Shutter Angle \ deep-focus imageblog http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/ en-us Copyright 2011 Sun, 20 Nov 2011 00:29:30 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification Bad romance. 1200_nightmare-castle.jpg

Barbara Steele (left) and Paul Muller
Still from Gli Amanti d'oltretomba (aka Nightmare Castle; Caiano, 1965)
]]> http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2011/11/bad-romance.html http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2011/11/bad-romance.html Movie Stills Women barbara steele Sun, 20 Nov 2011 00:29:30 -0500 Not easy being green. Movie Poster: Melancholia

Theatrical one-sheet poster advertising Melancholia (Von Trier, 2011)
starring Kirsten Dunst
"It will change everything."
October 7 VOD; November 11 in theaters
]]> http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2011/08/not-easy-being-green.html http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2011/08/not-easy-being-green.html Movie Posters Women kirsten dunst Thu, 18 Aug 2011 20:49:55 -0500 Mila Kunis in Elle 1280_kunis.jpg

Mila Kunis in Elle magazine
"Kiss and Tell," August 2001
Photography by Carter Smith
via Picture Central
]]> http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2011/08/-mila-kunis-in-elle.html http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2011/08/-mila-kunis-in-elle.html People Women cleavage mila kunis vinyl fetish Sat, 13 Aug 2011 01:03:22 -0500 Mr. Rabbit Abbott and Costello in <em>Lost in a Harem</em>

Publicity still
Lost in a Harem (Reisner, 1944)

]]> http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2011/04/mr-rabbit.html http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2011/04/mr-rabbit.html Movie Stills Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:09:42 -0500 Reality show. Theatrical one-sheet poster advertising <em>Videodrome</em> (Cronenberg, 1983)

Theatrical one-sheet (France) advertising Videodrome (Cronenberg, 1983)
]]> http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2011/04/reality-show.html http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2011/04/reality-show.html Movie Posters 1983 cronenberg Sun, 03 Apr 2011 19:48:55 -0500 Charles Burnett and Danny Glover Danny Glover and Charles Burnett on the set of <em>To Sleep with Anger</em>


Danny Glover and Charles Burnett on the set of To Sleep with Anger (Burnett, 1990).


The Museum of Modern Art's Charles Burnett retrospective opens April 6, with the director's shattering Killer of Sheep, which MoMA quite accurately describes as "a harsh Neorealist portrait of Los Angeles ghetto life." Burnett will introduce that film in person, along with April 7-9 screenings of My Brother's Wedding, To Sleep with Anger, The Glass Shield, Nambia: The Struggle for Liberation, and the little-seen The Annihilation of Fish. The retrospective continues through April 25. Complete details are at MoMA's website.

]]> http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2011/03/charles-burnett-at-moma.html http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2011/03/charles-burnett-at-moma.html Men Movie Stills People charles burnett danny glover Thu, 24 Mar 2011 19:23:27 -0500 wjw1967 Faye Wong in <i>2046</i>

Faye Wong in 2046 (Wong, 2004)
Photo by Wing Shya/courtesy Sony Pictures Classics

]]> http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2011/03/wjw1967.html http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2011/03/wjw1967.html Movie Stills Women 2004 faye wong wong kar-wai Tue, 22 Mar 2011 21:14:56 -0500 Shellfish feelings. Costume for Salvador Dali's <i>Dream of Venus</i>

Costume for Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus
Photograph by Horst P. Horst, 1939
]]> http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2011/02/shellfish-feelings.html http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2011/02/shellfish-feelings.html Objets d'art blindfold food horst p horst kinky lobster nude Fri, 25 Feb 2011 17:25:28 -0500 Michelle Williams who can shoot you in the face.

Theatrical one-sheet poster advertising Meek's Cutoff

Oscilloscope would probably be thrilled if you followed this link to buy a copy of this poster for 20 bucks.
]]> http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2011/02/michelle-williams-who-can-shoot-you-in-the-face.html http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2011/02/michelle-williams-who-can-shoot-you-in-the-face.html Movie Posters Women meek's cutoff michelle williams western Fri, 18 Feb 2011 08:55:06 -0500 Jimmy Corrigan who can recall his past lives. Chris Ware <i>Uncle Boonmee</i> poster

Theatrical one-sheet poster advertising Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Designed by Chris Ware

In my opinion, Strand Releasing has missed the boat by not having copies of this available for sale, immediately, on the Internet. A no-brainer -- they would probably have higher margins selling the posters than they will the eventual DVD (and, please oh please, Blu-ray).
]]> http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2011/02/jimmy-corrigan-who-can-recall-his-past-lives.html http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2011/02/jimmy-corrigan-who-can-recall-his-past-lives.html Movie Posters 2011 apichatpong weerasethakul awesome chris ware uncle boonmee Sat, 12 Feb 2011 17:59:03 -0500 "Mum! Dad! It's evil! Don't touch it!" The final scene of <em>Time Bandits</em>

This is a still frame from the final scene of Time Bandits, an overhead shot that pulls back, farther and farther away from the risible suburban subdivision where young Kevin live(d) with his father and mother. You can see the top of Kevin's head -- he's standing on the lawn very near the center of the frame. Above him in the image, on the sidewalk, are two smoking piles of rubble. Those used to be Kevin's parents. Well, he warned them.

