600 Anatomy of a Murder

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ando
Bringing Out El Duende
Joined: Mon Dec 06, 2004 6:53 pm
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Re: Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959)

#51 Post by ando » Mon Jul 27, 2020 9:03 am

Roger Ryan wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 8:14 am
ando wrote:
Sun Jul 26, 2020 10:32 pm
There are things I love about this film (Eve Arden, Jimmy Stewart's sexual awkwardness, Greg Toland's beautiful camerawork)...
The photography is really good, but it's by Sam Leavitt (Toland died a decade before this film was made).
Of course it was Leavitt; my slip (don't know where I got that). Leavitt got an Oscar for his work here. Preminger and Leavitt had worked together on the all black cast of Carmen Jones. Did Toland and Preminger ever work together? I might have spotted my mistake - Leavitt's approach is effective but fairly conventional and absolutely tied to Preminger's direction; Stewart's point of view is maintained throughout all of the film. There isn't a single shot where the audience doesn't have the impression that Stewart either isn't involved with or aware of its content. In fact, I don't think it's a stretch to say that the figure of Stewart is a kind of surrogate for Preminger. He would have needed a DP he could trust to facilitate his intentions. Not sure if Toland would have been at all appropriate.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959)

#52 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Apr 16, 2021 3:20 pm

HinkyDinkyTruesmith wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 2:16 am
The film believes that Manion was acting on irresistible impulse or he wasn't. The film believes in Truth (hence why it's pre-pomo), it just isn't convinced that we can always obtain it––or that we even care to.
This is to be taken with a grain of salt I suppose, and Fujiwara's subsequent analysis generally fits in step with the various points from our conversation upthread, but in The World and its Double he quotes an interview with Preminger saying that Anatomy was intended to demonstrate "that there is no absolute truth."

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