Pure Cinema?

[DLaurent]

What is Pure Cinema to you?

Defined originally I understand by Hitchcock. Maybe cemented by French Critics.

Something to do with every element being perfect, as Hitchcock was on about Silent Films doing something without sound that only Cinema could do.

I think I know it when I see it. Something like being chased with a Crop Duster in North by Northwest, but I can't come up with a more precise definition. And other than defining it, what scenes say this is Pure Cinema to you?

 

[version]

The fight in the hall of mirrors at the end of Enter the Dragon.

 

[DLaurent]

The fight in the hall of mirrors in Enter the Dragon.

I can't even remember seeing the whole film but I know that one.

 

[DLaurent]

Lawrence of Arabia

 

[DLaurent]

x.com

x.com

 

[DLaurent]

Link doesn't seem to work but it's me explaining there's two good scenes of Pure Cinema in Sorcerer.

Crossing the Bridge, and cutting a pocket out of a mans trousers to make a sand timer to blow up a fallen tree that blocks the road.

 

[version]

I think I know it when I see it. Something like being chased with a Crop Duster in North by Northwest, but I can't come up with a more precise definition.

I suppose a definition could be something along the lines of a transcendent moment impossible in any other medium. That example you've posted from Lawrence of Arabia qualifies because it has to be a moving image. You could describe it in print or paint/photograph a still image, but it wouldn't be the same. The motion is what brings Sharif into focus and transforms him from mirage to reality.

 

[DLaurent]

Other than Hitchcock examples I can think of like The Foreign Correspondent windmill scene I can only really think of cliche examples.

In TFC there's dramatic irony from the visuals as someone is being chased and you get both points of view from the chased and the chaser, hiding on different levels. One of the cliches I can think of is war films in a forest or jungle where you get a similar thing go on (Platoon).

The other cliche I can think of is being stuck on a cliff or ledge and about to fall (Fourteen Hours is one) but I can't explain so well causes the drama.

 

[version]

Other than Hitchcock examples I can think of like The Foreign Correspondent windmill scene I can only really think of cliche examples.

In TFC there's dramatic irony from the visuals as someone is being chased and you get both points of view from the chased and the chaser, hiding on different levels. One of the cliches I can think of is war films in a forest or jungle where you get a similar thing go on (Platoon).

The other cliche I can think of is being stuck on a cliff or ledge and about to fall (Fourteen Hours is one) but I can't explain so well causes the drama.

The Mexican standoff.

 

[version]

I didn't enjoy the film as much as I'd hoped I would, but this sequence from The Red Shoes is incredible. A great example of what cinema can do in comparison to at least one other medium as you're taken well beyond the stage's rigid focus and into something much more fluid and dreamlike.

 

[DLaurent]

I don't really remember that film. Or much of Powell and Pressburger as it was years ago I thought I'd see it.

I do remember the stairway to heaven from a Matter of Life and Death. Something going on with the visuals.

 

[Clinamenic]

Anyone else here see The Long Day Closes by Terence Davies? One of the few perfect (in a certain qualified sense) films I've seen, at least based on what I recall. It very much had a sense of pure cinema, to me at least.

 

[HMGovt’s Glorious Return!]

The mine railway chase in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

 

[DLaurent]

The girls on the trikes in The Shining maybe.

 

[IdleRich]

What is Pure Cinema to you?

Defined originally I understand by Hitchcock. Maybe cemented by French Critics.

Something to do with every element being perfect, as Hitchcock was on about Silent Films doing something without sound that only Cinema could do.

I think I know it when I see it. Something like being chased with a Crop Duster in North by Northwest, but I can't come up with a more precise definition. And other than defining it, what scenes say this is Pure Cinema to you?

I was talking earlier about Myra Breckinridge (spelling?) and there is a bit in the book where Vidal (through Myra) says that between two dates - I forget which sadly - say 1923 to 1937 (for eg) not a single film was made in Hollywood which wasn't essential and perfect.

 

[WashYourHands]

The entirety of The Passenger

 

[IdleRich]

The fight in the hall of mirrors at the end of Enter the Dragon.

Isn't it a kind of homage to the bit in The Lady From Shanghai? I dunno if that precludes it being pure cinema mind, but my gut feeling (which I'm very prepared to be argued out of) is that Pure Cinena ought to be something completely original.

Or then again, maybe it can be a refinement of something earlier, like the way the heist scene in Le Circle Rouge is a homage to - and so.e would say improvement of - the heist in Rififi.

So I've just offered two completely opposing gestures in the direction of a definition of what Pure cinFuema might mean. Now I'mred not what that might say to any of you lot but to me it kinda suggests that on this subject (at least) I don't know what I'm talking about ab d should probably be ignored.

 

[version]

Isn't it a kind of homage to the bit in The Lady From Shanghai? I dunno if that precludes it being pure cinema mind, but my gut feeling (which I'm very prepared to be argued out of) is that Pure Cinena ought to be something completely original.

I don't know whether it was consciously emulating Lady from Shanghai, but it's similar, yeah. I still think it's "pure cinema" though because you've got this intensely visual sequence combined with Lee's action choreography.

 

[kid charlemagne]

off top of head
can you hear the music sequence oppenheimer
penns landing finale in blow out
god only knows ending in boogie nights
copacabana scene in goodfellas
scene where guy carries the candle in nostalgia

 

[IdleRich]

I don't know whether it was consciously emulating Lady from Shanghai, but it's similar, yeah. I still think it's "pure cinema" though because you've got this intensely visual sequence combined with Lee's action choreography.

Could be wrong but I had it in my head as an acknowledged influence though. I really can't say where I got that from though so I may be confusing myself.