I saw “Best Picture”-winner Moonlight, and yes, I greatly enjoyed and admired it, but it made me realize once again how clueless (and usually oblivious) I am about standard film visual stuff such as angles and cuts and lighting, etc.: in fact, pretty much anything that isn’t actors’ dialogue or facial expressions.
I did consciously notice some effects like a turntable (?) camera circling two actors talking in an early scene, and the camera nearly underwater in the swimming scene, and what I think was some pink lighting and a short clip played in reverse later on… But what did it do? What was it for? How did it contribute to the artistic qualities of the movie?
I’m not in any way trying to claim that these visual effects didn’t form an important part of the movie, or accusing the movie of being “pretentious”. It’s just that I’m colossally dumb about such matters and I’m tired of being dumb about them. I would like to be able to perceive why and how I was genuinely engrossed by the movie visually, instead of just thinking “Yeah it was good! I watched it really hard!”
Can some more cinematographically-intelligent Doper(s) give me an intro to something like “Film Visuals for Dummies”, as it pertains to Moonlight specifically?
I cannot claim to be so cinematographically-intelligent but I can still offer some thoughts. Maybe the more cinematographically-intelligent will join in!
The water scene? The way it was filmed helped us as viewers feel what Chiron was experiencing. Imagine the alternative view showing a boy being held by a man in waist deep water maybe 10 feet from the shore maybe shot from above. That does not convey the sense of anxiety and significance of the trust developing that the view we had did, the shared perspective of water overlapping our face, the view from in and partly under the water looking out towards the vastness of the ocean with a man saying “I got you. I won’t let you go.” and choosing to trust.
Another technique was the sense of disassociative trauma conveyed by the silence when his mother was yelling at him.
Thanks DSeid, none of that had occurred to me! Is there a way to become more “cinematographically intelligent” about such things? I realize that I tend to just unconsciously assume that the way a scene is filmed is simply the way the depicted events happened, so it doesn’t occur to me that the director’s trying to do something with the depiction.
(I also don’t consciously notice movie soundtracks, but that’s another thread.)
I wish there were a movie with all the same scenes filmed twice over in different ways, so I could acquire a clue as to what different visual effects are there for. Maybe I need to go see the new Beauty and the Beast and compare it to the animated version, as I hear that those have some scene-for-scene similarities. (But I bet the difference between animated and live-action wrecks the control.)
That’s what separates art from life: In art, everything is choice. Everything happened because someone made it happen, or, at the very least, didn’t go back and redo it when it chanced to happen (looking at you, Corman). So you can nitpick the tiny little details and see precisely how all the gears fit together in a way that would be evidence of mental disease were you to do the same thing to real life. Real life doesn’t have to stand up to close reading. Good art is expected to.
So that’s one thing you’re missing. The other thing you’re missing is a lot of theory and experience: Every kind of a shot has a name, and every kind of a shot has a use. That’s what’s called the formal aspect of filmmaking, the basic structure of how this scene follows this scene. Even the sequence of scenes tells a story. That’s the Kuleshov Effect: People impute meaning to sequences of scenes, because we subconsciously expect the sequence to have been made for a specific reason. For example, if you show a plate of soup, and then a man’s face, we expect that the man is looking at the soup. Literally every professional filmmaker uses this basic concept.
This is called film theory, by the way, and YouTube has quite a bit of it at the tutorial level. It’s easy to pick up enough to really enhance your understanding of why some films are seen as masterpieces and others are Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
I can’t speak for DSeid, but the youtube channel “Every Frame a Painting” does a great job at analyzing films and some of the episodes cover the area of cinematography.
If I understand what you’re asking for then it’s something that would be very difficult to do in an entirely text-based forum like this – someone would have to first describe a scene in detail (presumably referring to a copy of Moonlight) and then explain what specific techniques were used and to what effect. I have wrist problems that prevent me from typing at length, so I’m afraid you’re not going to get that from me.
I can expand a little on what DSeid already said, though. Something that struck me about Moonlight (which I saw for the first time just yesterday) was how the camerawork, editing, and sound helped to convey the main character’s inner state. For instance, in the scene where his mother is trying to get him to give her money for drugs, I noticed that it was shot/edited in a jerky, disorienting way, and that there were moments where the sound was muffled or out of sync with the video. IIRC this became particularly pronounced after the mother mentioned Juan’s funeral, which is when the viewer first learns that he’s dead. So while Chiron is extremely reserved and quiet throughout the movie, the way the scene is presented helps us to understand that he isn’t “numb”, he’s experiencing powerful emotions and working to suppress them.
This reminds me in a opposite way of Atom Egoyan’s treatment of the bus accident in The Sweet Hereafter. (I don’t think it’s a spoiler since it’s the basic setup of the film.) The bus is forced out onto a frozen lake and the scene is shot from back on the shore. It symbolizes the impotence – nothing can be done for this bus out there as it silently falls through the ice. He doesn’t show the interior and the immediate horror of the people inside – just this silent horror from a distance of anyone watching.
I loved Moonlight, too. It was brilliant. Another aspect of how the cinematic choices help tell the story is to compare this movie to any other one about the same general topic. For example, having heard nothing about this movie when I saw it, I assumed I was in for another gangsta movie full of gun violence and anger. When Juan the drug dealer first found Chiron and took him home (because Chiron wouldn’t tell him where he lived) I was expecting him to do something terrible, probably drug related, like introduce him to heroin. Also there’s the water scene, you expect something terrible. But each step along the way, this move treated every character with respect and honesty. It did show Juan shooting at some other dealers, but it also showed him that he had a good heart and was tender with Chiron. It showed how Chiron’s mom got sucked deeper into the trap of drug depravity without portraying her as either 100% victim nor 100% evil.
