This guy made everything look so one dimensional. He's lucky he shot in such a beautiful area. Both with text and visuals, I didn't know what was happening as he did not lead viewers very well. He also used a cheap looking zoom-in and stop effect.
Learn how to direct!
yeah...no
shareYou're entitled to your opinion, of course. But I disagree completely.
shareYeah, Thomas Vinterberg is such an amateur...
shareI think I'll go watch "The Celebration" again and try to figure out what the heck you're talking about.
Thomas Vinterberg made this movie MOVE, it looks gorgeous, and he got three great leading performances (Tom Sturridge's not so great, but mostly that's by comparison to others in the role). I think he's the opposite of an amateur.
Are you talking to me? I was being ironic on my reply to the OP, I know Thomas Vinterberg and I know that he isn't an amateur.
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Did the other versions not move?
shareWell said.
shareI'm normally nitpicky about directorial choices and I can easily get annoyed by the direction and/or editing, but I have nothing to complain about here. It's true that the scenery has its own beauty, but it takes a good director and a good director of photography to bring this up properly.
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To which I say: "It could have been done better."
shareLike the others have mentioned here, see Thomas Vinterberg's other films, some of the best drama you'll ever see in cinema. His previous films harvest dark, taboo themes, but what he did with this film was try his hand at love and using certain elements of Hollywood narrative style. He used a soundtrack that came in at the predictable cues, for example, but note that it wasn't the typical, tasteless fare that destroyed the integrity of films like "The Theory of Everything". Also, unlike a Hollywood love story and in line with his previous films, he succeeded at generating suspense in places where suspense would typically be absent. No shot or scene is wasted on merely transmitting information. He created stories within stories and charged conflicts between secondary characters that only lasted moments. This makes the story interesting throughout and the movie fly by. He risks everything by ending the movie with a final duel between two lovers that in a Hollywood film would be the kind of predictable crap that would have you reaching for you jacket and checking to make sure your wallet didn't fall out of your pocket. Instead, even there, he creates genuine doubt and suspense. Most impressive of all, he uses the most jaded, cliché element in cinema, the final kiss, and makes it feel real, like it belongs there. Is that amateurish or is that mastery? What Vinterberg has done with this film is show us how good Hollywood narrative cinema could be if it tried less to amaze with dazzling packaging and focused more on quality storytelling.
shareYou shouldn't use contrived Hollywood formulaic crap as an example of why this was expertly directed. This guy's camerawork was shoddy, and his segues were clumsy. It was more of a case of what he omitted than what he didn't show, but in some cases, shots were held too long. See the other versions of this film.
shareI saw this film a few days after another look at Ryan's Daughter and while I was enjoying the camerawork I began to think of what David Lean and Freddie Young might have done with the same material. In particular, the crowd shots and the more dynamic landscapes. I prefer Lean/Young filling the screen with a panorama of distinct objects and people in tight focus. In Madding crowd the characters in crowd shots are often bllurred save the protagonist of any one scene in order to effect a more prominent moment for that character; just not my cup of tea. But, having said that I think this version of Madding is a wonderful movie and after I watched it I was anxious to see it again asap to look more at the style on display. I have a feeling the charge of it being amateurish is more of a dadaesque comment, maybe designed to spark conversation. Meanwhile, to capitalize on popular trends and augment the box office this movie was marketing at times as some sort of political statement, yet I didn't get the political flavor in it anymore than I do from most contemporary film. But, we seem to be in a time where art unfortunately is subject to various litmus tests. Too bad for us.
shareYou nailed it.
Yeah this guy hasnt a clue
shareI agree with the OP. It was strangely lifeless, and mostly due to the male leads that there was any depth in the film at all. It's not all about beautiful scenery and costumes.
shareAgree and disagree. Occasionally it was beautiful. But some bits were so awkwardly cut together. Kissing scenes were weirdly zoomed in with shaky cam, and there was a bit of an excessive use of fade-to-black... felt a bit like a media studies GCSE at times.
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