When I sit down with Jules Dassin’s Rififi (1955), I’m not just watching a heist movie; I’m studying a blueprint. It famously reinvented the thriller with a thirty-minute heist sequence that contains no dialogue and no music. That isn’t just a gimmick… Read More »Rififi (1955) – Cinematography Analysis & Stills
When I sat down to re-watch Ava DuVernay’s 13th, I wasn’t just watching a documentary; I was dissecting a visual argument. I wanted to see how the lens choices, the lighting, and the final look in the suite worked together to… Read More »13th (2016) – Cinematography Analysis & Stills
When Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) dropped, it didn’t just catch my eye; it grabbed me by the collar. It’s a profound act of visual archaeology. For those of us who live in the weeds of digital artistry, this… Read More »They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) – Cinematography Analysis
Every so often, you have to stop looking at modern waveforms and go back to the source. For me, Jean Renoir’s 1937 masterpiece, The Grand Illusion, is that “reset” button. It’s an anti-war film that doesn’t need explosions to make you… Read More »The Grand Illusion (1937) – Cinematography Analysis
Let’s talk about Autumn Sonata. Ingmar Bergman’s 1978 masterpiece is exactly that. It’s a raw, unflinching look at a mother-daughter relationship, steeped in decades of resentment. It feels less like a movie and more like a forensic excavation of the human… Read More »Autumn Sonata (1978) – Cinematography Analysis
Billy Wilder’s 1951 masterpiece Ace in the Hole (or The Big Carnival) is exactly that. It’s a blistering, uncomfortable watch. Even seventy years later, it feels like a punch to the gut, holding up a mirror to media sensationalism and human greed in… Read More »Ace in the Hole (1951) – Cinematography Analysis
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1948 masterpiece, The Red Shoes, isn’t just a film to me. It’s a foundational text. As a colorist and filmmaker, I look at this work as a searing exploration of the very thing that drives us:… Read More »The Red Shoes (1948) – Cinematography Analysis