English Language Films
1. Barry Lyndon (1975, Dir. Stanley Kubrick; Cin. John Alcott)
2. Duel in the Sun (1946, Dir. King Vidor; Cin. Lee Garmes, Ray Rennahan, Hal Rosson)
3. Invaders From Mars (1953, Dir. William Cameron Menzies; Cin. John F. Seitz)
4. Leave Her to Heaven (1946, Dir. John M. Stahl; Cin. Leon Shamroy)
5. Moby Dick (1956, Dir. John Huston; Cin. Oswald Morris)
6. Phantom of the Opera (1943, Dir. Arthur Lubin; Cin. W. Howard Greene, Hal Mohr)
7. The Red Shoes (1948, Dir. Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger; Cin. Jack Cardiff)
8. The Searchers (1956, Dir. John Ford; Cin. Winton C. Hoch)
9. Singin’ in the Rain (1952, Dir. Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly; Cin. Harold Rosson)
10. Vertigo (1958, Dir. Alfred Hitchcock; Cin. Robert Burks)
International Films
1. Contempt (1963, Dir. Jean-Luc Godard; Cin. Raoul Coutard; France/Italy)
2. Cries and Whispers (1972, Dir. Ingmar Bergman; Cin. Sven Nykvist; Sweden)
3. Gate of Hell (1953, Dir. Teinosuke Kinugasa; Cin. Kohei Sugiyama; Japan)
4. In the Mood For Love (2000, Dir. Wong Kar-Wai; Cin. Christopher Doyle, Mark Lee Ping-bin; Hong Kong)
5. The Last Emperor (1987, Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci; Cin. Vittorio Storaro; Italy/United Kingdom/China/Hong Kong)
6. Red Desert (1964, Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni; Cin. Carlo Di Palma; France/Italy)
7. The River (1951, Dir. Jean Renoir; Cin. Claude Renoir; India/France/United States)
8. Satyricon (1969, Dir. Federico Fellini; Cin. Giuseppe Rotunno; Italy/France)
9. Senso (1954, Dir. Luchino Visconti; Cin. G.R. Aldo, Robert Krasker, Giuseppe Rotunno; Italy)
10. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1964, Dir. Sergei Paradjanov; Cin. Viktor Bestayev, Yuri Ilyenko; Russia/Ukraine)
This is clearly a very idiosyncratic list. Just look at the dates: Scorsese is pointing to the films that influenced him in his impressionable years. We already knew how gaga he is for "Duel in the Sun" (a cheesy Western sometimes referred to as "Lust in the Dust").
Maybe in the comments you can come up with some alternatives. Is there a movie that springs my mind for its color? Not really. Those extra-vivid Technicolor movies like "Vertigo" and "The Birds" crowd out more subtly colored recent movies that I find more appealing. Any ideas?
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20 comments:
What Dreams May Come was gorgeous.
Not a movie that is going to win a lot of awards (though a great sci-fi movie) but Pitch Black makes great use of color.
The story takes place on a planet with both yellow suns and a blue sun that are up at alternate times of the day. The color of the ambient light affects all other colors.
Elvira Madigan . . . Or was it just schmaltz made memorable by Mozart?
"Amelie" used greens in a way I'd never seen before. "Million Dollar Baby" was almost completely filmed in shadow very effectively. As far as black and white films that used shadow well "Touch of Evil" and "In Cold Blood" are the best I've seen.
Most of Scorsese's American list are good choices, though I'll have to watch "Singin' in the Rain" again. I've never thought of that as a beautifully shot film -- but it may be because I get too caught up in the story to study it.
I liked the old Manchurian Candidate. Use of shadows was fantastic.
I'll add "Days of Heaven", "The Comformist" and "Road to Perdition" as movies that used lighting well. None of them are particularly favorites of mine, but they all looked terrific.
"Vertigo" belongs on the list simply for the bookshop sequence.
Fellini's "Nights of Cabiria"
Far From Heaven
Moulin Rouge!
The 1938 "Robin Hood" with Errol Flynn; the colors are incredibly beautiful in some scenes.
Even "Angel Heart" (with Roarke/DeNiro) has some amazing use of color for noirish effect.
"Raging Bull" also sprang to mind, but it's understandable why it wasn't listed. "Blade Runner" certainly is memorable, although lighting was only part of the visual scheme of that movie.
Lord of the Rings (recent trilogy)
The Wizard of Oz
Last of the Mohicans (1994)
Ron, Robert: I don't think black & white films really had a shot at this list, though they have to use light especially well.
Some great mentions on the above posts. I think "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers" were both more color than story, as compared to say, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" which seemed to hold together better.
"Amelie" is another great choice, and good film, but I would add, "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover" with Helen Mirren. Lots of color in that one, where it is used to set the mood of each scene.
Ann: I don't think any of the films on my list are in black and white.
Ron: Nights of Cabiria is black and white.
Xenophon: Yeah, I love the giant pool of white paint spilled on the floor in "Bound." I like the interesting use of color that also involves a lot of absence of color.
"The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover" Also "Johnny Guitar" for its creative use of those cheap mid-50s color processes (in this case, Trucolor ... I think)
Christopher: M'bad. I meant to refer to "Juliet of the Spirits," not "Nights of Cabiria."
"Juliet" has some pretty awesome color in it!
I thought that the haziness in "Duel" worked very well- the lack of concrete color in the scenery and haziness of the picture gives the viewer the same sweaty feeling as the protgonist on the run from the trucker.
Absolute Beginner's by Julien Temple has fantastic set pieces, gorgeous colors amazing camera work, so so story (he shot it in Technicolor and had it processed in Hong Kong cause no other place besides there and Bollywood still used that film stock or knew how to process it properly).
Blue Velvet by David Lynch uses color to set moods effectively with wildly divergent treatment of lighting and shot styles as the Kyle McLachlan character descends further into the pit that he is lead into by Isabella Rosselini's character.
And of course how could nobody have mentioned QT's Kill Bill Vol.1&2 (esp. 1).
The big battle at the end of Vol. 1, switching from color to B&W and back to color heighten the visceral response engendered by all the viscera and gore drenching the set by the end of the fight (and possibly preserved the film's R rating).
And if we are talking about a single scene in an otherwise dissapointing movie (which we weren't, but I will anyway) The opening bar scene in Rodriguez's Once Upon a Time in Mexico is drenched in about a 100 shades of red and brown that would have been impossible to capture or display without using a digital camera coupled with digital projection. The lighting and color scheme of that scene acts as a harbinger of the bloody action to follow and for that it was effective and makes for a great technical demo for what digital cinema can accomplish.
"Valmont" simply because it was visually gorgeous. I believe "Days of Heaven" was already mentioned, but I'll say the same thing goes for it. I think you could put many period pieces on the list due to the wonderful use of color (thinking of several Merchant/Ivory films here).
Another Cohn brother movie to the one that was previously mentioned, I'll add "O Brother Where Art Thou." The use of autumnal colors, particularly golden yellow, permeates the film and helps set the tone.
I'm not a big fan of M. Night Shyamalan (hopefully I came close on that spelling), but color plays a role in his movies and they are usually visually striking because of it.
And while speaking of Scorcese, I was hugely disappointed by "The Age of Innocence." Beautiful color, ruined by camera work that screamed "look at me!" Or at least that's how it came across to me.
I can't believe no one has mentioned Wim Wenders' "Paris, Texas" yet.
Amazing, especially in the beggining.
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