As Time Goes By: 2011

When I made my first attempt at writing this post, the new year was only two days old and I had already seen two great movies (Drive and Poulet Aux Prunes) that serve as a good starting point for writing about some of last year’s favorites. I found it harder to compile a top ten list than in previous years – especially since many of the movies that impressed me most in 2011 were older ones. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen a lot of good new releases but there weren’t too many truly exceptional ones. I’ve continued my personal journey through Italian Cinema which led me to (re-)discover Vittorio De Sica and especially the literary adaptations by Luchino Visconti.  

What I love about movies
Emotional reactions might be provoked by a great performance, a strong script or a personally resonant topic. But many of the truly magical moments in film history are achieved by what Hitchcock famously called “pure cinema”, the perfect match of image and sound. It might be true that I want to see believable characters in a movie, but the real reason I’m addicted to cinema is the sensation of moments like the one in Vertigo (1958) where the camera encircles James Stewart and Kim Novak while the trance-like music expresses his conflicted emotions. Music in fact, is the key to many of these moments. Just think of Once Upon a Time In The West (1968), a film of so many purely cinematical moments, it has been called a "horse opera". 

Nicolas Winding Refn’s atmospheric neo-noir Drive now proves that such operatic moments even work with terrible synthesizer music if it captures the mood of a scene. After all, it’s the dreamlike quality of slow tracking shots and slow motion – two devices unknown to real life – that send chills down my spine when used correctly.

On the other hand, Drive with its taciturn protagonist is also built around scenes of subtle and restrained acting best demonstrated in a scene between the Driver and the girl next door that vibrates with emotion even though Ryan Gosling hardly says a word and Carey Mulligan is simply seen breathing. At the same time the Driver reminds us of all the failing anti-hero of so many film noirs which I love more for their style and mood than for their sometimes nebulous stories.

Some of film noir’s chief stylistic elements are voice-over narration and in some cases subjective flashbacks. Both devices lie at the heart of Poulet aux prunes, French-Iranian graphic novel writer Marjane Satrapi’s first live-action film (with animated sequences, of course), which deals with chronology and time in an associative way.

Set in an artificially lit fairy-tale Iran of the past we experience the bittersweet life story of a violinist. The performances by the great Mathieu Amalric and Golshifteh Farahani are as stylised as the setting which reminded me of a time where films didn’t have to adhere to the dictates of realism to evoke true emotions. Many of John Ford’s sentimental family sagas come to mind.

Last but not least, two cameos by Chiara Mastroianni and Isabella Rossellini, and the direct homage to Fellini’s Amarcord (1974) evoked fond memories of many Italian films I’ve seen last year.

If you look at my lists below, you may see that what I liked about Drive and Poulet aux prunes can be found in many of my favorite films of 2011. 

The movies I loved in 2011
The most outstanding film I’ve seen in 2011 was rather unexpected: 

• Nader and Simin: A separation (Asghar Farhadi): urban realism at its best – it remains a mystery how Farhadi manages to show us so many lifelike characters who find themselves in about every moral dilemma in a story that offers as many unexpected twists and turns in only a little more than two hours.

Ten more favorites in alphabetical order: 

• Another Year (Mike Leigh): one of this year’s most deeply felt films was also one of the simplest and unspectacular. Like visiting old friends.
• The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies): Terence Davies’ Ratigan adaptation follows a musical structure with allusions of Lean’s Brief Encounter.
• Des Hommes Et Des Dieux (Xavier Beauvois): A group of France’s foremost character actors and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake moved me to tears.
• Tree Of Life (Terrence Malick): Even if he hits a few wrong notes, Terrence Malick is still a master storyteller as far as marrying images with music goes.
• Submarine (Richard Ayoade): A moody coming of age picture in an eerie time capsule that evokes the 60s and the 80s at the same time accompanied by present-day songs.
• Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky): Aronofsky finally made a crowd-pleaser without sacrificing his personal film making style.
• Satte Farben vor Schwarz (Sophie Heldmann): One of the many films that revolved around old age and selfimposed death. As distancing and unsentimental as can be. I only appreciated it after noticing how long it stuck in my mind.
• Pina (Wim Wenders): Wenders’ art house documentary in 3D sparked my interest in free dance. My eyes had time to wander around the threedimensional space which is something that isn’t possible in most current 3D films.
• Polisse (Maïwenn): A dense film about a Parisian youth police unit that makes you laugh and cry at the same time.
• La Piel Que Habito (Pedro Almodovar): not Almodovar’s best but a very rigid piece of cinema. Like a dense art house nightmare which reveals what lies at the core of so many Almodovar films when you take away the warmth and humanity.

