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cinematography What are some of your' favorite scenes ever filmed?

D

Dean Jay

I know this may be a topic for cinematography gurus, and sorry to post out of my league here, but lets see some vids of the best of the best cinematography work ever!
 
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One shot, unbroken



This is the latest from a series of films from Coppola and Fricke, where the entire movie is driven by cinematography. There are underlying themes about mankind's imbalance with the natural world, but mainly, they took a couple of imax cameras, bolted them together, and traveled the world looking for opportunities for great cinematography. In a way, these films are the ultimate answer to your question. They did ditch the custom dual imax after a while, but the new stuff looks just as good, better really.




Planet Earth (the bbc series) boasts some of the most impressive work ever seen. The original series was at the time the highest budget production in the history of the UK. It's the carefully curated work of hundreds of professional photographers, some of whom went to extraordinary lengths to get a shot, such as living with snow leopards for six months.

 
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I get caught up in the acting, the writing, and the drama of the sequence, and I have to make a conscious effort to pay attention to the sound, the music, the lighting, the editing, and especially Tommy Schlamme's camera, which, for me, for a TV show, is as good as it gets.

 
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Quick request - clarification on the question. The post title says best scene (which I translate as best dramatic, or best all round) and then the actual first post talks about cinematography, which is what I answered. No problem doing both, I just wondered if this was supposed to be about one or the other.
 
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mlesemann said:
No, and that's one of the things that I really love about that scene.

I've read that some people "know" based on lip reading and/or subsequent comments by the actors and/or the director (Sophia Coppola). But I'm happy not to know.
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I have no idea to this day what those two italian ladies were singing about.
Truth is I don't wanna know. Some things are best left unsaid.

I like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can't be expressed in words.
 
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Nate North said:
Quick request - clarification on the question. The post title says best scene (which I translate as best dramatic, or best all round) and then the actual first post talks about cinematography, which is what I answered. No problem doing both, I just wondered if this was supposed to be about one or the other.
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I am always good with threads changing/adding/evolving from original topic, too good of stuff to not read about! :)
 
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Nate North said:
In that case, here are some good dramatic scenes -





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Vanilla Sky gives you something to think about. What would you do, wake up and face a new reality or go back to sleep?

Network is one of my favorite movies. I too am "mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any longer!!" :)

Falling down. Michael Douglas' character is so over the edge, he doesn't realize until the very end; "you mean I'm the bad guy?" .
 
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The early scene in Serenity which introduces the audience to the ship and its crew. Maybe it's not properly considered a scene, but rather a sequence. However, it is a continuous shot, once it cuts to the interior of the ship. I'm not saying it's especially beautiful cinematography, but it is good looking, and more importantly, I call attention to it because of the fact they pulled it off as a continuous shot, which seems to me like an achievement of photographic, production, and storytelling craft.



The climax scene of Conan the Barbarian, or again, perhaps it's better described as a sequence, is something to behold, really. It has moments of actual beauty. The torches, and then the torches being tossed into the pool is lovely. The white-robed followers drifting away after the denouement. Even the violence could be described as beautiful, or maybe not beautiful but poetic. Of course, this is hardly only the product of the DP's efforts but also or even more thanks to the art department and others, I realize. Looking for a good representative clip I found this one. It's sadly low resolution, and perhaps it's a bit like cheating because whoever put this together, with the split screen, the orchestra playing, and the choir, maybe with an extended cut, really knocks this scene even further out of the park for me, hits me in the feels. It's such a shame Hollywood should and must die. To think it was once such a finely tuned machine, a town that could and did produce such work as this—sigh. May it pass away and be gone.



Needless to say, anything The Godfather. And they did this before digital: that is, no chimping. The directors of photography really were alchemists back then. And whoever lit it, of course. The lighting is so nice.

 
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