Sunday, January 20, 2013

Hooper Challenge, 2nd Edition

(1)


"... how minutely expressive are Hooper's visuals...

... how rhythmic, structural, and lean is Hooper's scene-building...

... how ambitious are these attempts to manifest, through the cinematography, the emotional filigree and dramatic vigor he senses within his stories.




Shots follow shots for reasons...


... They interlock in sequence in a way almost algorithmic, the efficiency of his rendering of space, perspective, and the syncopated beats of actions and interaction seeming uncommonly computational in its artful preciseness.

Furthermore, his camera is an entity unto itself...


 

(From 'The Silence,' Ingmar Bergman, 1963)

... an aesthetic eye, bound by the continuity of dramatic staging and by a never more-than-human, always perspective-informed observational restraint.

As some filmmakers create great art by emphasizing an inorganic, clinical eye, Hooper and his brand of aestheticism embodies a very organic and emotive camera...

('The Silence')

 
An actor-and-camera ballet exists in his blocking of his players...


 
Shots are rich with textures and painterly artistic principles...

(From 'Touch of Evil,' Orson Welles, 1958)

Pause his films at random and you will see a shot framed to a maximum of elegance."

Hooper's films are pure "works of art" - astounding marathons of inspiration and solemnity towards the serious aims of cinema...

... of elegance and compassion and creation...

... idea and thesis and presentation...

Choked of the loftiest ideals of story as rich, woven tapestries of character, drama, metaphor, and commentary...

... rich abstractions effectively superseding filmmaking of literalism.

(From 'The Band Wagon,' Vincente Minnelli, 1953)

Every motion a direct, modest act in realizing his film suffused of pure and warm artistic-humanist ends.