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Thoughts on the look of "The Conversation"
I recently watched Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 classic thriller "The Conversation" (I've already posted about it elsewhere, too) and I have to say that though I'm not sure if I loved it, I found it deeply impressive
It's truly an oxymoron of a film for me, because it has a very grand way if looking small. It looks cheap yet grand, small scale yet high stakes, it's quiet yet so resonant.
And one of the things that really struck a chord with me personally is the look of it. When I say "cheap" I don't mean it looks poorly made or with few resources behind it (though it had a decent but not enourmous budget), I use that word mainly in regards to what I tend to associate Francis Coppola's work with....Apocalypse Now, Dracula, The Godfather, all very large stories either in physical or narrative scale, true epics, whereas The Conversation is probably his most "70s" his most "New Hollywood" film.....
Most of the sets look like they found them that way and decorated them slightly, the largest one is probably the audio-surveillance convention set, and most of them are lit pretty evenly and naturalistically and have this mundane and almost dull look to them, it's all so everyday and real, and I did not expect a film like this out of FFC, and I know he's done much smaller films before or since, but this one's veeery 70s, in that "brutal realism" sort of way...
And yet it all looks so grand and majestic in a way, probably because of the excellent cinematography and great use of 35mm film.
Again an oxymoron! It's majestic in its everyday dullness....such an interesting piece of cinema
Oh, and not that it doesn't have its moments of elaborate visuals, there's quite a few, but most of it has this almost documentary-like grittiness to it, though again very polished
But these are just my 2 cents, what did you think of the way this classic presents itself?
#movies #video
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I recently watched Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 classic thriller "The Conversation" (I've already posted about it elsewhere, too) and I have to say that though I'm not sure if I loved it, I found it deeply impressive
It's truly an oxymoron of a film for me, because it has a very grand way if looking small. It looks cheap yet grand, small scale yet high stakes, it's quiet yet so resonant.
And one of the things that really struck a chord with me personally is the look of it. When I say "cheap" I don't mean it looks poorly made or with few resources behind it (though it had a decent but not enourmous budget), I use that word mainly in regards to what I tend to associate Francis Coppola's work with....Apocalypse Now, Dracula, The Godfather, all very large stories either in physical or narrative scale, true epics, whereas The Conversation is probably his most "70s" his most "New Hollywood" film.....
Most of the sets look like they found them that way and decorated them slightly, the largest one is probably the audio-surveillance convention set, and most of them are lit pretty evenly and naturalistically and have this mundane and almost dull look to them, it's all so everyday and real, and I did not expect a film like this out of FFC, and I know he's done much smaller films before or since, but this one's veeery 70s, in that "brutal realism" sort of way...
And yet it all looks so grand and majestic in a way, probably because of the excellent cinematography and great use of 35mm film.
Again an oxymoron! It's majestic in its everyday dullness....such an interesting piece of cinema
Oh, and not that it doesn't have its moments of elaborate visuals, there's quite a few, but most of it has this almost documentary-like grittiness to it, though again very polished
But these are just my 2 cents, what did you think of the way this classic presents itself?
#movies #video
source
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