War Horse=Bad Cinematography

i'm sorry, i wasn't clear in my glibness. ;-)

i didn't mean red vs white. i meant that one can acknowledge a vulgar or crude taste without having to argue its merits. cheap wine is cheap wine. schlock is schlock. it is what it is. arguing that it's something else takes away the pleasure.

it is schlock, though.
 
MPB said:
i'm sorry, i wasn't clear in my glibness. ;-)

i didn't mean red vs white. i meant that one can acknowledge a vulgar or crude taste without having to argue its merits. cheap wine is cheap wine. schlock is schlock. it is what it is. arguing that it's something else takes away the pleasure.

it is schlock, though.
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Well, I guess I have to disagree, in that 'Warhorse' isn't 'schlock', in the sense that is done badly or incompetently -- though I can cheerfully accept that you don't like it, and wouldn't have done it that way if you were spending your millions. Clearly, someone else disagreed with your position. But that's what it is -- an opinion. And though you're welcome to it, surely you can accept that it is just that ..?

Cheers,
GB
 
well... let's just say, i won't argue the point. unless, maybe, we were sharing a bottle of cheap italian wine. :-)
 
I have to agree with those here that say it was more of a choice than anything else....and it wasn't the right to choice to satisfy some viewers...but it certainly wasn't due to incompetence. The choices of many thorougly competent, big time directors and DP's often are the wrong one to satisfy me as a viewer, but I'm even more than often in the minority. Avatar and it's CGI takes me right out of the story EVERY time. Tried to watch it 4 times.....never finished it. But in the end, I just go watch No Country For Old Men....where there is cinematography that I just plain love.
 
pulpfiction007 said:
... and it wasn't the right to choice to satisfy some viewers...but it certainly wasn't due to incompetence.
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There are very few 'blockbuster' and even less than BB films made from Hollywood that show 'incompetence' relative to the technical aspects of the film. The most significant 'failure' is to capture the audience, via one or two methods... bad story, and lackluster acting... Otherwise there are stylistic or aesthetic choices which some may not like... and that's about it.
 
pulpfiction007 said:
I have to agree with those here that say it was more of a choice than anything else....and it wasn't the right to choice to satisfy some viewers...but it certainly wasn't due to incompetence. The choices of many thorougly competent, big time directors and DP's often are the wrong one to satisfy me as a viewer, but I'm even more than often in the minority. Avatar and it's CGI takes me right out of the story EVERY time. Tried to watch it 4 times.....never finished it. But in the end, I just go watch No Country For Old Men....where there is cinematography that I just plain love.
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I agree - well said.

JJM
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
This is NOT an argument. You are making an observation that is so personal it's hard to phantom why you would even think that your seemingly rich experience matters.
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And who are you to say what's what in a matter of relative importance? isn't that really missing the point? If a member has driven on a bumpy road, there's no use in saying there are worse roads somewhere, it was a bumpy road for him, and that is enough.

It's contradictory that a man that so loves Malick comes here trying to show everyone else that rational certainty in really, well, uncertain... what a boring discussion...

War Horse is not perfect, far from it. But it has something you'll probably only discover in years to come. Maybe your road hasn't been bumpy enough to look beyond the conventional and the apparent of what a Spielberg flick has to offer. But who knows, maybe you'll see it someday...

On a side note, he's the only director in Hollywood that can give a lock picture on to post production only 2 weeks after wrapping the shoot! Final cut! Who else can do that?

Believe me, the man has more respect in Hollywood that you'll give him credit for. You'll be surprised at how some of the people you love, respect him in ways you can not yet understand.

Now go watch The Tree of Life and calm down.
 
Nuno Dias said:
And who are you to say what's what in a matter of relative importance? isn't that really missing the point? If a member has driven on a bumpy road, there's no use in saying there are worse roads somewhere, it was a bumpy road for him, and that is enough.

It's contradictory that a man that so loves Malick comes here trying to show everyone else that rational certainty in really, well, uncertain... what a boring discussion...

