "heart" either. They feel like showoffs of technicality and budget.
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