Some days ago TV was showing Tarkovsky's Offret and I found my mother watching the last scene, that of the burning house. She reminded me then of Michal Leszczylowski's documentary which was featured in the DVD we had, back in the days I didn't bother lending my DVD's around :( So anyway, in the documentary we see how after a misfortune of the equipment, Tarkovsky's crew had to rebuild and re-burn the house. If you have seen the film, you surely remember this scene. It's a long shot that lasts for as long as the house is being burned, until finally it collapses. That being said, there are no cuts or other transitions except some basic camera movement. Although it is a common tracking shot, it does however involve a great amount of planing and I never quite understood how he managed to synchronize the actors to end their sequence just before the house collapsed.
If we were to talk about skillful cinematographers, this great director would definitely not be left out of the conversation. Which lands me to my next memory.
At some point I happened to follow a conversation about various directors in a forum when someone mentioned Lars Von Trier. I was new to Trier then but what I had seen of him had left me satisfied. While pretty much everyone in that forum were favoring Trier, there was this someone with an interesting point of view. He was strongly opposed to his type of filming and the whole 95 Dogme. I specifically remember him pointing out that "by choosing to use the moving cameras, he was relieving himself from the basic directorial duties. He is basically a slacker". I don't know if this is conservatism or just plain true but it does raise questions about what a director is and what is his role. But I suppose that was the purpose of the 95 Dogme in the first place.
The way I see it, in his effort to differentiate himself from the overly stupid mainstream cinema, Trier has offered me a nice contrast to Tarkovsky's careful planning. With his hand-held cameras he has brought me as close to the actor a spectator can be and with the affluence of jump cuts he quickened the tempo so that it comes in accordance with his avant-garde intentions.
Whether or not this counts for successful film-making I will leave to those that over-analyzing it forget to see the big picture.
If we were to talk about skillful cinematographers, this great director would definitely not be left out of the conversation. Which lands me to my next memory.
At some point I happened to follow a conversation about various directors in a forum when someone mentioned Lars Von Trier. I was new to Trier then but what I had seen of him had left me satisfied. While pretty much everyone in that forum were favoring Trier, there was this someone with an interesting point of view. He was strongly opposed to his type of filming and the whole 95 Dogme. I specifically remember him pointing out that "by choosing to use the moving cameras, he was relieving himself from the basic directorial duties. He is basically a slacker". I don't know if this is conservatism or just plain true but it does raise questions about what a director is and what is his role. But I suppose that was the purpose of the 95 Dogme in the first place.
The way I see it, in his effort to differentiate himself from the overly stupid mainstream cinema, Trier has offered me a nice contrast to Tarkovsky's careful planning. With his hand-held cameras he has brought me as close to the actor a spectator can be and with the affluence of jump cuts he quickened the tempo so that it comes in accordance with his avant-garde intentions.
Whether or not this counts for successful film-making I will leave to those that over-analyzing it forget to see the big picture.
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