I find the photography in The Conformist (by ingenious Vittorio Storaro, later cinematographer of Apocalypse Now) extremely beautiful. Actually, along with Apocalypse Now and Wings of Desire (Henri Alekan), it's my favorite. What's yours?
www.psmovies.co.sr
yeah i agree. the conformista does have the best cinematography ever... Sympathy for Lady Vengance was beautiful aswell, atcually the whole "vengance" trilogy was beautiful... but yup, the conformist is better.
share10 films with superb cinematography:
The Conformist
Last Year at Marienbad
Barry Lyndon
Life of Oharu
Madame de...
The Night of the Hunter
Andrei Rublev
Days of Heaven
In the Mood for Love
Jules et Jim
I would put L'Avventura in that list.
shareSome of the stuff Nykvist did for Bergman is pretty incredible:
Persona (though I've seen really varied quality from print to print, even between different 30 mm prints. It's a touchy film to get right.)
The Silence
Shame
Fanny and Alexander
the conformist, especially for its time, is pretty incredible. other favorites of mine are the new world, which i think is malick's best, and irreversible by gaspar noe--a stylistic masterpiece, regardless of how you perceive its content.
I...drink...your...milkshake! I drink it up!
All of these films are fantastic sights to behold! But I must say: The Life of Oharu! Totally enchanting.
shareIl Conformista is indeed unparalleled.
I also like "The Third Man".
All interested in this art should look up the documentary "Visions of Light". It shows many beautiful movies and insightful commentary.
Night of the Hunter best black & white photography!!!!!!!!
Black Narcissus best color photography!!!!!
You are right on the money with those two - Black Narcissus is my favorite film!
shareAll great selections, everyone.
I'm a huge fan of The Third Man and especially The Night of the Hunter. Incredible cinematography, and Robert Mitchum was fantastic!
Anyway, I had seen Il Conformista once before on TCM, and have now bought the extended edition dvd. Terrific film!
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Father and Son (Russia, 2003) has the best cinematography of the 21st century so far.
shareTHE INNOCENTS, HUD, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, are a few more B&W favorites!
shareA lot of elements came together in Bertolucci's The Conformist to make it so visually arresting - the design aesthetic, Scarfiotti's sense of the beautiful locations and the set dressing, the camera movement, compositions and lighting of Storaro most of all. It was a perfect blending of three collaborators working together- just perfect unity.
shareOnce Upon A Time In The West
Lawrence of Arabia
2001: A Space Odyssey
Barry Lyndon
The Searchers
and, of course, THE CONFORMIST!
great choices, all.
i second the mention of sven nykvist's work with ingmar bergman, but i would add "cries and whispers".
also, 'the conversation' has a great, voyeuristic look to it.
Here's a list in no particular order:
Barry Lyndon
The Conformist
The Third Man
8 1/2
The Godfather (parts I and II)
Manhattan
City of God
Citizen Kane
Eraserhead
Mon Uncle
Those are just a few that I think are groundbreaking acheivements in cinematography.
Storaro fans should definitely check out his work in The Fifth Cord. Certainly not a great film like The Conformist, but still an example of stunning cinematography.
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Some of my favorite cinematography and individual shots are in:
The End of the World (30)
M (31) -- tracking shot over beggars
The Front Page (31) -- elevator/mirror shot
Vampyr (32)
The Vampire Bat (33) -- beating heart and many others
Narcotic (33) -- extreme high and low angle shots on the street, snakes
The Black Cat (34) -- the entire movie but especially some of the pans
Dante's Inferno (35)
The Informer (35) -- main character walking up to pub
The Grapes of Wrath (40) -- Tom Joad's first conversation with Casey
Force of Evil (48) -- scene where the brother is killed
Touch of Evil (58)
Odds Against Tomorrow (59)
Seconds (66) -- the first part, especially Will Geer talking to John Randolph
Satyricon (69) -- the brothel scene, especially a few of the tracking shots
The Conformist (70) -- final asylum shot is my favorite
King of Marvin Gardens (72) -- opening close-up
Chinatown (74) -- the whole movie, like taking a camera back to 1937
Thieves Like Us (74) -- opening shot
The Conversation (74) -- Harry Caul on the phone in his aparment
Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (74) -- the overall aesthetic
Deep Red (75) -- the fountain shot is possibly my favorite shot ever done
Taxi Driver (76) -- high-angle shot after the killings
The Falls (80) -- the whole movie
The Draughtsman's Contract (82) -- walking back and forth with lanterns
A Zed and Two Noughts (85) -- all of Greenaway's 80s stuff is amazing
The Belly of an Architect (87) -- again, too numerous to mention
Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus (05) -- singing in the beauty parlor
I'm going to try to make this a better and more comprehensive list.
