Chaos Cinema

That Ronin - QOS is a good one but i think Goldeneye vs QOS is a better one. goldeneye car chase. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLqt7AVCWXc .
I agree for a part the one from QOS is to fast if you look to Goldeneye and Ronin. But if it be CR vs QOS, the yuse of Soundmix and editing is better then CR. Things not going to fast with hard fast cutting in editing, soundmix and music. A style who by times to much of Die Hard/24 in CR, but i also don't like that plot for a Bond movie and not be good thing to start with as a Bond actor. The QOS car chase don't have the problem as with CR sounmixer and quike editing and i like the Police agent talking and when the cars get out. My problem with QOS car chase be the gun shooting and litle bit to quike end.

Sharky wrote:

trevanian wrote:

I only saw the first BOURNE, which was Liman, not Greengrass. I remember because I loved Liman's GO and wanted to like Bourne, and took an article assignment about it well prior to its release ... and then Liman refused to be interviewed about the film and I was left with just a crappy interview with the cameraman and no article to sell ... and that was before I got the megadisappointment of seeing the movie!

Does Greengrass do those Michael Bay zooms (little camera moves on Connery whille he drives the hummer in THE ROCK), just not as well? I don't think I've seen any of his pictures (maybe the trailers all make me dizzy.)

Just watch how this sequence from the third movie is constructed:



Compare it to this:



What are you say are the key technical differences?

Quote :

The guy who shot QOS for Forster is really really good. All you have to do is freeze on a non-blurry frame and you'll see a nice composition most of the time, and sometimes very moody looks I find quite effective.

Schaefer, right? I'd say he's a better DP than Phil Meheux. Too much soft focus (which just looks ugly after digital mastering) and flat compositions there.

I whant to at to your compare the toilet scene or CR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epxYm3OouQA heavy cuts as in your examples this time suport by to loud music and soundmix.

Bourne Supremecy 2004 vs Casino Royale 2006.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPOXo6XRXDI at 2.48 Bourne enter Germany

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H42AdJLq5kE at 2.12 Bond enter Miami

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E586mYraTUs Bourne in Berlin in 2004

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6yhuzXST8Y Bond in Miami in 2006

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRhz-nJxIng at 0.57-1.16 Bourne read a paper online on a lapton. In CR Bond Lechiefe and M reading a paper online too on the Laptop.

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Identity first view 7/10.
Supremecy 6/10
Ultimatum 6.5 close to a 6.0

My general feeling about the last 2 be that better can have made 1 movie from the last 2. I get the idea CR look like more on Supremacy that movie whyle QOS look like more on Ultimatum, the other way around what people think. Before i saw them people blaime QOS look like more on Supremacy whyle i think it look like more on Ultimatum. Also hand camera thing is a bigger problem in Ultimatum then the claimd Supremecy . The last 2 movies best things are the contune thing and feels a bit strange it take 3 years before ultimate be released. For me it not realy make a lot of difrence because i saw them this year. With exeption of Identity i don't think those 2 are movies because of the plot/to short time be movies who i going to watch more then 2 times. If i have seen Ultimatum before QOS i possible have give a higher rank. Biggest problem is that there focus a lot on Bourne him self on a tv series whyle there vergot he also have a future.

Mission Impossible first view 6/10. Part of the movies plot take 2 or 3 more views to discover. In 2010 i watch it i think for the 4th of fift time and i discover the movie have a big problem to survived time. I can't remember of have seen it in the cinema too.

Mi2. 9/10. My favorite and i have seen it in the cinema. The only one who comes close to the highest ranks and views count of movies like Goldeneye/Twine or movie Spider-Man. There exist a couple of discussion threads on the old forums about or Mi2 and Spy Game be responselbel for what happend with Die Another Day and also a litle bit with Casino Royale. This moost of the time going about the mistake there make with taken the first editor not the uncredit editor for DAD. With CR there correct this mistake.

Mi3. First view 7.5/10. I feel the movie a lot in comen with the set up for a sequel element like QOS whyle Mi3 is from earlier So you can say iam a bit disapointed the story not contuned in Ghost Protocol and it take 5 years after part 3. In specialy because the introducing Jonathan Rhys Meyers chacter. I read some remours abour Renner wil take over the franchise, but if there is one i think about to take over it be Meyers. Also from this one i expect the villian wil return and Maggie Q possible going to be a villian. I don't understand people don't understand Luther not be in the fourth one, because also his chacter get first signs he not going to be in part 4 or part 4 be his last one. Of course with a title like Ghost Protocol a lot is possible and strange enough Ving Rhames his name is back on the imdb page of the 4th movie. So i hope mi5 is released in 2013 or 2014 where Mi3 end if Mi4 do nothing with it. Laurens Fishburn is fired at CSI so can come back now. About Renner, if he can't choose then i think there should give his name in Bourne the same name as in Mi4 and it be the same chacter. If not he better can leave Bourne.

For each franchise i have other expections and for Bond special rule. CR/QOS be so much difrence with Mission Impossible franchise i can't who i like more. But also there be much difrence between that franchise and Bourne. In general i say Mission Impossible because Bourne feels a bit empty also. After for a part disaster CR in my eyes i feel QOS is more the way i like to see Bond going and for Mi count the same. I like the team spirit of that franchise a lot. Bourne story is a thing i think should change, with the locations it look first there going to win from Bond. Already before i saw those 2 Bourne movies and QOS i get the feeling it be time for another TLD, Octopussy, Yolt, TMWTGG locations besides another GE. It look like the mi franchise thinking the same with being the first yusing India and Russia.

