I haven’t read the thread in detail but I don’t think Casablanca has been mentioned. It may be the most beautiful black-and-white film I have seen: particularly the lighting.
Also Pleasantsville which was a little melodramatic plot-wise but made brilliant use of special effects in illustrating the main theme.
Finally a bunch of Studio Ghibli animated films where the animation may not always be state-of-the-art technically but the artwork is truly memorable: Princess Mononoke, Grave of the Fireflies and Spirited Away come to mind.
Two years before Days of Heaven (1978), the Steadicam rig was used in Bound for Glory (1976), most notably in the scene in the Oakie camp that begins in the air as a hang glider shot and ends on the ground as a tracking shot.
-blink- Oh GOD. I knew this, I meant Bound For Glory. Garrett tells the story that the Crane Operator saw him walk up with the Prototype Steadicam Rig and asked, ’ So, does that thing work underwater? ’
Ouch, my bad. I literally saw one title and thought of another.
The very first shot he did was a crane walk-off. Down, through the camp, up to David Carradine. It was not a hang-glider in any way, however. It was a crane. I have in my files here a production still of Garrett standing near that crane, wearing the rig.
Those crane walk-offs are tricky work. I’ve turned down doing a few because the Grip Department really didn’t have its ducks in a row. I did one that worked nicely on the first Notorious B.I.G. music video. I stepped off as two grips stepped on to counterbalance me and the Steadicam, then the shot kept going. Fun stuff, defying what people are used to seeing in a single shot.
Cartooniverse Walloon, I sit corrected. I had that shot in my head when posting, but sure didn’t write the correct darned title down.
It’s interesting how many of these visually beautiful films are really really boring, or at best slow-moving and interminably long: Lawrence of Arabia, Days of Heaven, Dances With Wolves, The Thin Red Line, The Big Blue, A River Runs Through It, 2001…
Is it just that people don’t notice the visuals on fast-paced films, or is it that any film with lots of interesting plotting, drama and character development would be ruined by interminable landscape shots?
I think that maybe the parameters deserve to be updated a wee bit there, refusal. I saw Phone Booth last week and I have got to say, that film is shot in the MOST remarkable way.
The composition, angle, lens height, filtering, processing. All of the choices serve the mood and pace incredibly well. It’s beautiful in terms of the world where that movie takes place. It needn’t be a long slow panning shot of the woods and valley, it might be the close-up of Glenn Close in Dangerous Liasons or the aerials from The Shining.
Y’know the problem here? Not enough naked women pics. Sure, naked women are automatically beautiful, byt you have to light them right. Some of my faves in the softcore area:
Luscious (Kari Wuhrer wears wet paint well)
Playtime
The Mistress Club
I also like those old Technicolor flicks when they turned up the color, esp. the Arabian Nights stories like:
Son of Sinbad
Jupiter’s Darling
(Oh, Lawrence of Arabia is kinda OK, but too much sand)
