Directed by Sam Mendes and shot by Roger Deakins, the movie Skyfall is a spy film in the James Bond series. It is one of the greatest movies that I have ever seen in terms of visual effects, big action, and story plot. In this research paper, I will write about the background of the cinematographers, the synopsis of the movie, my overall feeling towards the movie, as well as two specific scenes.
Roger Deakins is an English cinematographer. As a successful cinematographer, he is well known for his film work with the directors, such as Coens brothers, Sam Mendes, and Denis Villeneuve. Being a member of both the American and British Society of Cinematographers, Roger Deakins has received thirteen nominations for the Academy Awards for Best Cinematography. In the film Skyfall, Roger Deakins played the role of lead cinematographer and worked along with his old crew members.
The movie Skyfall depicts the story about James Bond investigating on an attack on the British Secret Intelligence Services, M16. Raoul Silva, who was the former M16 agent, schemed and planned this attack. M sent James Bond to Shanghai and Macau to find and kill Silva. During the time when James Bond was going after Silva, Q was helping him along the way. In the end of the movie, James Bond killed Silva by throwing a knife into the back in Scotland.
Personally speaking, I really like the movie. I am a fan of action movie, the fighting scenes in Skyfall never fail to fascinate me. The most impressive fight scene to me was the train fight between James Bond and Patrice. In the beginning of the scene, James Bond was going after Patrice. After a series of gun firing, James Bond had to get close and catch Patrice. To reach the train where Patrice was on, James Bond drove a digger and punched a hole in the train so that the arm of the digger became a bridge to the train. The fight was absolutely intense. They fought on the top on a moving train where it was challenging to keep balance. Every single grab, punch, kick, push was so real that you could tell how intense the fight was. The facial expressions on their faces were highlighted by the close-up shots. The fight was impressive not just because of the physical movements between the two actors, but
The vision Christopher Nolan had for The Prestige (2006) was to add to the outbreak of street magician film, whilst playing a large dramatic subplot equal in grandeur to the magical performances within the film. In the final sequence of the film, I will analyse how the cinematography and sound resolves the plot so that it summarises the themes present in the film, whilst also invoking a response from the audience. Nolan predominantly uses close up shots, non-diegetic sound (music) and dialogue collaboratively to convey the dramatic, personal subplot of the characters and their relationships, whilst appealing to the audience bringing forth an emotional response from the audience. The heavy, slow, dramatic atmosphere of the ending sequence uses various techniques to summarise and uncover the underlying mysteries of the events throughout the film and consolidate themes introduced during the exposition.
Paul Haggis directed an Oscar winning film in 2004 called “Crash”, this movie basically talks about racism and the impact it has on the lives of people in Los Angeles. This movie got a good response from the viewers, as it concentrated on some real harsh realities of racism and asked some hard questions which are generally avoided in movies. This movie clearly promotes the a very delicate issue, and hence requires some detailed assessment. I personally feel the movie was good and it portrayed some very common events of racism, I think “Crash” shows realities, but in a not-so-realistic way.
The movie Before Night Falls directed by Julian Schnabel offers viewers a glimpse of how the homosexual community in Cuba was being mistreated under Fidel Castro’s regime. The true story is told in the eyes of Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas. The film depicts Arenas life in Cuba and all of the awful experiences that he had to deal with as a homosexual. Eventually he was arrested for false accusations of being a molester, however, he was actually under arrest for being a homosexual. Between the 1930s and 1990s, the Communist Cuba was abusive to the LGBT community as shown in their actions of harassment towards homosexuals, imprisoning the homosexuals, or sending them to re-education camps.
We encounter Bond as a fledgling British agent, yet to gain MI6 double-0 Status, with its ‘licence to kill’. The film strikes me as being more violent than previous Bond films, showing him cleaning up after the action - indeed, some of his injuries as portrayed were genuine, according to The Ticket, November 2006. He is less ‘superhuman’, too, than in the other films; for example, he’s not as adept at ‘free-running’ as his adversary. The new less-than-perfect Bond (he upsets M by
The 2012 movie Argo is based off of a true event in 1979. During the Iranian Civil War, President Jimmy Carter gives the Iranian Shah refuge in the U.S. due to his illness. In retaliation, Iranian activists invade the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran and the staff are taken as hostages. This is famously known as the Iranian hostage crises. Although six of the staff members escape and are taken in by the Canadian Ambassador. Determined to rescue the six, Tony Mendez, who is our main character, from the CIA is brought in because of his expertise. After talking to his son one day while watching a science fiction program on TV, he comes up the idea to go into Iran, under the guise of Canadians
I really enjoyed this film because it all takes place nearly in one location. The set is elaborate, and you can see from the inside of Jeff’s apartment into the windows of his neighbors. It is filmed in such a way that you feel as though you are looking out of a window, and you become a part of the chaos with the actors. The pace of the film also intrigued me. I enjoyed how it was filmed almost in real time and you become drawn in because everything is timed perfectly. It is suspenseful because you are watching everything happen and it is also possible to notice things in the
The first half of this course focused on Alfred Hitchcock and how his techniques are now recognized as iconic. From class discussions and film screenings, it is clear that Hitchcock pays every attention to detail when he crafts a scene. Many Hitchcock films we have seen this semester highlight how he builds suspense through cinematic elements such as shadow, dialogue, and composition. While many of his suspenseful scenes stir feelings of intensity and uncertainty, Alfred Hitchcock builds a more romantic suspense in his 1955 film To Catch a Thief in the fireworks scene (1:06:35-1:11:00).
