The cinematography of "The Man Who Wasn't There"

"The Man Who Wasn't There"
Cinematographer: Roger Deakins
Nominated for the 2002 Academy Award for Best Cinematography

Brick

Brick ( 2005)
Director: Rian Johnson

This is a classic film noir with a twist. It has all of the elements of a film noir. You have you murder in a big city, and the follow-up investigation by the “private eye” (in this case a concerned amateur). You have the private eye’s best friend who can somehow get information on anything and anyone. You have the drug kingpin (referred to only as “The Pin”) and his hired muscle. You have your cheating female in distress and your femme fatal. The story is about doomed characters trapped in situations they are not responsible for. And here is the twist: all the characters are in high school.

As a recently graduated filmmaker, I have seen a lot of student films. The problem I have with most student films is that they want to have this epic story of drug dealers, mafiosos, hit men, etc. But all the parts are played by college students and you think…this is just a bunch of college students pretending to be drug dealers, mafiosos, hit men, etc. It would seem that a film noir composed entirely of high school students would never work. But it does.

I think the reason this film works is that it takes itself so seriously. Everything about it screams film noir. The characters talk like they are in a film noir. They say things like “I've got knives in my eyes, I'm going home sick.” and “I've got all five senses and I slept last night, that puts me six up on the lot of you.” You never hear people talk like that in real life. When you first see “the pin” he has a black cane and a cape. Seriously? Have you ever seen a high school student wearing a cape? But that’s precisely why it works. It creates a whole new world that you have never seen and it doesn’t back down for a second in presenting this world to you in all its gritty detail.

This film works and yet it knows that you are suspending a lot of disbelief and throws in a couple scenes to let you know that it is ok to laugh if you want to. There is a great scene where the “private eye” and “the pin” meet at the dining room table of the pin’s house and his mother serves them lemonade.

The actors are all top notch. The camera work is great. The plot is twisty and unpredictable. Overall this was a very engaging and fun cinematic experience.

Side note: If you are a fan of Film Noir see if you can pick up two direct references to "The Maltese Falcon"

My Rating: 4 out of 5

Poseidon

Poseidon (2006)
Director: Wolfgang Petersen

When I watch films I like to play a game invented by David Letterman called “Is this anything?” The game is played thusly: You watch a performer and decide if the performance is something.

This film is nothing. It has almost zero character development, very predictable storyline, cheesy dialog, and amazing special effects. When are studios going to learn that until your story is as solid as your special effects you’ve got nothing?

This movie is about a ship sinking and people escaping. That’s it. I just summed up the entire movie and all its important plot points in 10 words. That’s not a good sign.

The problem with this film is, a rogue wave hits Poseidon (that’s the name of the ship they are all sailing on) about 15 minutes into the 1 hours and 40 minute movie. That leaves 15 minutes for the character development of no less than 8 characters. The rest all end up dying so there is no use expending energy on their lives is there.

The problem with having the disaster come so soon is that there is no time to develop character so when the actors are thrown into their perilous situations you think…Who is this guy again? And why am I supposed to care? The death of a character only takes seconds on screen while it takes a good while to develop an interesting and compelling character. What they should have done, was spend the whole movie developing the 8 main characters and then have them escape over the course of the last 15 minutes. I guarantee that would have made for a much more interesting film.

That, incidentally, is one of the things that made “Alien” such a great film (especially when compared to so many other monster movies). Ridley Scott spent more of the film building the characters than he did killing them. I think the monster doesn’t even make its first appearance until halfway through the film. Wolfgang Petersen can make a good film, but this is not one of them. This film is utterly ridiculous despite the excellent cast.

My Rating: 2 out of 5