I was pretty young when I saw Time Bandits -- 12 years old, I think -- and this ending, Gilliam having Kevin's mum and dad exploded before his eyes by a pile of smoking rubble from Hell, had a profound effect on me. For one thing, it was an attack on parents who don't listen to their children. For another, it greatly expanded my idea of what was possible in a film narrative. A director, playing God as merry prankster, could detonate the very pillars of the 20th-century suburban household, throwing the future of a young boy into complete doubt just as he rolls the credits. Who does a thing like this?

It was a wicked thing, but it was a delightful thing as well. It prepared me, in some ways, to tackle Buñuel, Bergman, and the likes just a few years later. And in its rudeness it's stuck with me as surely as any scene from any movie I've seen over all these years.
]]> http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2010/10/mum-dad-its-evil-dont-touch-it.html http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2010/10/mum-dad-its-evil-dont-touch-it.html Movie Stills evil gilliam time bandits Fri, 22 Oct 2010 17:29:29 -0500 I spit on your grave, twice. <i>I Spit on Your Grave</i> one-sheet design

If you know what I Spit on Your Grave is, you may understand why this one-sheet design initially struck me as one of the more breathtakingly offensive pieces of graphic art in the history of film marketing, conflating sex appeal and victimhood in a single appalling image. (In short: it's a remake of an artless 1978 rape-revenge film starring Buster Keaton's grand-niece.) When I first stumbled across it on the web, I found it to be in tremendously poor taste, and I don't squirm that easily.

Poster for the original <em>I Spit on your Grave</em>

I was surprised to realize later that it clearly takes the most notorious poster promoting the original film as a model. I never found the earlier image especially problematic -- beyond its obvious decision to dehumanize the woman by cutting her off at the head -- which makes me wonder what it is about the new one that I found so grossly unwholesome. I can only conclude that it's the obvious expertise of the image-making that gets me -- the woman's body turned demurely away from the camera, her sculpted ass ready for a swimsuit issue, and rendered in high-contrast tones that resemble a line drawing or charcoal sketch set against a professional white background as crisp as the inside of an Apple Store. (The remake's poster might be even more striking if the designer had found a way to incorporate the original tag line: "No jury in America would ever convict her," instead of relying on a call-out to "Day of the Woman," the first film's original title, to suggest the vigilante-justice angle.)

It's also about the 21st century context. This image is like some movie marketer's raised middle finger to all the hand-wringing concern and moralizing that followed the original film's release, including Ebert's famous pan. It's now 30 years on and the world has become leaps and bounds more sensitive to issues of rape and recovery, not to mention highly sexualized violence in general, and yet we have made the same film and now we will market it essentially the same way. And I have to admit, the strategy is cynical, but effective. Now I'm suddenly curious about the fucking movie. ]]> http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2010/10/i-spit-on-your-grave-twice.html http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2010/10/i-spit-on-your-grave-twice.html Advertisements Movie Posters horror sex violence Thu, 07 Oct 2010 06:30:19 -0500 Do it for the fish.

More than a year ago, Emilia Fox, Terry Gilliam, and Greta Scaachi posed topless (for ace nudie photog Rankin) in a very strange campaign to promote sustainable fishing.
Why wasn't I notified?
]]> http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2010/08/do-it-for-the-fish.html http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2010/08/do-it-for-the-fish.html Men Women emilia fox greta scaachi terry gilliam Wed, 18 Aug 2010 17:22:18 -0500 Alley rats. Vincent Gallo and Christine Ricci in <i>Buffalo 66</i>

Vincent Gallo and Christina Ricci
Publicity still, Buffalo 66 (Gallo, 1998)
[deep-focus movie review]
]]> http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2010/04/alley-rats.html http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2010/04/alley-rats.html Movie Stills 1998 christina ricci vincent gallo Wed, 14 Apr 2010 22:14:01 -0500 Anne Hathaway in GQ Anne Hathaway in <em>British GQ</em>

Anne Hathaway
British GQ, March 2010
Photograph by Mark Seliger

]]> http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2010/03/anne-hathaway-in-gq.html http://www.deep-focus.com/shutterangle/2010/03/anne-hathaway-in-gq.html Women anne hathaway Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:21:10 -0500