Also with the interactions between Chiron and Kevin, I was surprised at how delicately it treated their relationship. It did a good job portraying Chiron’s need for love and hinted that possibly his sexuality was a result of his poor relationship with his mom and women (aside from Juan’s wife/girlfriend, we didn’t see any other women in his life) and the only people being kind to him were male (Juan and Kevin). But it was never gratuitous in anything. It was always just tender. I’m not saying that homosexuals are that way because of wimmen trouble. I’m just saying that in this particular movie, with this specific character, I was left wondering if he was truly homosexual. I suspect it’s possible that he’s not (because he did seem troubled by it) but he accepted Kevin’s advances because it was the only affection he ever received.
And we really do need to call out the acting skills of both Trevante Rhodes (Chiron) and Mahershala Ali (Juan) because they expressed mountains of information about their characters with just subtle facial expressions and actions.
I agree it looked interesting and they did the best they could with what it was.
What bothered me about the movie was it had a chance to show people of color differently but we ended up seeing a drug lord, a drug user, a kid with no opportunities but to become a drug lord. In the background a black principal and a black teacher, but they didn’t change anything for this kid. Yes, it made Juan a kinder gentler drug lord but how about making the characters something other than what is always shown? They showed him holding a gun briefly but actually never did show him shooting at anyone. Oh, and he doesn’t want anyone to drug really hard. :rolleyes:
Why take the same characters Hollywood always shows but just spin them differently? And sorry, Juan was just too good to be true. “[Faggot] is a word people use to make gay people feel bad about themselves.” Didn’t ring true.
This is a bizarre and rather offensive interpretation of the film. I did not see any hint that the filmmakers intended the audience to believe that homosexuality is a pathology caused by poor mothering, and you are simply wrong about Chiron never being treated kindly by women. Teresa (Juan’s girlfriend) was very kind to him and continued to give him money and a place to stay when he needed it even after Juan died. He’s not treated kindly by most of the boys/men in his life – except for Kevin and Juan they either bully or ignore him – and he is apparently perceived as gay by others (including his mother) before he even met Juan.
See, I knew someone would completely twist what I said. Tried to head it off by explaining further, but apparently failed.
is NOT what I was saying. I did NOT say they were trying to make such a broad, generalized statement. What I said was that it was MY take away that THIS SPECIFIC CHARACTER was perhaps not innately gay but accepted the only affection provided to him, which happened to be from another man.
Moonlight does a lot with camera angles, to make things feel slightly off-kilter. Also camera distance tends to be close in, very face-oriented, not action oriented.
There are lighting or filter choices to change the colors of the light to emphasize Chiron’s very dark skin color. He’s shot from above (or with his head down) especially as Little to flatten his features and bring out the whites of his eyes. That contrast is really effective for giving him a flat affect, he doesn’t speak even with his expressions quite often, but we can intuit his feelings. He’s this silent child/boy/man with these very discordant sounds and angles that emphasize a disconnect, and the difficulty those around him have with seeing/understanding him.
The swimming lesson, as mentioned above, has the lens repeatedly going under water. It’s this immersive capture of being in the waves, unable to avoid the water coming up over your face. You’re helpless to control the water. But we’re safe. Not in control but safe.
Other scenes have a PTSD/nightmare quality, speeding up and slowing down, the near tunnel vision of his mother screaming at him from the hallway.
I felt on tenterhooks the entire movie. I was anxious and worried for him because of that obvious disconnect and the unsettling angles and techniques.
Several good YouTube channels have already been mentioned. I’d add Filmmaker IQ and RocketJump Film School. Their videos are aimed more at filmmakers but film viewers will also find them interesting.
No? Remember, Juan is from Cuba, where they’ve been having a pretty high-profile controversial process of liberalization on gay-rights issues since about 1990. I don’t find it at all improbable that Juan is aware of the prevalence of homophobic attitudes but has also been exposed to anti-homophobia reform efforts. And of course, there’s nothing that surprising about a particular person even in a community where homophobia is widespread just happening not to be homophobic.
I don’t think I agree. When the “widowed” Theresa asks Chiron if there’s anything else at all he wants from her when he’s sleeping over at her place, and he just says no and goes on to dream about Kevin with Theresa, I think that’s a very clear indication that his desires are fundamentally male-oriented. Otherwise, he’d be dreaming about the lovely and kindly Theresa herself.
And thanks everyone for all the tips/insights about the film-visuals stuff!
You didn’t say it was “YOUR take away”, you said it was “hinted” by the movie itself, and your description of what happens in the movie is wrong. It is not true that only men show Chiron affection; Teresa clearly cares about him and tries to look after him during his childhood and teen years. Chiron is apparently still in touch with her as an adult because she’s the one who gives Kevin his phone number.
I don’t think that was supposed to be Teresa in the dream, although IIRC we don’t get a good look at her. I assumed she was supposed to be the girl Kevin had been boasting about having sex with earlier at school. But either way, I agree that if a straight teenage boy were getting tucked into bed by a woman who looked like Janelle Monáe, he probably wouldn’t have a wet dream involving his male buddy.