Special mentions go to the Coens’ incredibly faithful adaptation of Portis’ True Grit and the only animated feature that really stuck with me last year: Une Vie De Chat by Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol. I did like the fierce colors and design of Kung Fu Panda II and enjoyed Kari-gurashi no Arietti by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, a decent if not exceptional descendant of Miyazaki’s works.
Although 2011 was a dreary year for fans of Asian films (at least in Switzerland), I have seen many classic Chinese animated films on DVD. I regret not having had time to write about them properly yet (and thus letting down the person who gave them to me). Interesting however they were, not one of them came close to the best live-action films I’ve seen this year.

My top ten (re-)discoveries of 2011:

• Do the right thing (Spike Lee, 1989): if Spike Lee had only done one film it should have been this one. As brimming with energy as on the first day. Explosive and timeless.
• El espiritu de la colmena (Victor Erice, 1973): a poetic Spanish meditation about life, cinema and the visual metaphor of a beehive. Lit like an oil painting.
• Il Gattopardo (Luchino Visconti, 1963): a monumental classic I’ve shunned away from for a long time. I’ve discovered a masterpiece and a brilliant performance by a dubbed Burt Lancaster.
• Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray, 1954): can a B-Western starring Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden ever be more fun?
• L'Armée des ombres (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969) / Le Deuxieme souffle (1966): Melville directs Lino Ventura and Paul Meurisse, majestic, taciturn, visual and depressing.
• My darling Clementine (John Ford, 1946): John Ford and Henry Fonda at the top of their game.
• Out of the past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947): if ever there was a truly romantic film noir, Robert Mitchum was certainly in it…
• Some Came Running (Vincente Mintelli, 1958) / The Band Wagon (1953): Two long awaited Minelli classics in Technicolor with sequences for eternity.
• Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976): Scorsese, Schrader, DeNiro and Herrmann. Irresistible.
• Una giornata particolare (Ettore Scola, 1977): an instant all-time favorite. As if Kubrick had directed In the mood for love.

The Colors of Sleepy Hollow (Part II/II): Dramatic Lighting

Note: Hans Perk has just completed posting the drafts for this segment (Prod. No. 2062) und Sanek has already started doing the mosaics.

A lot of the first half of the Ichabod segment was based on the color relations of pink/magenta and green/turquoise. Since this was the comedy half, the lighting was secondary and we were looking mostly at object colors with only occasionally a shadow to indicate special lighting (dawn or candle light).

However, as the story progresses towards Halloween and night time, it becomes more dramatic and colored lighting is emphasized.

Dark and gloomy sets are nothing new or extraordinary for Halloween scenes. So it’s more the subtle (and not-so-subtle) use of (painted) colored light that is interesting here.

In the very beginning, we entered the village through the cemetery which is not only dark but enhanced by a blue shimmer from the left. Nothing in the story suggests that this is a night-time image yet for pure atmosphere this shot is accepted within the sequence of pan shots that establish the environment. It simply foreshadows the creepy second half of the segment.

Then later on, while Ichabod and Katrina have been dancing, a storm has come to the night sky.
As if influenced by the outside lighting, the atmosphere inside the barn changes from diffuse high key (without cast shadows) to harsher low key lighting as Brom performs his Halloween stories.

The final change in lighting takes place when the wind blows out the candles near the window. Now, the fireplace seems to be the only source of light and the scared townspeople cast strong shadows on the wall. Brom and the props he uses are carefully enhanced by a yellow/orange glow. Of course, these expensive special effects are very economically used; just enough to make us feel the mood and only in a few shots. The background looks generally darker and more brownish red than before. Black shadows are added only when needed for dramatic effect.

When at the climax of Brom’s scare tactics Ichabod (who is so scared of the prospects of riding through the “hollow” that he isn’t aware of his peppering the egg) spits fire the scene fades to black and we see him on his way back to the village.

