Great Visual Storytelling by Craig Hammill (SMC Founder)

We wanted to take a look at a few films that seem to really get cinematic visual storytelling. There are many great movies but actually relatively few that seem to get close to realizing the full potential of the tools of cinema.

The Last Laugh (1925, dir by FW Murnau, Germany)

First up is FW Murnau's life-changing The Last Laugh. Often introduced as the silent movie that used almost NO intertitles due to its potent visual storytelling. The movie tells the story of a Man who bases his entire identity on being the Hotel Doorman of a swank hotel. When he loses his job, he loses himself. Murnau uses visual strategies in this movie I've never seen before or since. One of my favorites is an incredible sequence where the Doorman returns to his apartment complex and people start to gossip. Murnau tracks into a fluttering mouth in one apartment window then tracks into a ready ear in another apartment window. The camera flies all over the complex (in 1925!) to show the wildfire spread of the gossip sure to drive the Man into further despair.

Mirror (1975, dir by Andrei Tarkovksy, Russia)

Sandwiched between the two towers of Solaris and Stalker, Tarkovsky's Mirror doesn't get talked about quite as much. But in this programmer's opinion, it may be Tarkovsky's greatest work. An autobiographical free-association movie where Tarkovsky moves from his childhood to Russian history to his fantasies (often in single shots), Mirror dares to take visual chances that most filmmakers wouldn't dream of doing. The fact that you often will see painstakingly detailed shots that move to houses on fire that move to people floating show what cinema can accomplish if the moviemakers DARE to try the shots. And with all great movies, it works because the underlying emotion/story works. Imagination, memory, and emotion are often the biggest drivers. Mirror communicates that like no other movie.

Un Prophete (2009, dir by Jacques Audiard, France)

The story of an Algerian-French Muslim forced to sink or swim in a brutal prison run by the Corsican Mafia. Jacques Audiard dares to tell the twin stories of an oppressed young man who rises to gangster power AND has some kind of spiritual awakening. Of course, when you think about it, this is actually just an acknowledgement of something we already know (if rarely voice): humanity is horrifically violent and mysteriously drawn to transcend that violence to connect with the divine. Audiard finds countless ways to poetically tell the story of this journey. One of my favorite devices is a kind of flickering iris in and out at certain key moments. It turns out the filmmakers achieved this simply by putting their hands in front of the camera and making an iris out of their fingers. Sometimes the most beautiful visual strategies turn out to be easy to do if you take the chance to experiment.

Twin Peaks - The Return: Episode 8 (2017, dir by David Lynch, USA)

If you're a David Lynch fan and got nervous that Lynch had given up on the "big canvas" cinematic storytelling that made so many of his greatest works so thrilling, Twin Peaks - The Return: Episode 8 dispelled all fears. In fact, in this programmer's opinion, it may be the single greatest hour of television ever. A near 60 minute symphonic cinema poem that somehow encompasses sequences of horror, the atomic testing in New Mexico, a transcendent castle in a cosmic ocean, a little girl and a huge bug, and the Woodsmen. . .What's the point even writing about this? You have to see it. I always know I'm watching something incredible when I lean forward and don't lean back. I was leaning forward for 50 minutes straight. Oh yeah and there's a NINE INCH NAILS concert number.

The Lady from Shanghai (1947, dir by Orson Welles, USA)

Although not quite top tier Welles (that say Citizen Kane, Magnificent Ambersons, Touch of Evil, and Chimes at Midnight are), The Lady from Shanghai finds Welles in a fit of restless beautiful experimentation. A down on his luck Irish sailor takes a job captaining the boat of a handicapped rich husband and his gorgeous, restless young wife. From there, Welles, endowed with a bigger budget than normal, experiments with the juxtaposition of popular music and imagery, different lenses, different POVs. But of course the coup de grace is the climax in a funhouse hall of mirrors. As a sequence it's beyond thrilling and experimental. As a storytelling strategy, it's brilliant. All the lies, deceit, lust that have dominated the story come crashing down in a hail of bullets and reflections.

The Grapes of Wrath (1940, dir by John Ford, USA) 

John Ford, a brilliant director notoriously impossible to pin down about his stunning visual bravura, with the help of equally brilliant cameraperson Gregg Toland, created some of cinema's most stunning sequences for this movie. Based on John Steinbeck's all time great novel, the movie follows the poor rootless Joad family in the Depression as they drive to California in the hopes of finding work. The opening sequences, specifically where returning son Tom Joad hears how families were kicked off their land by the banks and when Ma Joad looks at herself in a mirror with an old pair of earrings are so striking from a visual and editorial point of view as to make almost all other cinema at the time seem superfluous. Not quite of course. But Grapes of Wrath finds two of cinema's greatest practitioners collaborating at the absolute height of their game. It's kind of like watching the greatest NBA finals or World Cup Finals match of all time.

Strangers on a Train (1951, dir by Alfred Hitchcock, USA)

Two strangers, Guy and Bruno, discuss the perfect way to commit a murder aboard a train. Psychotic Bruno follows through. Shocked Guy must deal with the consequences. In many ways, Strangers was the starting gun shot that announced Alfred Hitchcock was going to redefine cinema with a series of masterpieces across the next 10 years. Hitchcock, clearly feeling comfortable in the Hollywood system, takes a series of visual chances he hadn't quite allowed himself since his British movie days of the 1930's. One stunning murder is shown completely in the reflection of the victim's fallen glasses. And it only gets more visually intense from there.

The Great Beauty (2013, dir by Paolo Sorrentino, Italy)

This movie was a true revelation to this programmer. I came into it NOT wanting to like it because it was so clearly a La Dolce Vita riff. But Sorrentino and cinematographer Luca Bigazzi accomplish something masterful (really anchored by Toni Servillo's stunning performance): they make something akin to a much more soulful, spiritual, warm sibling to La Dolce Vita. While Fellini's masterpiece is fun, it is also, ultimately pretty devastating. Here we follow writer/journalist Jep, on the tail end of middle age, as he wrestles with his life decisions, his past, his romances, and what he's going to do with what little time he has left. Meanwhile the filmmakers give Rome and Jep's story a kind of lush rich singular visual signature that makes the movie a feast of cinema.

Written by Craig Hammill. Founder and Programmer of Secret Movie Club.