Steven Soderbergh wants to teach us something about film – what a marvelous thing this is. Raiders of the Lost Ark, in black and white, with the Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross Social Network score. Spielberg is old school filmmaking at its absolute best. Soderbergh talks about staging. It’s hard for me to watch a movie I’ve seen about 100 times and know every line to as though I’ve never seen it before but I can tell you this much: it could easily play as a silent film with one or two title cards. Soderbergh says:
I value the ability to stage something well because when it’s done well its pleasures are huge, and most people don’t do it well, which indicates it must not be easy to master (it’s frightening how many opportunities there are to do something wrong in a sequence or a group of scenes. Minefields EVERYWHERE. Fincher said it: there’s potentially a hundred different ways to shoot something but at the end of the day there’s really only two, and one of them is wrong). Of course understanding story, character, and performance are crucial to directing well, but I operate under the theory a movie should work with the sound off, and under that theory, staging becomes paramount (the adjective, not the studio. although their logo DOES appear on the front of this…).
So I want you to watch this movie and think only about staging, how the shots are built and laid out, what the rules of movement are, what the cutting patterns are. See if you can reproduce the thought process that resulted in these choices by asking yourself: why was each shot—whether short or long—held for that exact length of time and placed in that order? Sounds like fun, right? It actually is. To me. Oh, and I’ve removed all sound and color from the film, apart from a score designed to aid you in your quest to just study the visual staging aspect. Wait, WHAT? HOW COULD YOU DO THIS? Well, I’m not saying I’m like, ALLOWED to do this, I’m just saying this is what I do when I try to learn about staging, and this filmmaker forgot more about staging by the time he made his first feature than I know to this day (for example, no matter how fast the cuts come, you always know exactly where you are—that’s high level visual math shit).
Bryce this is riotous. I’m delighted. The Maze Runner was made for you. So happy for you mate.
For educational purposes (as was intended here) it is better to watch a movie with NO SOUND at all. The Social Network stuff was just distracting. B/W was a good idea I’ve never tried, but I have often watched beloved movies with no sound and concentrated on editing, cinematography and stuff. When you know the movie by heart, you hear the sound (mainly dialogue and music) in your head anyway.
I’ve always been baffled why they don’t teach this film in film school or as part of a film studies curriculum. I was basically laughed at when I once picked a scene from it to feature in a discussion and wasn’t taken seriously. C’est la vie. This is one of Spielberg’s best films. Too bad Soderbergh didn’t keep Williams’ score…Reznor’s makes it unwatchable with sound.
This is crazy-ridiculous stuff yet I can’t look away, they should show this in Film Schools nationwide
Natasha, absolutely! Without question the best of the survivalist, possessed “teenagers” beating on each other films that I’ve seen since BATTLE ROYALE, and quite adorable too — also one of the very few occasions we’ll get to see a well shot film on an IMAX screen without those goddamn 3D glasses. The palette cleanser I’ve been needing since SKYFALL.
@Bryce Forestieri —REALLY??? I have thought seriously about seeing it as I tend to really like YA adaptations if they are handled well……and I’m gathering more and more info including yours telling me that I might just want to actual pay to see this in the movie house!
Had to happen sooner or later. I’ve given my first “A+” grade of the year and it’s none other than THE MAZE RUNNER — a feast for the mind, for the eye, and the soul.
OMG I can’t wait to try this Raiders/TSN Music/B and W experiment out for my own viewing pleasure.
Sasha, please watch Fort Bliss, and please write something about it. It’s one of the best movies of this year and it definitely deserves some attention. it’s written and directed by a woman and Michelle Monaghan gives a fantastic performance.