DRIVE

Last night I decided to go and see Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive, starring Ryan Gosling. I was a bit hesitant to see it because I expected it to be just another action/suspense movie with the hopes of attracting an audience by using other great actors such as Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), and Christina Hendricks. Well, let me just say that once the film ended, I was left speechless.

The reason why I wanted to share this film with you all on the blog is because of it's unique cinematography. As some of you might recall, Mark was demonstrating for us the difference in camera angles and what it does to our subject: You shoot from above and take away the assertiveness from your subject; you shoot from below and give power to your subject.
In Drive, the majority of the shots were done from below. Every character was treated with the same style of shot--from below with them looking up or away. Each was given his or her own unique power without any discrimination between "good guy" or "bad guy".



There is very little dialogue in the movie, at least compared to most other action and suspense films, but I felt that this helped me soak in the visuals and the emotions of the characters much better. My memory is not the strongest, but this film makes the exception; I can literally sit down and think about the whole entire movie through without missing a scene. This is because of the director's strong use of slow motion accompanied with panning and longer cuts. I was able to absorb every ray of light and every color, from the blood (which there was a lot of) to the wallpaper.


Being a photographer, I have always appreciated strong cinematography in films as it can be extremely inspiring for your own personal work. The rule is, is that almost every shot in a film should have the ability, if it were paused, to create a strong still photograph. So, I highly recommend seeing Drive for its visual effectiveness. (Plus, Ryan Gosling isn't that bad to look at either!)