Cinema Report: Something to Tide You Over

I've been meaning to pull together a collection of screen caps of my 10 (or so) favorite shots, and to maybe wax wise about them, but until I get a chance to do that (or in case I don't), here's a little something to tide you over.

A great moment from The Haunting, Robert Wise's adaptation of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.






Note here not only the use of the unbalanced scope frame in these shots (which follow one after the other), and the way Wise and his cinematographer Dennis Boulton offer four individual variations of the freaked out reaction shot in short succession, but also who's getting singled out simply by their placement within the frame.

I know the Wise sometimes gets flack for what happened to The Magnificent Ambersons, but this movie makes up for all cinematic sins, as far as I'm concerned. I watch it at least a few times every year. It still holds up. Really one of the great works of the genre.