In terms of camerawork. I'm not asking this in a negative manner as I actually enjoy his minimalist style, but would you say that Ozu's films are the most "still" films post-Silent Era? I've been watching his films lately and from the one's i've seen so far there has not been a single panning or tilt movement of the camera, or anything. Everything is always so still.

There's one slow camera pan in Tokyo Story IIRC. But yeah, he's probably the most "still" of filmmakers.

No, Bela Tarr is easily the most "still" filmmaker. His version of Macbeth literally only has two shots (and yes, it's feature-length).

>>3
Not true. The camera still moves in that film, and that's only one film out of several other films which have very complex camera movements throughout. It was Macbeth also, not Hamlet.

OP is not asking about shot length but still camera.

I think James Bennning has him beat. But yes, Ozu was big on stillness (and meticulously framing every shot).

Hou Hsiao-hsien, based on what I've seen, barely moves the camera (or even cuts back and forth - scenes are often just one take).

I'll offer up Apichatpong Weerasethakul for consideration.

I've only ever seen one of his films, but Uncle Boonmee, Who Can Recall His Past Lives is the most tranquil cinematic experience I've ever had. The stillness is mesmerizing.

Well the good thing with that is he never needed a cameraman or any equipment other than a tripod.

No.

How so ?

he never needed a cameraman

ehr...

Why would he need a cameraman if the camera never moves ?

The camera does ocasionally move and movement isn't the only thing there's too it. There's putting the focus, framing, lighting, etc. Ozu worked with Yûharu Atsuta for the longest part of his career.

There's putting the focus, framing, lighting

There are people whose job is to handle the focus and the lighting, and the cinematographer oversees all that. The framing is chosen by Ozu, so presumably he manipulates the camera himself (that's much simpler than wasting 10 minutes communicating the exact angle to someone else).

Ozu did not handle the camera himself. The cinematographer is essentially the cameraman.

And here's if you still don't believe me:

A camera operator, also called a cameraman or a camerawoman, is a professional operator of a film or video camera. In filmmaking, the leading camera operator is usually called a cinematographer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_operator

I think most people would make a distinction between cinematographer and cameraman. A cinematographer doesn't necessarily move the camera himself, his required expertise is technical, he is the brain of the whole camera team basically. He may not necessarily have the skill to make smooth hand held camera movements and such, there are cameramen whose job is that, and on the other hand they probably don't have the technical expertise of the cinematogrpaher.

To go back to Ozu, I find it stupid if he wasn't manipulating the tripod himself for still shots. It's not exactly hard to use.

I think most people would make a distinction between cinematographer and cameraman

That's really only in high budget productions and that's not what Ozu's films were. His DOP did actually handle the camera himself. A lot of skilled directors often worked with a very small team (because it saved tons of money). I know Kubrick and Rohmer did (Rohmer made a film with a crew consisting of 3 people on set once, himself included and that movie won the golden lion). I suppose Ozu's crew was rather little aswell. If you'd check some of the credit's of Ozu's later films, you'll have a hard time finding the credit "camera operator", simply because the cinematographer did it himself.

To go back to Ozu, I find it stupid if he wasn't manipulating the tripod himself for still shots. It's not exactly hard to use.

Don't you think Ozu had better things to do? While the DOP would manipulate the camera he could do other stuff. It's not like he got forever to shoot a film.

Yeah Benning is the obvious answer here.

Noe's Seul contre tous (1998) (I Stand Alone) is very still.

ased on what I've seen, I'd nominate James Benning.

Regarding Benning, I haven't seen anything, so I might be wrong but would he count as an "experimental" film maker. I'm guessing the OP is referring to narrative film.

Ozu specialised in the fixed camera, sometimes even at floor level. If a character leaves a room the camera would rarely follow that person, if a conversation continued in another room there would be no cut, the camera remaining where it is. I never find this technique boring, unlike Bela Tarr where a sequence can be too long and sleep will soon follow.

sometimes even at floor level

Sometimes? It's almost always at floor level, and I like it alot.

In many films Ozu doesn't move the camera at all, and you can't get any more still than no motion at all. But there are certainly other films that equal Ozu in stillness, in not moving the camera at all. I can't say for sure which ones (it's a style of film-making that tends not to be memorable, for one thing), but I know they're out there; in fact, relatively common.

Whether there's a film-maker that's equally still, though, is another question. Maybe not. I'm sure at least one of Haneke's films has no camera movement whatever, but the camera motion in either Funny Games movie, let alone both together, is enough to drive Haneke's average amount of camera movement well above Ozu's.

