MovieChat Forums > The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) Discussion > cinematography fail?

cinematography fail?

posted 14 years ago by arnis12
8 replies | jump to latest

There's moments of brilliance in this film, mainly when you can actually see what's going on, but there's also dark scenes in the club which are very hard to see or know what's going on. This is frustrating and may be a reason for it's failure at the box office. Before I'm attacked by film school students for defending the "look" as avant garde, understand, many have no problem with dark films. Gordon Willis revolutionized Hollywood with his darkly lit sets in The Godfather. Kubrick used fast lenses in Barry Lyndon, and David Fincher is one of the current directors who loves to shoot in low lighting. But there were times when there was simply no detail or very little in the frame. Could Cassavates have sabotaged his own film? Like I said, it's still has moments of brilliance, but I would say this is a flaw.

[–] Trp1985 14 years ago

Yeah, most of the 'cinematography' seemed just downright LAZY film-making to me. No wonder this bombed at the box-office.

[–] EyeoftheBeholder1 13 years ago

Yeah, I don't think the film was intentionally that dark, in terms of lighting. I just don't think the DP or whoever did a poor job of lighting up certain key scenes. There were many times where I literally could not see what was happening. That's just poor filmmaking.

Because of that, I gave the film 6 stars.

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] kbelyshev-60-5582 13 years ago

i loved the lighting. gave it a noir feel, in color. and did you watch it on criterion?

[–] lewisherschell 12 years ago

That 'darkness' was deliberate: there was an article by Bob Fisher called 'Packing Heat' in a 2008 issue of International Cinematographers' Guild Magazine, and according to Fisher the film was underexposed by four or five stops in order to deepen the shadows and try to create a 'film noir' aesthetic using colour film stock. I think it works nicely, especially in the scene in Ling's home where Cosmo is surrounded by darkness but ocassionally picked out by shafts of light. However, I can also see why some people might not like it.

'What does it matter what you say about people?'
Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958).

[–] henrimaine 12 years ago

I didn't notice the film being too dark. But I did notice that sometimes the camera seemed to have trouble finding the right spot to look at. I mean, there were several scenes where people were moving in front of the camera and the camera apparently couldn't follow the movement. It was probably intentional, meant to create a realistic, hectic atmosphere.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] R_Redbeard 9 years ago

Thread starting fail... The cinematography was amazing. All of it.

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