Two Ways of Shooting a Scene

By coincidence, the two films I watched yesterday (functionally speaking) both involved an authority figure of some sort (in Blue Ruin a police officer and in Wendy and Lucy a security guard) waking up the protagonist that had been sleeping in their car. But what interested me even more was the way in which the two directors filmed it. There is no doubt after watching much of both director's oeuvres that I prefer Reichardt in general, but these instances are perfectly indicative of their respective styles. For Saulnier's part, he shoots it in a subtly showy way. It starts with a push-in from the front passenger's seat that follows the police officer before panning to show her tapping on the window. He then cuts to a close-up from the driver's seat that pans up as Blair's character wakes up, then tracks laterally as he unlocks the door and speaks to the officer briefly. Finally, it cuts shortly to a view of the officer from the passenger seat, then a shot from the outside of the two cars. For Reichardt, she uses a perhaps less fluid and/or showy but more impactful method. She begins with a close-up on Wendy's face as the tapping on the window begins. Then, a long static shot from the passenger seat is used as she gets up and puts the key in the ignition. An extreme close-up is used on the key, before cutting back to the same shot. That shot is held until the next segment of the scene, as Wendy and the security guard push the car. I'm not entirely sure why one works better for me; perhaps I simply admire how Reichardt works much better with her protagonist. But regardless, it's fascinating how such a specific scene appears in two radically different films.

A Previous Favorites List

This was my previous "biased" favorites list before I revised it extensively.

1. Mulholland Dr.
2. Eraserhead
3. Blade Runner
4. Close-Up
5. Yi Yi
6. Paris, Texas
7. In the Mood for Love
8. Persona
9. Sans soleil
10. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
11. The 400 Blows
12. 2001: A Space Odyssey
13. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
14. Carol
15. The Young Girls of Rochefort
16. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
17. La jetée
18. Stop Making Sense
19. Sunrise
20. Seven Samurai
21. The Night of the Hunter
22. Duck Amuck
23. Heat
24. The Passion of Joan of Arc
25. Paths of Glory
26. Tokyo Story
27. The Devils
28. The Shining
29. Blue Velvet
30. Mistress America
31. Lost in Translation
32. The Battle of Algiers
33. My Golden Days
34. World of Tomorrow
35. Brazil
36. Wild at Heart
37. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
38. Casablanca
39. Last Year at Marienbad
40. Night and Fog
41. Inland Empire

21st Century List On the Occasion of the BBC 2016 List and Possible Alternatives

My list now:
Mulholland Drive
Yi Yi
In the Mood for Love
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Inland Empire
Miami Vice
Carol
Public Enemies
Dancer in the Dark
Phoenix

A few films I haven't seen that I think stand a high change of getting on to the list:
(one per director, though the rest of the films by said director can be assumed to some extent) Certified Copy
Platform
The Son
Deja Vu
Dogville
Night and Day
Mysteries of Lisbon
House of Tolerance
2046
Before Sunset
The Tree of Life
Millenium Mambo
Tropical Malady
Under the Skin
Goodbye, Dragon Inn
Femme Fatale
Goodbye to Language
Resident Evil: Retribution
Trouble Every Day
The Heart of the World
Werckmeister Harmonies
Mildred Pierce
Wendy and Lucy
Somewhere
The Wind Rises

Sight & Sound Ballot Runner-Ups at the Moment and a Classification for Non-Runner-Ups

D'Est
Miami Vice
Eraserhead
Yi Yi
Citizen Kane
The Rules of the Game
Trust
M

A sort of justification for my selections are as follows:
Astonishing aesthetic accomplishments that both set a sort of benchmark and are unlikely to be bettered (Breathless, Inland Empire, "Outer Space")
Mammoth evocations of a certain time or mindset (A Brighter Summer Day, Jeanne Dielman, and my runner-up for greatest of all time, Out 1)
and films that may have characteristics of all of the above, but more than anything are testaments to the human spirit (The Battle of Algiers, Close-Up, Sunrise, and my pick for greatest of all time, Sans soleil).

Parts of a Whole

Had a thought that there are certain films that, while they may not necessarily be masterpieces, have certain sections that could in effect exist on their own and be all the better for it; though some foreknowledge and indeed emotional investment may be required for their power it doesn't seem that necessary to me. These sections have an incredible, awe-inspiring quality that simply shines with genius.

After the New Year's to the end, Until the End of the World: this is the one that inspired this post and the best illustration of this ideal; the film takes an entirely unexpected turn that delves deep into the notions of memory, dreams, obsession, technology, and helplessness with all the power and ingenuity of Chris Marker. This would be a runner-up for my Sight and Sound ballot.

Desert flashback, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: one of the greatest sustained sequences ever; perfectly self-contained with a strange Western vibe to boot; beautiful.

Pronoun Trouble, "Rabbit Seasoning": quite frivolous, but this might be the funniest two minutes committed to film for me, a continual and always hilarious escalation of jokes; that the opening and closing are only slightly less genius makes me just a little bit sad.

Second half, When Marnie Was There: granted this is pending a rewatch, and part of its power is how it recontextualizes the first part, but regardless it contains all of the heartbreak, and though the conclusion may be inevitable, that doesn't make the realization any less impactful.

Episode Eight, Out 1: the entire film might be the greatest film ever made, but the final episode is the most inventive and the most inexplicable; have a brief, 15 minute mostly explicable recap, colorize the final scene from Episode Seven, and you have yourself a masterwork unto itself.

First half, La Notte: probably influenced by D'Angelo and desperately pending a rewatch but this portion is the clearest portrayal of Antonioni's genius to me.

Thoughts Regarding Oeuvres on the Occasion of Kiarostami's Passing

Transferred from the website.

Abbas Kiarostami’s death yesterday was such a shock to me, perhaps even greater than that of David Bowie’s, for a variety of reasons. True, Bowie’s was utterly out of the blue, but partly due to the slightly delayed impact of his death due to uncertainty whether he had died (I regrettably thought his Facebook page had been hacked) and the almost improbable nature of his existence, I’m still shocked whenever I remind myself he’s dead. Kiarostami, on the other hand, is a much more quantifiable figure to me at present, but it almost feels as if his life was cut short more abruptly than Bowie’s; he was not allowed to make a grand, career-ending work the way that Bowie was. Regardless, what is more important to me at the moment is the difference in my perception of their work at the moment of the news of their passings respectively. For Bowie, I had listened to practically all of his work, finishing just in time for Blackstar, which I managed to listen to on the day of release, and Station to Station was already secure as my favorite album. But for Kiarostami, many factors collide. Close-Up is currently in my top 5 favorite films, but I’ve only seen it once, even before Letterboxd, so that part is slightly uncertain (though I have little doubt that I will love it just as much on rewatch). But I haven’t seen any of his other films, and though that shouldn’t bother me as much as it does right now, Kiarostami’s body of work was simply too staggering to ignore. He is one of the few directors to have 4 films on Rosenbaum’s top 100, Certified Copy is continuously cited as one of the best of the century, and so many of his films ring like monuments to my ears, and I feel as if I have failed someone, perhaps him or myself, by not seeing them before his death. I feel like I might prioritize seeing every (or almost every) film from each director too much, but I feel as if my marathon exercises allow me to see the best parts in every single film I see; a sense of continuty dominates.