MovieChat Forums > The Musketeer (2001) Discussion > Beautiful cinematography.

Beautiful cinematography.


Peter Hyams cinematography was absolutely stunning. I love his striking images using sharp light to outline specific shapes and allowing the rest of the image to fall in deep shadow.

This may be the closest aproximation I've seen on film to Caravaggio's masterpieces (Caleb Deschanel's work on Passion Of The Christ was also a great example of that).

Just awesome, I love bold cinematography that's not affraid to be dark. Hyams truely is one of the princes of darkness along with Gordon Willis, Darius Khondji, Vittorio Storaro, Jordan Cronenweth and Dariusz Wolski. All of whom are amoung my favorite master cinematographers to which I believe Hyams desirves to be counted within their estemed company.

Unfortunately most of Hyams great work is not represented faithfuly on DVD, the tranfers for many do not do his images justice because he has chosen to work within a very delicate palette of minimal light and deep blacks, contrasting sharp hard light against dark shadows and such. Plus most of his work is not treated with the utmost reverence, so it just ends up being slapped onto a DVD without really looking to making sure the integrety of the extremly sensitive nature of the image quality is preserved.

Peter Hyams is an underrated director and a criminaly overlooked director of photography.

He also provides some of the better DVD director commentary tracks, for those intersted in the filmmaking process.

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I thought the same--particularly the Caravaggio-esque shots. But all I could think was "Wow, what a waste." The photography was excellent. The Hong Kong-style choreography was a fun/creative spin on horse&carriage/fencing action (which can get old). But the sound was so utterly atrocious it made me laugh. Made me think of a dubbed Hong Kong B-flick from the 70s.

And oh, oh, oh, what the heck were the casting people thinking?! Go all British accents or all American. Pray do not mix them, along with fake French accents. I almost wished Justin Chambers and Mena Suvaari would have just faked some British accents. It was worse than Kevin Costner doing California Robin Hood.

But yeah, Peter Hyams gets my kudos. I'll have to check out his other work.

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thanks for pointing that out, I thought the same thing after I took a long art course on Italian paintings that discussed plenty about tenebrism (Caravaggio's lighting style that emphasized contrasts aka chiaroscuro). There's a few other films that might lend the same effect, but I'd have to watch them over to be certain. Films like Le Pact de Loups, and The Count of Monte Cristo have great use of shadow and light in various scenes.

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Beautiful cinematography


I know. This movie's worth watching just for the look of it (although I find the story compelling and entertaining as well, in an swashbuckling Indiana Jones way). The excellent cinematography, sets and mood are outstanding – the cobblestone streets, torches, horses & carriages, villages, castles and 17th century costuming.


My 150 (or so) favorite movies:
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls070122364/

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