Word of the Day
Poleaxe (n./v., POLL-acks)
A long-handled axe with a hammer and an axe blade, or to hit someone with a poleaxe (physically or metaphorically). A multi-use word for a multi-use weapon!
Gif of the Day
SiblingsBoom headshotTwo for the price of oneBig red ballDown groes FrazierThe family that hits each other in the head together stays together?
Link of the Day
An interview with Guillermo del Toro
Is Guillermo del Toro a great interview subject because he's a great director or are the things that make him a great interview subject the same things that make him a great director? Either way, this very long but fantastic interview over at Bright Wall, Dark Room (which is an excellent site) covers a lot of ground, from filmmaking to politics to mortality. A glimpse:
[Del Toro] You cannot choreograph a movie with more precision than that movie is choreographed. Every shot is a little masterclass about how to do internal montage, by which I mean the montage of the camera and actor’s ballet, you know? Most of the time you find discussions start and stop at content, at dramaturgy: what is it about, what the characters do, what does the story mean, politically and then, you know—
[BW, DR] And if people talk about any craft aspect, they’ll talk about the actors.
[Del Toro] They talk about the actors, or they talk about the cinematography, but the reality is, when you orchestrate a movie, you’re orchestrating everything—and only about a third of it is often discussed.
[BW, DR] One thing that I’ve noticed is that when people talk about cinematography, they’ll say that something is ‘beautifully shot’. But a lot of what they’re perceiving as beautiful is actually design.
[Del Toro] I watch movies perhaps in a different way, because I try to get absorbed the first time. I’m not analyzing it the first time. If I find myself analyzing the first time, it’s not a good movie.
I carry my iPad and my computer. In them, I carry about 2,500 movies, which I often consult, like you would read a book. I often turn it on and just watch a passage. I watch it from a purely formal point of view, and I go: can I dissect it? Can I dissect what lens they’re using, can I dissect which one of the shots is the master and which ones are coverage? This is something I’ve been doing since I was a teenager, because some people are just masters at blocking a scene. John Schlesinger is just superb—he’s always doing these nifty little things with choreography. Polanski is masterful at a minimalism of extreme precision in choreographing. There are many, many people that I love to discuss in those terms because we are talking the film’s language.
I think film, as a medium, sometimes succeeds below the radar of people’s perception. The four legs of a movie, visually, to me are: cinematography, set design, wardrobe design, and camera moves. They are all orchestrated, in the best circumstances, by the director. They need to be, basically, a single department. When you say, 'What a beautiful work of cinematography,' nine out of ten times, you’re praising the set design and wardrobe design. But you don’t consciously know it. For a movie to be beautiful, it needs to be sustained by those four legs. They can be in harmony or in contrast, but they need to be orchestrated.
Read the whole thing. It will take you some time.
InterviewsGuillermo del ToroDirectionThings that are worth your timeMovies