Back-ting

It's easy to forget but acting and filming are actually art forms and Hollywood once excelled at them.

You won't see any evidence of that in the modern blockbuster, though. I remember a scene in one of the Iron Man movies (or perhaps the Avengers?) where Iron Man is fighting the Hulk. Scenes of the fight are interrupted by scenes where we see Tony Stark's face against a dark background- encased in his helmet, with the armour's HUD superimposed. It's a clever trick. The point though is not to create a dramatic effect. It's to maximise Robert Downey Jr's face time.

When I was younger I was always on the lookout for "videoclip-like" directing. For instance, I was crazy about a French movie called Dobermann [1] that goes like a cheetah on speed and doesn't stop to take names. I was obsessed with portrayals of action and violence, the faster the better.

But there is power in standing still. There is power in silence, in saying nothing, in showing nothing. I was shown that in the movies of masters [2] [3]. Perhaps I've grown up in the process.

____________

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobermann_(film)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Samurai

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Man