Lesser-Known Movies with Great Cinematography
- Auteurnet
- Aug 30, 2024
- 7 min read
When you think of movies with phenomenal cinematography, most think of movies like Citizen Kane (2000), The Godfather (1972), or Chinatown (1974). While those films undoubtedly show masterful cinematography and have long been great examples for the burgeoning filmmaker to learn from, there are so many films made around the world with amazing cinematography. Here are a few lesser-known movies with amazing cinematography to discover and learn from.
Good Morning (1959)
A lesser-known film made by prolific Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu, most known for directing Toyko Story (1972), is Good Morning. While this is an earlier Ozu film, it showcases many of his iconic techniques like using a frame within a frame, composition, low eye shots, and breaking the 180º rule. Good Morning is a simple comedic story about two brothers who decide to stay silent until they get a TV. Working together with his cinematographer, Yuharu Atsuta, Ozu created a world of excess. The film’s theme revolves around excess and materialism which they show in frames where the kids eat too much or shots of rooms filled with many materialistic belongings. More technically, framing plays a large role in this film as the team decided to put the camera almost always at eye level with characters who were kids and spent a lot of time sitting on the ground. Shooting the film from this lower position allowed a clear view of the children’s world and how they saw it. This, along with the production design and coloring of the film, also helped to blend the rooms that the boys would be in during the film. Throughout the film, the brothers constantly go between a few different houses, and Ozu wanted to create unity between these scenes. Shooting at this lower angle allowed for the rooms to seem to blend together, creating a labyrinth and connectivity. Atsuta also did a lot of shooting through doorways, windows, and frames masterfully showing the technique of shooting a frame within a frame.
Midsommar (2019)
A more recent film, Midsommar, directed by Ari Aster and shot by Pawel Pogorzelski plays with light and color and uses it to create a memorable and irrefutably beautiful film. This mystery-horror film follows a young American couple who travel to the Swedish midsummer festival where they quickly learn of the violent and bizarre pagan cult. This film was shot primarily in a remote Swedish village in the summer where the sun rarely set. With so much sunlight, Pogorzelski had to spend hours in the field studying the light and testing different lenses and cameras to shoot on in order to get the right fairytale look that they were looking for. The team looked for an image that would feel like a modern-day fairytale, wanting something that might seem over-exposed and push film color norms. They were also inspired by the technicolor three-strip process and tested multiple cameras to determine which could mimic that look. They shot on the Panavision Millennium DXL2 that is in a large format to get a more nuanced look that created this fairytale feeling, without creating a look that felt cheesy. They also used soft lens flares to make the blacks in the film have a light glow. While shooting in so much bright and hard natural light was a risk, they committed to doing a bright movie and trusted their instincts. In doing all of this, they were able to create the beautiful coloring of the film and evoke a vintage look with modern technology. Aster and Pogorzelski discuss their process more in-depth in an interview with Indie Wire.
Macbeth (2015)
Directed by Justin Kurzel, this adaptation of the popular William Shakespeare play of the same name takes a darker and bloodier imagery. While this film is not known for its critical acclaim and does have its flaws, the cinematography done by Adam Arkapaw is remarkable and the film could be watched for that alone. Macbeth tells the story of Macbeth becoming the King of Scotland guided by the prophecy of three witches. Kurzel stayed true to the source material and shot much of this film in Scotland. This film encapsulates the brutality of war and uses beautiful shots of the Scottish landscape as it becomes covered by orange fog. In an interview with the American Society of Cinematographers, Arkapaw says that he talked to a lot of war veterans and learned about the feeling of being in battle and how time seems to slow and speed up throughout a battle. From these discussions, Arkapaw decided to play with time while shooting the large battle scenes, slowing down many shots to encapsulate the feeling the soldiers talked about when they came back from war. With this, he used a lot of wide-open shots displaying the large battles and vast Scottish landscape. As for lighting, this film skillfully uses chiaroscuro lighting to have a bold and strong contrast between light and shadow which helped achieve the look of the 11th-century on film. While understanding Shakespeare's dialogue and story may be tougher than other narratives, this film is beautifully shot and worth the watch.
