I was going to write an article about how influential Orson Welles and Fritz Lang were for us and many other people in our industry and then the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences went and pissed a lot of people off with their decision to present the awards for makeup and hairstyling, live-action shorts, cinematography, and film editing during Cialis commercials.
To be fair I don’t know if Cialis bought any spots during the broadcast. But regardless, this move pissed a lot of people off. Not myself included. I’m gonna be real here, I don’t watch the Oscars. But I will be fair, you can’t have cinema without cinematography and editing is where the movie becomes a movie. The actors, actresses even directors and producers can create theatrical plays. Writers can write novels, short stories and plays. But movies require editing and cinematography to make it a film, to give it life. So with that I’ll showcase some people we look up to, some dead some still kicking and putting out awesome stuff. Awesome stuff that is structured in the cinematography and fleshed out in the edit bay.
Orson Welles
I’ve often said that Orson Welles is the Nas of film. Or, well, I should say Nas is the Orson Welles of rap (Orson did come first). Both were super young when they came on the scene, Nas was 20 when Illmatic was released in 1994 and Orson was 25 years old when he made what many consider the best film of all time, Citizen Kane. Before Citizen Kane, Orson scared the shit out of everyone with a radio broadcast of War of the Worlds. And before that he had already worked in the Federal Theater Project (part of FDR’s New Deal), and performed Shakespeare in Shakespeare Country (England). So what I’m saying is, this guy had a career I would kill for by the age of 25.
Not considered a Film Noir but I would certainly say it influenced the lighting and style of many Film Noir movies, Citizen Kane is considered either the best movie of all time or in the top two of most lists. It’s a loosely based Biopic about William Randolph Hearst (‘Rosebud’ was allegedly Hearst’s nickname for his mistress Marion Davies’ clitoris), and the movie everyone compared Orson’s future work to. He had a backwards career, Citizen Kane was supposed to be his Magnum Opus, instead it was what put him on the map, everything after went over like a long, hollow, fart.
Not saying all of his work after Citizen Kane was like watching and listening to flatulence, on the contrary I think The Third Man is superior to Citizen Kane. A Film Noir that takes place in Post-War Vienna, The Third Man is a must watch for cinephiles. The video below talks about its merits in cinematography, the story and acting is also excellent.
Orson had the benefit of working with some great cinematographers, I can’t give him all the credit I know. Trust me, we’ve worked in the entertainment industry long enough to know that a lot of people take credit for many nameless people’s work (we’re looking at you Quentin Tarantino).
Anyway, Gregg Toland was the cinematographer in Citizen Kane and he did great work. Likewise, Robert Krasker was the DP for The Third Man and Russell Metty worked on Touch of Evil. All did incredible work but Orson was the common denominator. He was the glue that put all this together.
Not only was he great in the shot selection it was the edit that he really put a film together. This video is excellent in showing his decision making about the edit. He articulates (because he was fired by the studio and begging them to listen for the sake of the film) why he would like to make the editorial choices he wanted to make.
This video reminds me of getting a round of network notes on a reality show and not in a good way. The network assumes the audience is dumb and they put in these redundant bites and cuts to drive the point home and in effect, dumb down the audience for future dumb reality show viewing. I’m not saying my work on certain reality shows is like Touch of Evil, I’d never make the comparison but I feel this guys pain nonetheless.
While we’re on the Orson Welles subject, here’s some hilarious outtakes from his work on commercials after he was shunned by Hollywood because they considered him hard to work with after Touch of Evil. Amazing how the studio shunned him when they were the ones messing up that movie. Anyway, enjoy.
And this one’s actually kind of touching. Andy Kaufman finally found someone he respected and Orson couldn’t help but say great things about Kaufman and Taxi. He would have been an interesting guy to watch stuff with, insightful, probably smelly, but very very insightful.
Fritz Lang
M is considered one of the first Film Noir movies. It’s also a brutal flick where a kid is murdered, pretty tough subject matter for 1931 (or today for that matter). It’s said that Lang was really tough on his actors and legend has it that Lang threw Peter Lorre down a flight of stairs before shooting the final scene of M so that Lorre would look properly beat up. I mean, it worked.
It’s one of the first movies about a Serial Killer and was groundbreaking at the time for its use of sound editing. Which the video below that someone else made talks about.
Like Orson, Fritz Lang not only made movies that influenced other Film Noir movies (M and Metropolis especially) he made a few Film Noir’s equally as brutal as M. In The Big Heat (1953) for instance, Lee Marvin throws hot coffee on Gloria Grahame’s face. Scarlet Street (1945) is considered one of the best examples of Film Noir going.
Lang also liked his Martini’s. When he was living in Paris as a young man he would order a martini, drain half of it down his gullet and then complain it wasn’t dry enough. This would get him a full martini for free. When he was smitten with a woman he would ask them if they’d ever had a Blue Martini to which they’d obviously say no. He’d then make them one, part of his one-eyed seduction. Here’s the recipe for those times you find yourself meeting a starlet.
FRITZ LANG’S BLUE MARTINI
2 oz Gin
1 oz Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth
2 drops Blue Food Coloring
Twist of a lemon peel
Pour gin, food coloring and vermouth into a mixing glass filled with ice and stir well. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with the lemon peel.
One guy who is putting out awesome and dare I say Welles and Lang-esque work is David Fincher. Here’s a great video of his cinematography and edit decisions that makes his work above a lot of others.
And then there’s the Coen Brothers who are huge. Huge. HUGE. Influences on our work. We quote their dialogue regularly and bring up their movies when beating out our own stories. But it’s in the edit bay that Joel and Ethan Coen are way stronger than others. Their casting is famously hard but once they have the cast they like they are one take Charlie’s. Which is awesome if you’re on set. (Clint Eastwood is famous for doing just one take as well).
Below is a video about their editing, and how when someone else edits their script, it doesn’t quite work.
And that’s it for now. I have to thank all those people who made essentially film school presentations that I could repurpose for my blog post. They’re all very insightful and worth checking out their other stuff.
