What's so amazing about ripping off Goddard?

OK, i will get those movies and watch them. And i promise you i *will* come back to state my opinnion. If i do like them i will be fair to the conversation and tell you so.

Flat lightning doesn't produce vivid feelings, not in the pure *image* sense. If you like frontal-flash photos then you obviously like this film. What does provoke vivid impressions on the eye is contrast. And i don't recall seeing that in Belle de Jour, at least not on the DP's part. The directing was good, no arguements about that, but the DP's part? Give me a break, that was not his best movie, i am sure of it. In fact i am going to get those two movies and compare and till then i'll keep my mouth/fingers shut/put.

It may be a widely known film, but it will NEVER ever get an Image award. Ask any DP about "the wonderful image/light of Belle de Jour" and he will ask you back "The image on *what* movie?"

*replies to last for convenience*

I watched this a few days ago. I'm not a film student, I missed the first half hour, and I was doing laundry during the film. I like old films but I am admittedly a product of the modern film going generation, with biases both concious and subconcious that affect the way I see older films. So there are my credentials.

From what I've gleaned from this thread, there are three main arguments that have been bandied about:

1. That the lighting of the film is poorly done, or at least was done in a manner that is not appealing.

2. That the lighting of the film was intentionally made unappealing.

3. That if #2 is true, it was either a successful effect or was not.

I think most have generally agreed that #1 is true - the lighting is flat and somewhat repulsive, when held only in the context of aesthetics. To me, knowing nothing about the movie beforehand, it felt very primative, as if I were watching a very old and poorly made movie. The feeling was heightened by the flat acting and the uninteresting costumes. The dialogue was hrm, typical I guess. No one had flair! Nothing was fresh or imaginative in this middle class world.

And thats why I think the lighting was just part of the whole. It was underlining this existence that these people had, that Severine had been happy in then unhappy in, and had come full circle. Even her fantasies were dull and unimaginative. Everyone imagines things and has fantasies, and I think it was an incredible choice of subject matter to pick this woman whose existence was pretty much as we think of most people's existence as being. Totally different than movies nowaday, which only highlight people who are interesting, or whose lives are interesting or become interesting during the course of the film.

This woman is rather boring, and repressed, and flat, and colorless. Only something inside her moves her to delve into the world of prostitution, to explore her sexuality and evolve. And still the lighting and clothes and personality remain! She isn't reborn like a catipillar into a butterfly, but more like a catipillar into another kind of catipillar. It's not an awakening, but more an understanding and an acceptance.

I think that the lighting is unattractive. The scenes are unattractive. I'd much rather watch audrey hepburn parade around in lovely costumes and banter with cary grant if I were to choose a visual repast for myself. But I think it's an intentional highlight. These people do not need softening and beutifying. The director isn't making some cliche of a romantic movie, or a drama. He is letting us be voyeurs in this rather commonplace world. To me, it was an intentional choice, and I think it worked. As much as I was repulsed by it initially, I'm in awe of it now.