City of God (2002)
One of the most striking films of this century is City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles and shot by cinematographer César Charlone. This movie references the real events of the Brazilian neighborhood Cidade de Deus from the 1960s and 1970s and follows a boy who dreams of being a photographer, showing the chaotic and real gang struggle of his neighborhood. This film is known for many things, like using real kids from the slums to act in it and shooting in a similar gang-run neighborhood to the true Cidade de Deus favela that the film is based on. Much of this film used handheld camera shots that created intimacy and urgency, perfectly capturing frantic energy and showing the chaos of living in the gang-full favela or slum. Known for its composition and framing, Charlone also uses a lot of different shots to express different emotions, like wide shots to show the vastness of the area or close-ups to capture the emotions of the characters. The intensity of the slums was showcased through this film’s cinematography and the film is heartbreakingly poignant in every shot.
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Based on the Pierre Boulle novel where British POWs are captured by Japanese captors and forced to build a bridge, director David Lean and cinematographer Jack Hildyard were able to masterfully bring this story to the big screen. This film showed a truer, deeper reality of war than others before its time. This film won seven Academy Awards and stands the test of time. While being an older film, this film is still a great example of many film techniques and war film storytelling. This film was filmed in panoramic wide-screen cinemascope creating impressive views of nature, the jungle, and the bridge. Their use of foreground, middle, and background is masterful and adds intricacies of army life in the jungle. This film is a classic film to study everything that makes a film great, from beautiful imagery to strong acting and storytelling.
Rashomon (1950)
Akira Kurosawa’s work speaks for itself as having some of the most spectacular cinematography. One of his films takes a nontraditional story format and is a great starting point to get into Kurosawa’s work. Rashomon is a story about three men taking shelter from a storm and discussing the death of a samurai and the rape of his wife in the jungle. The film shows the events of the crime four times as different flashback versions from different perspectives of what happened to the samurai. This film was shot by Kazuo Miyagawa and is a sensual film like others of Kurosawa’s films. To shoot romantic shots of the jungle, Miyagawa used lens flare to shoot directly into the sun and show shadows from trees to create his images of the jungle. This was one of the first times, if not the first time, that a filmmaker pointed their camera lens directly into the sun as many wanted to avoid the effect the bright light would have on the image. With lighting, they also used large mirrors to create the right light that they needed for their images. Miyagawa experimented with many new techniques at the time, like single series close-ups and contrasting shots to show contrasts and dynamic relationships between the characters. Using deep focus, they keep most of the shots well-lit throughout the frame so that audiences can see the many different things happening and changes that were made each time the flashback occurred. They also got very creative on set and mixed water with black paint so you could see the raindrops in the black-and-white film.
Moonlight (2016)
Moonlight is the film that will forever be remembered as the film that beat La La Land for the Academy Award. This film was directed by Barry Jenkins and shot by James Laxton and tells the story of a young black man growing up in Miami who was dealt a bad hand and had his community support and raise him. With a primarily black cast, Laxton didn’t do what others typically do. He didn’t put dark skin tones in harsh light but instead created a rich and bold lighting design. By adding blue to black tones in the frames and creating strong highlights that gave a white glint at the top, they created the rich coloring that they wanted. The film is split into three chapters of the main character’s life. In creating this film, Jenkins and Laxton wanted very distinct looks for each chapter, and so had each chapter emulate a different film stock. The first emulating Fuji film stock to enhance the cast’s skin tones. The second mirrors old Agfa film stock that adds cyan to image highlights giving a greenish-blue hue. The third resembles Kodak film, giving the last chapter a warmer feel. Along with color, the camera placement was also very purposeful in this film where Laxton often put the camera on the actor’s eye line and as close as possible to create an intimacy that brings the audience into the conversation, like the character is speaking directly to them.
There are so many more films to check out with phenomenal cinematography techniques. To make good work it is important to watch as many as these masterful films and learn from them. As you continue in your cinematography journey, be sure to take a look at these 10 cinematography techniques to try and stay creative in your storytelling.
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