I'm sure at least one of Haneke's films has no camera movement whatever

Hmmm I recently watched all of Haneke's films but can't recall that. Maybe I just didn't notice. When it comes to Haneke I loved his movement of camera in Code, Unknown and Time of the Wolf especially.

Ozu's films aren't "still" at all. I'm not sure anyone who says they are has really seen them. And I've been burned countless times by some supposed cinephile telling me that so-and-so's films are "like Ozu" - then it turns out they're dead on the screen, inert, with actors staring off, no humor, no vitality, etc. Kore-Eda. Various northern Europeans. Even that phony Jarmusch has been called "an Ozu type." Bunk. Ozu has a lively, alert style, and they're inherently dramatic - things happen, they flow and sometimes explode, from moment to moment and over a long arc. The very opposite of "still."

Put it on a tripod!

In terms of camerawork

Please read the actual body of the thread.

I read it already. A stationary camera doesn't necessarily make a still - or "most still"! - film.

The distinction matters because a lot of up-and-coming filmmakers want to make their mark by replicating what they think an acknowledged master filmmaker has done. I'd be happier about it if they first had a clearer idea of what, exactly, he had done.

Put it on a tripod!

A stationary camera doesn't necessarily make a still

In terms of camera movement, yes it does. Obviously they're not stills in the strictest sense, such as a photograph, because the action within the shot is obviously in motion, but in terms of camerawork then they are certainly "still" because the camera itself simply does not move.

Not exactly my point, anon. Yes, the camera is stationary; but no, the film as a whole is not still.

A film can get a sense of motion from other means than a moving or panning camera. Not every filmmaker knows how to achieve this, or wants to. But Ozu could, and did.

Put it on a tripod!

You're right but you're completely out of the thread's subject here. It's about the camera being technically still throughout, not wether his movies feel still or lively.

Did you read beyond the OP's heading? The question was purely about camerawork.

In any case:

And I've been burned countless times by some supposed cinephile telling me that so-and-so's films are "like Ozu" - then it turns out they're dead on the screen, inert, with actors staring off, no humor, no vitality, etc.

On second thought, that sounds exactly like Ozu, with the sole exception that his actors don't stare off-frame. (They look right at you, boring you that way instead.)

(My reply above this one is about the camerawork question.)

with the sole exception that [Ozu's]actors don't stare off-frame. (They look right at you, boring you that way instead.)

I'm truly sorry you see it that way. Ozu puts characters on the screen, not just actors. These aren't Rorschach blots for us to read anything we want into: they're fully formed, and psychologically acute. They have mystery, not vacancy.

And, yes, there's humor too - the characters' own humor, not the director's deadpan mockery, as in the films of whatsisname, or the other whatsisname.

Put it on a tripod!

>>34

It is all a matter of individual perspectives, really. What you see as being distinct of an Ozu film, another may not see as such, and vice-versa. I like Ozu, but I for one rarely see in him what so many other directors and critics have mentioned and payed direct homage to. Beyond the specifications of each character I don't see much that separates him from many other good filmmakers' characters, so that you could call his characters and others' merely actors.

Just live and let live, and let others call his photography still if they please. In terms of their compositions they are most certainly still, not merely by the lack of camera movement but by the very predominance of horizontal and vertical lines which classically create a notion of rigidness, all paired as well with the often fairly minimal movement within the mise-en-scene. The same way you argue that his films are not still, one would argue that James Benning's aren't either based on the notion that he stays on a particular shot for that long in order for one to start making out the elements that do change over the course of the shot's duration, hence directly implying they are not by any means still. But in terms of this thread's description, they most certainly qualify.

Oh, I readily accept that Ozu has humour. It's not funny - at times it's painfully lame - but it's definitely humour.

And I readily accept that he has real characters, but I would say they have neither mystery nor vacancy. Instead they're most commonly boring dishrags, which is of course true of many real people.

Well, at least you do know that such things are flaws.

What gives megrims is all the cinephiles who seem to find Ozu just as you say, and think it's a mark of greatness, and eagerly tout their latest discoveries who they say are "just like Ozu."

They're wrong, and v. annoying. You're wrong, too, but you're all right.

La maman et le putain is pretty still. Eustache parks his camera in one spot for a scene that might go on for 10 minutes or more. Also Dreyer.

>>38
Dreyer isn't particularly still, however. You look at a film like Vampyr and can see in it several travellings and crane shots. Even a less "flashy" film in his catalogue like Ordet contains several pans and the likes.

Also worth mentioning: Roy Andersson.