Well, That Idea Is Shot

So, I'd had this idea to do a series of posts on some of my favorite shots, maybe write a little bit about each one - either why it's a great shot, or why it's great in the context of the film, or why it works, or why it strikes a chord with me. Something like that.

Don't really have time for such tomfoolery, of course. (Nor dick, nor harryfoolery either.) Might still do it, but given how much time just doing this little preview post has taken, probably not. So, consider this a trailer for a post that never made it into post, so to speak.

1. The two shots what put the idea in my round little head:










2. One shot was something that's stayed with me since I first saw it on television on a Saturday afternoon as a little kid. To me, it's always been the image of "secret delight," though that's an odd thing to have a concept of as a kid:



3. I'd also considered just posting the shots, picking possibly less obvious ones, or shots where the films weren't immediately evident, to some people at least.
















4. Other shots I'd selected were more obvious in their origins:














5. In a few cases, I'd meant to juxtapose shots, to think about how they're working:





















6. And in other cases, I'd settled on some relatively simple shots. Because as fascinating and powerful as elaborate and careful staging within a shot can be, sometimes the simpler route is the more effective route. Like the dude said, never use an ace when a two will do:














7. Some of these are final shots, and carry the weight of the entire film. Because a shot doesn't exist in isolation in a film. Neither does a scene or sequence. One famous example, which is not this little posting here, would the final shot of Mizoguchi's Streets of Shame. In and of itself, you could say, what's the big deal, it's just some chick in a kimono peering round a corner. But as the final shot in the film, (or more grandly, as the final shot in Mizoguchi's career), it's pretty powerful. So, a couple of the shots I'd been thinking of are from the end, or near the end of films.

So, spoilers, I guess:
















8. On a similar note, some hit me in part because they were unexpected moments or images. Which, as I think I mentioned a while back in one of the ASL posts, can be a big issue for a viewer's experience of certain films, particularly films with relatively simple or straightforward plots. You lose that moment of uncertainty, that moment by moment, sometimes quite personal and intimate engagement with the film.

Or maybe I'm just a sucker for shots of odd dogs.

Once again, spoilers (ha):









9. As this was also one of those self-exploratory exercises in ruminating narcissism endemic to the whole blogging thing, I've also been kind of looking for what sort of trends emerge in these shot choices. Apart from the odd dogs, what seemed most common were... well, not necessarily moments of contact between two people, but moments where that's what's at stake, kind of the axis along which the possibilities of the narrative are layed out, and on which the narrative will finally come to rest. Could be romantic, could be something else, but the more I think about it, once I set aside the goofball stuff (Godzilla et. al.), these tend to be the things in films that grab me. Because what else is more important?

Which probably makes me naive, or a head-in-the-clouds moron or something. Humanist shmoe. Some kind of simp.

Anyways, it seems like a characteristic sort of trend, something heinzish you can see in the shots above. Here's a few more:







































10. In a few cases, there were shots that have had a incalculably deep effect on me:









11. Finally, to end on a beat that is up, a shot that is to be admired for its complete and total mastery of badassery:











So, I dunno, maybe actual entries to follow on some of these. But, y'know.

Und das ist dat.