Metropolis
Wild Strawberries
Cinema Paradiso
Apocalypse Now
Do the Right Thing
Cut(the second short from 3 Extremes)
Se7en
The Last Emporerer
Le Corbreau
Wages of Fear
Satyricon
Irreversible, sheerly for being mildly innovative.
Essentially anything ever involving Vittorio Storaro
**In desperate times, shoot B&W Super 8**
I hate to disagree with the listmakers on this thread (many of your selections are very good) but I only like parts of the Conformist. I think that many of the shots are framed magnificently and the slanting lines and venetian blind effects are really fun to look at, but why the slanted mise-en-scene? You know, the parts where it looks like someone tipped the camera 45 degrees and just forgot about it. It gives me a headache-- same with "the third man". I find the slanted camera shot to be incredibly distracting and I don't understand why it is used (is it maybe to show that bertolucci isn't a conformist?) Someone explain it to me.
My favorite Cinematography:
2001
Dances With Wolves
The Sheltering Sky
Glengarry Glen Ross
Rebecca
A Little Princess (Cauron)
Pan's Larbyrinth
The Killing
Full Metal Jacket
Paths Of Glory
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Jules and Jim
The Last Metro
Hamlet (Kenneth Brannagh)
Once Upon a Time in America
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Also don't forget the cinema du look films, especially Luc Bessons.
shareIn "The Conformist" and "The Third Man," the main characters are disoriented in a moral sense -- thus we get the tilted camera to make us the viewer also feel disoriented. This was discussed on "The Third Man" extras... which makes sense. So I don't think it is for no reason, though I can get why it can be annoying.
shareyeah.... i recently saw il conformista, the cinematography is startling. virtually every shot is framed like a painting in regards to perspective, symmetry, colour, etc. the only equals i can think up right now are bob altman's early flicks, "images" and especially "the long goodbye"... also tarkovsky's "the mirror" and "andrei rublev", visconti's "white nights", and pasolini's "oedipus rex". "the third man" is a very good choice, as would be "a touch of evil".
but il conformista may take the cinematic buntcake of perfection:
- the scene where marcello and giula are making love surrounded by shafts of light peeking through venetian blinds
- the "blowing leaves" shot
- and especially the plato's cavern scene where marcello's shadow disappears at the moment his game is revealed by the professor
il danza, il danza
rather be forgotten than remembered for giving in.
Butch Cassidy and Sundance
Road to perdition (Another Conrad Hall movie)
The Leopard
Lawrence of Arabia
Barry Lyndon (the best of the lot)
Lawrence of Arabia
Voyna I Mir
Barry Lyndon
Gone With The Wind
Doctor Zhivago
Ben-Hur
The Conformist
The Fall of the Roman Empire
The Empire Strikes Back (particularly the scenes on Hoth and Bespin)
Those are my picks.
The kin killed the Harlequin.
quite at random, just things that come up in mind...