Actually the QOS fight doesn't look too bad to me, watching it by itself. The only cut I really don't like is at 40 or 41 seconds.

Compared to fight sequences from the early Bond films, I'd say it's low-grade.

Compared to great fight sequences through out all of cinema, I'd say it's absolutely forgettable.

Mr. Brown wrote:

Compared to fight sequences from the early Bond films, I'd say it's low-grade.

Which sequences? It's not like the fight sequences in all the early Bond films are universally great.

But it's just a brief fight scene, anyway, not a set-piece. I'm not crazy about the scene, either in terms of concept, staging, editing, or cinematography, but it's not the scene in QOS I'd pick to complain about.

Bond v. Grant, Bond v. Oddjob, Bond v. Peter Franks, Bond v. Necros, off the top of my head.

They're much more coherent. They're exciting, suspenseful, and you feel that Bond's life is actually in danger.

In a sloppily cut sequence where thug-Bond walks into a hotel room, flies through a door, hits a man with a shoe, and then stabs him, all in 1 minute, there is no build-up and no tension. This scene was more like a filler to please those kids who get boners from watching muscular men wrestle each other. I'm surprised Craig's shirt didn't come off at one point during that fight sequence.

Mr. Brown wrote:

Bond v. Grant, Bond v. Oddjob, Bond v. Peter Franks, Bond v. Necros, off the top of my head.

They're much more coherent. They're exciting, suspenseful, and you feel that Bond's life is actually in danger.

Sure. But all of those are also more major sequences than that moment in QUANTUM OF SOLACE. The QUANTUM OF SOLACE fight is more minor than any of those, and isn't supposed to stand with those--it's a brief bit of violence. That QUANTUM OF SOLACE fight is more akin to the brief fight with the big thug in Tracy's hotel room in ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE than it is to the fight with Red Grant in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, or even the elevator fight with Peter Franks in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER.

As I say, I don't like the scene much, but if we're going to complain about a sequence in QUANTUM OF SOLACE, surely we should complain about the bigger sequences, like the boat chase, the plane sequence , or the horrid Greene/Bond fight.

Louis Armstrong wrote:

Loomis wrote:

Comparing these mostly incoherent and unengaging action scenes of "chaos cinema" to the comprehensible and involving action scenes in classics like DIE HARD, it's also clear that even scenes of "spectacle" - scenes that are purely action scenes - must have narrative, otherwise they simply don't work. A car chase or a shootout cannot function as a pause from the narrative, or as an action scene that somehow functions outside the narrative - it must have its own (coherent) narrative structure, which I guess springs largely from choreography, cinematography and editing that shows us clearly what is happening to whom. I presume that the Tony Scotts of this world assume that no such rules need be followed and that it's enough simply to create plenty of chaos, fury and confusion so that the viewer will get the general idea of a shootout or a chase or whatever and will feel "there" in the midst of it all alongside the characters. On paper, this seems logical enough (and even imparts a sense of realism - after all, would the characters themselves necessarily know exactly what was going on in the heat of battle?).... but in reality it achieves the opposite effect, with the viewer feeling unengaged - even deliberately alienated by the filmmakers - and bored. Why? Because narrative has been arrogantly tossed out of the window.

Good post.

Cheers. :D

Having said all that, though, I must admit that, sometimes, "chaos cinema" action scenes can work. The reason I say this is because I do find the action scenes in the Greengrass-directed Bourne films extremely well-done and exciting - well, most of them, anyway (occasionally they're merely incoherent and dull).

The best by far is the Moscow car chase at the end of SUPREMACY. It really comes together and delivers the goods. One of the best celluloid car chases ever, really - very different in execution to the chases in, say, RONIN, but, hey, Peking duck is different to Russian caviar but I love 'em both (or however that quote goes). If there's any great argument in favour of "chaos cinema" it's this heartstopping scene in SUPREMACY.

I don't mind the fight between Bourne and the German dude in SUPREMACY (since it all takes place in one room and no one's trying to get from A to B, I can live without a clear sense of geography here - all we need to know is that these two guys are pounding the living daylights out of each other in a confined location, and the film has no trouble communicating this), and I also like the Tangiers pursuit in ULTIMATUM.

So I do think Greengrass does this whole "chaos cinema" thing really well, but, yeah, by and large it sucks.

The real problem with the "chaos cinema" effect bludgeons our senses, alienating us from the action by keeping us at a super-high frequency level. The best action sequences operate like a roller coaster; there are highs and lows, lulls and then passages of breakneck intensity. But action these days tends to operate at high-octane level almost every second, and when it's not there in the choreography, the music and editing are often trying to compensate. Everything is cranked up to the max.

One of the reasons I don't return to the Greengrass BOURNE flicks so often is that the effect renders the films somewhat exhausting to watch, and even when we're not in action sequences, the story is edited to play out kind of like a rocket. Christopher Nolan's last two outings, THE DARK KNIGHT and INCEPTION, have the same issue. Whatever there is to admire about them, the way the story progresses is less like a roller coaster than it is one long, steep, two-and-a-half hour descent.

Recently I watched the documentary material on the Star Trek blu-ray and one thing had me shaking my head. J.J. Abrams and his cronies would actually come up to the sitting camera and shake it as it rolls. There's this whole section where they talk about shaking the camera and who takes turns. It's the most absurd thing I have ever seen.

Makeshift Python wrote:

Recently I watched the documentary material on the Star Trek blu-ray and one thing had me shaking my head. J.J. Abrams and his cronies would actually come up to the sitting camera and shake it as it rolls. There's this whole section where they talk about shaking the camera and who takes turns. It's the most absurd thing I have ever seen.

That's like something out of a sketch.