If ever there was a dark and gloomy way home, it led through that dark forest. A kind of establishing shot shortly before the new sequence starts.
Stage lighting
So far all the colored light originated from within the barn (candles, fireplace, spitting fire). The forest on the other hand is lit much more expressionistic and mainly based on blue and green which is fairly common for night-time depictions of forests.

What I like about these backgrounds is how blue and green light is used to illuminate tree trunks to add a layer of contrast that couldn’t be achieved by staying within the values of blue alone. One could argue that the blue light is caused by the moon but the inclusion of it in the early graveyard shot does not support this notion. And besides, where does the green light come from then? The leafs flying by are dark brown, so they subtly stand out in front of the trees even if they are not very different in value.

The visual illusion reminiscent of Snow White is unmasked by a slight change of moonlight.

In more atmospheric moments (above) the pictures are composed around value contrasts with more subtle shades of blue next to each other. Moments of tension (below) on the other hand are emphasized by clearer contrasts of hues.

 When Ichabod is most scared an additional hue shows up: purple/magenta.

At first this is only for a very brief moment in time, shortly before Ichabod reaches the cemetery.

right: what a great pose!

After a tension releasing comical interlude around fake scares and a stubborn steed, both Ichabod and his horse are scared by something they see offscreen. Their “take” is enhanced by getting green in the face bottom-up. This is by no means an original effect, but it is rather well executed contrasting the color in the subsequent reverse shot of the menace.

Like in so many Disney films, magenta/purple is added to give a setup a more outlandish appeal. As usual the villain is wearing a purple cape. In addition to that the expressionist use of changing a background’s color onscreen from “normal” to red/purple is used to emphasize the menace.

Note how the front headstones don’t change color in order to make the purple of the background stronger by contrast.

green lit characters against a purple background turning up later in the villain song of The Princess and the Frog.

Now the lighting is purely espressionistic only reflecting the dramatic tension. Seen out of context, it looks like someone is turning on and dimming colored stage lamps within an artificial forest. Again this reflected live-action films of the day much more than we might be aware of today, since most of the lavish Technicolor extravaganzas were shot on soundstages in elaborately constructed sets. Night time scenes in particular.

The effect of double exposing backgrounds in different colors is only used very economically. Wherever it was possible, the same effect is achieved by single backgrounds that are not seen in their entirety under the camera.

Here (below) for example, the purple part is emphasized as the camera moves away from the image coinciding with the character blocking out the blue part of the background. In motion it looks as if the lighting turns to purple while the horseman is approaching.

The very long pan below (actually a series of pans) looks realistic with the exception of the exact spot where the horseman catches up with Ichabod and tries to behead him. Since we are panning so fast, it looks as if the color changed for that moment and is back to blue and grey right afterwards when Ichabod is saved by tumbling downhill.

Then as Ichabod is finally reaching the forest's end and is closer to the bridge, the purple light is almost gone from the scene.

Below are two different examples of getting the silhouettes across clearly in fast moving scenes. While the horseman cannot be shown lighter than the background without losing the pitch black that is an integral part of the menace, a stark magenta glow illuminates just enough of the silhouette to be convincing and dramatic. Ichabod on the other hand is light against the dark forest and dark against the backlight of the night sky.

the green doesn't turn red in this final clash which is more comical than dramatic.

The fiery light emitted by the orange pumpkin is not only suggesting the horseman might be Brom but also brackets the Halloween part visually.

In the end we’re back with the more tender pastel versions of violet and turquoise. Even the orange pumpkin that stood between Ichabod and Katrina und is connected to Brom looks softer in the morning light.

Note how different this romantic depiction of the bridge is from the village we have seen in the beginning of the segment. So while the backgrounds of the comedy half of the picture were much more stylized, the scary second part relies on the common romantic 19th century illustration style associated with gothic horror stories.

For once the bad guy (looking like a blueprint for Gaston from Beauty and the Beast) gets the sassy girl and the good guy a large widow with several kids strangely resembling him. Both women are clad in chaste blue, by the way. Also the color palettes of the church window and the one of Ichabod’s room are very similar. Ichabod’s face is in the light, though, while Brom’s is backlit. Colorwise we're finally back again in the idyllic town of the beginning, the autumn colors have vanished however and the overall tone has changed from warm to cool and soft.

Encore
There are a few color keys and inspirational sketches by Mary Blair and her collaborators online. It's interesting that they hardly reflect the production color palettes. But since I don't know anything about the film's production process I just paste them here for you to look at.