La Passion de Jeanne D'Arc. Rudolph Maté, cinematographer
Il Conformista. Vittorio Storaro, cinematographer
Cries and Whispers, Sven Nykvist, cinematographer
Golem, the Spirit of Exile. Henri Alekan, cinematographer
Young Mr.Lincoln, Bert Glennon, cinematographer
Citizen Kane, Greg Toland, cinematographer
The Magnificent Ambersons, Stanley Cortez, cinematographer
The River, Claude Renoir, cinematographer
The Searchers, Winton C.Hoch, cinematographer
Written On the Wind, Russel Metty, cinematographer
Black Narcissus, Jack Cardiff, cinematographer
Detour, Benjamin H. Kline, cinematographer
McCabe and Mrs.Miller, Vilmos Zigmond, cinematographer
Two English Girls and the Continent, Nestor Almendros, cinematographer
Taxi Driver, Michael Chapman, cinematographer
Meet Me in St.Louis, George J. Folsey, cinematographer
A Brighter Summer Day, Huigong Li and Longyu Zhang, cinematographers
Il Grido, Gianni Di Venanzo, cinematographer
Chun Kuo, China Luciano Tovoli, cinematographer
La Bete Humaine, Curt Courant, cinematographer
Trouble In Paradise, Victor Milner, cinematographer
Way Down East, Henry Sartov, cinematographer
Ugetsu, Kazuo Miyagawa, cinematographer
Mishima, a life in four chapters, John Bailey, cinematographer
On Dangerous Ground, George Diskant, cinematographer
A River Called Titash, Baby Islam, cinematographer
Faust - Eine deutsche Volkssage, Carl Hoffmann, cinematographer
Kippur, Renato Berta, cinematographer
Landscape in the Mist, Yorgos Arvanitis, cinematographer
The Shiranui Sea, Koshiro Otsu, cinematographer
Cookie's Fortune, Toyomochi Kurita, cinematographer
Ivan The Terrible, Edward Tisse, cinematographer
The Silence of the Lambs, Tak Fujimoto, cinematographer
Au Coeur du Mensonge, Eduardo Serra, cinematographer
Vivre Sa Vie, Raoul Coutard, cinematographer
Telets (Taurus), Aleksandr Sokurov, director and cinematographer
Pale Rider, Bruce Surtees, cinematographer
The Boston Strangler, Richard E.Kline, cinematographer
Fat City Conrad L.Hall, cinematographer
Akitsu Onsen, Toichiro Narushima, cinematographer
Route One, USA, Robert Kramer, director and camera operator, Richard Copans, producer and director of photography
Traffic Stephen Soderberg, director and cinematographer
Bringing Out The Dead, Robert Richardson, cinematographer
Roman Holiday, Henri Alekan and Franz Planer, cinematographers
Pursued, James Wong Hoe, cinematographer
Shanghai Express, Lee Garmes, cinematographer
In the Realm of the Senses, Hideo Ito, cinematographer
In Vanda's Room, Pedro Costa, director and cinematographer
Yi Yi, Yang Wei-han, cinematographer
Springtime in a Small Town, Lee Pin-Bing, cinematographer
Lawrence of Arabia, Freddie Young, cinematographer
Disengagement, Christian Berger, cinematographer
The 47 Ronin (Genroku Chusingura), Shigeru Miki, cinematographer
The Fugitive, Gabriel Figueroa, cinematographer
Every film mentioned is great and with great cinematography. Almost everything I was going to mention is here! I'd add one unsung film: the wonderful work Sacha Vierney did on "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover" is amazing, even if it is overshadowed by the extremities of the story.
shareThis easily has the best color cinematography. Chinatown and Vertigo are close seconds.
I am shocked, *shocked* to find that gambling goes on in here!
Lawrence of Arabia
Ryan's daughter
Doctor Zhivago
Freddie Young and David Lean. What can you say? Legendary.....Ryan's daughter looks absolutely stunning on the big screen.
The cranes are flying
Letter never sent
Just about the best location shooting ever. The crane shots......how did he do it????
Days of heaven
Leopard
Senso
Black Narcissus
The third man
The age of innocence
Cries and whispers
Fanny and Alexander
Wings of desire
Paris Texas
Tess
Apocalypse now
The last emperor
The conformist
Citizen Kane