This orginally appeared in a thread called "Garden of Eden Symbolism"
Lightning Flat -- Prieto on the Kitchen Scene
by - CaseyCornelius (Fri Feb 17 2006 15:13:31 ) UPDATED Fri Feb 17 2006 23:36:27
Flickfan-3:
I don't claim to know a lot about photography or even begin to understand the folllowing comments by Rodrigo Prieto regarding the film in the January issue of American Cinematographer. But, I found them fascinating.
"--a scene late in the movie, when Ennis visits Jack's parents. Their farmhouse is 'very stark, with grayish-white walls', says Prieto. I tried to do something very simple, but with powerful contrast, which is difficult to achieve in a white room, so I blew out the windows and made them bright spots while keeping dark shadows on the faces. For this scene, we were inspired by the work of Vilhelm Hammershoi, whose painting are very moody but devoid of color"
He talks further mentioning specific lighting equipemnt models, but the gist of what he says is that they lit from the large window, next to the table where Jack's father talks with Ennis. They had two lights over the smaller windows coming is as direct sunlight through the sheer curtains and another through the small window in the door. They also tried to give a sense of light bouncing off of the floor and lights under the camera lens to suggest a very slight glint in the eyes. The goal was to suggest that Ennis feels uncomfortable in the stale, monochromatic atmosphere.
Explains the fantastic luminous look of the whole scene, n'est-ce pas? --
Flickfan, starboardlight and Ellemeno, we seem to share
a fascination with this scene, having discussed it at length in other threads. I don't know about you all, but this is, hands down, my favorite scene in the film. Absolutely brilliant.
Someone in the Deliberate Classical References thread - might even have been one of you, I'll look it up later - posted a link to a similar eerie lighting effect in Carl Dreyer's 'Ordet'.
Prieto's insightful comments with regard to creating a look similar to other painters is telling and indicative of how carefully and magnificently the film was thought out by Lee and Prieto, and on such a tiny budget !!!
Prieto's Example of Hammershoi -- Visual Influence
by - CaseyCornelius (Fri Feb 17 2006 16:44:26 ) UPDATED Fri Feb 17 2006 23:37:30
And the piece de resistance !!
Here's a painting by Hammershoi to which Prieto must be referring --
http://www.dia.org/the_collection/overview/full.asp?objectID=47455&image=1Re: Garden of Eden symbolism
by - meryl_88 (Fri Feb 17 2006 19:01:36 ) That picture is great! Thanks for hunting it down, Casey.
Re: Prieto's Example of Hammershoi -- Visual Influence
by - austendw (Sat Feb 18 2006 01:19:03 ) And here's the Dreyer pic (for 'twas I who mentioned him)
http://www.princeton.edu/~csrelig/cinema/ and this:
http://www.theambler.com/images/ordet.jpg