Cinematographers and art directors play a very important and creative role in film production. They work closely with the director and give a film its unique visual look and identity. The art director was David Lazan and cinematographer Mauro Fiore. The entiriety of the movie is comprised in a single day which can be challenging for cinematographers and art directors. The film seemed to be filled with brief stints of consolidated action and emotion. This gave the plot of the film the feel as though it was unfolding in only a single day.
The Alfred Hitchcock film; Vertigo is a narrative film that is a perfect example of a Hollywood Classical Film. I will be examining the following characteristics of the film Vertigo: 1)individual characters who act as casual agents, the main characters in Vertigo, 2)desire to reach to goals, 3)conflicts, 4)appointments, 5)deadlines, 6)James Stewart’s focus shifts and 7)Kim Novak’s characters drives the action in the film. Most of the film is viewed in the 3rd person, except for the reaction shots (point of view shot) which are seen through the eyes of the main character.(1st person) The film has a strong closure and uses continuity editing(180 degree rule). The stylistic (technical) film form of Vertigo makes the film much more
Any movie can have a romantic plotline, consisting of a picturesque town, a lonely woman, and forbidden love, but only one can narrate societal hypocrisies and social stigmas while paying homage to a classic Hollywood melodrama directed by a German-expressionism-influenced director from the 1950s. Enter stage right, Far from Heaven. Directed by Todd Haynes, this film, set in the 1950s, tells the story of Cathy Whitaker, a suburban housewife who seems to have the perfect life—until it starts to fall apart, and she has to learn how to keep her husband’s homosexuality and her personal infatuation with her gardener, an African American man, from affecting her flawless image and place in society. This movie was heavily influenced by the midcentury melodrama All That Heaven Allows, directed by Douglas Sirk, as suggested by the somewhat similar plotlines, but their similarities are heavily apparent in the cinematography and mise-en-scène. What makes Far from Heaven unique from its predecessor, though, is how it uses modernized topics in its storyline in order to unveil the hypocrisy of society and the Whitakers’ dysfunctional relationship.
In “The Departed”, which takes place in South Boston, State Police are tasked with bringing an end to Irish American organized crime. One of the stars of the movie is the great actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays undercover cop Billy Costigan. The cast is packed with high demand actors; one of them being Irish mob boss, Jack Nicholson, playing Frank Costello. Costigans counterpart is Colin Sullivan, played by Matt Damon. Both men just-graduated from Massachusetts State Police Academy; Sullivan is on the side of the mob, and joined the police force to be an informer for the mob boss. There is a key interplay between each man, and the people they are trying to deceive. The stakes are high, as each operative becomes entrenched in their double life,
The movie Falling Down portrays many examples of the movie reflecting, influencing, and changing society. The movie reflects society's many flaws such as inflation of prices and unneeded budget spending. The movie also influences others to point out society’s flaws by using force. Finally, the movie changes society by showing the movie in the point of view of a person that is classified as a realist.
title of the film, as it looks like James Bond is going to embark on
Today, there are a lot of movies shot in the spy genre. The special effects amaze with its inimitability and with each film are becoming brighter and more exciting. In this paper I want to analyze one of the most impressive and most of the first films about spies "Casino Royale" filmed by Martin Campbell and compare it with the eponymous book written by Ian Fleming, which soon served as the plot for the film. In such way it will be seen how the spy genre have been changed for decades. “Casino Royale” is one of the first Fleming’s novels and it was released with the absence of big success in 1953.
Being a science fiction fan during his childhood, he worked his way in producing several highly acclaimed science fiction movies such as Avatar, Aliens, and the Terminator. Born on August 16, 1954, in Ontario Canada and later moved to California to finish his college at California State University. In order to pursue his dreams in cinematography, he worked as a truck driver and would work on screenplays. Then his career began from an art director in Battle beyond the Stars (1980) to directing various films. Now, he is an Oscar-winning director whose films Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009) remains the top grossing films of all time. He has won various awards from different sides of the world, Norway, France, and the United Kingdom. Mise-en-scenes were well incorporated in each of James Cameron’s movies especially for science fiction movies that used elegantly crafted visuals.