Most perfectly composed shot in movie history

Started by Just Withnail, May 22, 2003, 12:32:14 PM

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Just Withnail

Post a description of what you believe is the most perfectly composed shot throughout film history. Easy as that. Try to elaborate a bit on exactly why you chose that particular moment, and this could be interesting.

Personally, I need some time to think, but you guys go right ahead, and I'll join in when I find mine  :-D

Remember, just one pick, so consider it carefully. With an accompanying screenshot, perhaps?

Rudie Obias

\"a pair of eyes staring at you, projected on a large screen is what cinema is truly about.\" -volker schlöndorff

SoNowThen

LaMotta's title fight in Raging Bull. Starting in the dressing room, then through the hallway, up into the arena, and into the ring, tracking with DeNiro.

I love moving camera. So many other directors would have cut, but Scorsese holds the mood with this shot, and sets up the fight perfectly. Plus, there's something beautiful in the mixture of excitement, concentration, and sadness in DeNiro's performance (especially during the start of the shot).
Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary:  the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.

When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.

Just Withnail

Exellent!  :-D

Man, that screenshot got me in the mood to re-watch Jaws.

Alethia

i love the very final shot at the end of vertigo (i know i mention that movie too much, but i fuckin love it to death), james stewart just standing there on the ledge as she starts ringing the bell, then fade out.  beautiful, beautiful.

close encounters - when the little boy opens the door and there is the orange light emulating through it.

raging bull - the shot that sorta cranes down over his head at the sound of the bell as he raises his arms when he wins the fight

i also love the shot in goodfellas when ray liotta snorts the coke and the camera does that super fast zoom into his face and his eyes and nostrils are beat red.

Alethia

oh shit - one pick???

then the one in vertigo.

polkablues

The shot in "The Exorcist" with the fog and the stairs.
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godardian

I can't narrow it down to just one. Different directors have composed different shots that are perfect for very different reasons. Too hard to pick just one.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

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ProgWRX

hard to pick just one, but one of my recent favorites has to be in Amelié, when she is skipping rocks in the canal and the crane/camera just sweeps above her  8)
-Carlos

Just Withnail

Well then just pick a few :)

It wasn't as easy to narrow my favorites down as I originally thought. Kind of like picking your favorite child, ain't it?

Derek237



When Tom Cruise is running to the ledge of the building and about to jump off in Vanilla Sky. It's just neat how the camera follows him. This is the image that always comes to my mind when I think about Vanilla Sky.

I also like when the detective falls down the stairs in Psycho.  :wink:

Redlum

That Jaws shot, not only the tormbone shot, but the cutting as people walk through his line of sight.


Here's one of my favourites.
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bonanzataz

you and the graduate. i actually watched it again last night after not having seen it in a while.  :yabbse-thumbup:
The corpses all hang headless and limp bodies with no surprises and the blood drains down like devil's rain we'll bathe tonight I want your skulls I need your skulls I want your skulls I need your skulls Demon I am and face I peel to see your skin turned inside out, 'cause gotta have you on my wall gotta have you on my wall, 'cause I want your skulls I need your skulls I want your skulls I need your skulls collect the heads of little girls and put 'em on my wall hack the heads off little girls and put 'em on my wall I want your skulls I need your skulls I want your skulls I need your skulls

children with angels

I've got to say, having just watched PDL once again, the silhouette kiss with the people running past: the layers of colour, the depth, the person running in the background at the end... Aaaaah... I know there are other more worthy shots, but that's the one that comes to mind right now. I love it.
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Xixax

Don't wanna jump on a bandwagon here, but I have to give props to the man once again.

Greatest shot in my (somewhat limited) film experience.

No question whatsoever.

Floyd Gondolli's entrance.

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