War Horse is not perfect, far from it. But it has something you'll probably only discover in years to come. Maybe your road hasn't been bumpy enough to look beyond the conventional and the apparent of what a Spielberg flick has to offer. But who knows, maybe you'll see it someday...

On a side note, he's the only director in Hollywood that can give a lock picture on to post production only 2 weeks after wrapping the shoot! Final cut! Who else can do that?

Believe me, the man has more respect in Hollywood that you'll give him credit for. You'll be surprised at how some of the people you love, respect him in ways you can not yet understand.

Now go watch The Tree of Life and calm down.
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Wise words and I can't other than to fully agree with you.

And obviously the lighting was a conscious choice and while it isn't as "realistic" as some would have wanted it, it's the lighting that Steven and Janusz decided on - Perhaps they wanted to convey a theatrical feeling (As the movie was based on the stageplay more than the original novel), or perhaps they simply wanted that picture perfect visual because they knew they could have it. Whatever the reason I think it has some stunning visuals, even though personally I would have, naturally, taken things in a different direction and imagined it differently.
I could hardly stand even sitting through the movie the first time around, because of how upset I was over the choice of cinematography versus what I would have envisioned for the story. Then, seeing it on blu-ray a couple of months later I could enjoy it for what it was, and not for what it wasn't.
 
dvbrother said:
In every exterior scene in the film's first act, there seem to be two suns. There's the real sun, and then an ever-present hard kicker light for every close-up. Or the entire scene will be overcast, and yet there's a warm hard keylight from eye-level hitting the actor just perfectly.
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The worse part about it was having two shadows outside on a clear day. Very 1970s TV.
 
He and Spielberg must be great pals :) But yeah, those exterior scenes did make me go "huh?" a bit.... was probably some form of style he was going for, just didn't ring well when you like what Deakins is doing these days hehe
 
I mean obviously it was highly stylized lighting. Personally I HATE "realistic" lighting design. I'd rather see 11 shadows than a scene that looked flat.
 
To most of us, the lighting was so elaborate and so obviously over-the-top, that we noticed and said, "Wait a minute... that just looks ridiculous... what the..."

I was thinking something similar when I started watching the film.

I watched it immediately after my parents, and I told my Dad about the over-the-top lighting, and he said, "Oh, I didn't notice." Of course not!

Whether you want to believe it or not, everything you see in the film regarding the photography is completely intentional. COMPLETELY INTENTIONAL. These guys know what they're doing. They're not going to shoot a film like this, and then realize, "Oh crap, we over-lit the scenes! They look sappy and sentimental, and old-timey. Whoops!"

They did it on purpose. They're not a bunch of 15 year olds with DSLRs who are experimenting.

The film was too sentimental for me, but that's exactly what they wanted. The new Abraham Lincoln film looks like more of the same stuff we got in War Horse. Maybe as Steven gets older, his films become more and more sentimental? I don't know.

Just my opinion.
 
Here's a great artice on Janus, where he talks about some of his more famous/recognizable shots:

http://www.vulture.com/2012/11/how-...ographer-janusz-kaminski-got-these-shots.html

Here is the section on the end scenes from War Horse:

War Horse
This image from the final scene, shot against the saturated red sky, may call to mind historical epics like Gone With the Wind, but Kaminski says the resemblance is unconscious. "I didn't even know there was an image similar to that [in Gone With the Wind]!" he protests. "It just felt right, that this boy coming back from his journey as a man deserves to be treated in a very heroic way, and the composition reflected that." Not that it was an easy shot to achieve naturally: "There were a lot of filters," Kaminski says. "Silhouette filters, orange filters, graduate filters … we staged the scene during the last two hours of the day, and we shot it for two days, but the sky had no red in it, and if I didn't light the actors, I would not be able to close the aperture and you would never see those clouds. So you start bringing huge lights and lighting people frontally to get a little separation from the sky. It was a complicated shot that many people appreciated."
 
Well if he's achieving that look to overcome obstacles, then he's not getting a pass mark from me (and it'll keep him awake at night when he finds out).
 
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