Filling the frame

Like a lot of film professionals, I dream of someday directing or DP'ing. Yeah, the art department is satisfying, but sometimes it's so very hard to keep one's mouth shut when you know exactly what the scene requires. If only it were me behind the camera, I sometimes think...

Unlike a lot of aspiring directors, I don't want to be the next Spielberg, Soderbergh, or even Kubrick. I want to be the next... Peter Hyams.

You're saying, "Who?"

Peter Hyams. Like Soderbergh, he does his own cinematography -- quite rare for a Hollywood director. Unlike Soderbergh, some of his scripts are pretty... well, awful (then again, having sat through Full Frontal... oh nevermind). But his films always look fantastic. With minimalist lighting, extensive use of natural illumination sources and practicals, and perhaps a bit too much smoke, pretty much every frame is suitable for, um, framing.



Yes. He directs the best-looking B-movies since... well, ever. Consider:

Timecop. Silly script, and a star who really, really can't act. Some really great camera moves, such as when the hero dives out a window after a skydiving stockbroker. The hero also has the same Casio watch as me (except mine seems to behave under Einstein's laws).




The Presido. Really silly script, and any film that casts Mark Harmon as an action hero is pretty much sure to fail. But a great use of San Fran's locations, and some really nice foreshortened perspective shots.





2010. Has any sequel ever been more different from the first instalment? But a thoroughly enjoyable film, despite being utterly un-Kubrickesque. Scheider is convincing, the house with the dolphin tank is a terrific set, and the Russian ship still looks pretty good 20 years later. Note the long shot in front of the White House. See the old man feeding pigeons at the far right? Arthur C. Clarke.



The Star Chamber. Ok, so it ends with a pointless shootout and chase scene. But man, what a buildup. And a great use of a run down warehouse. I once dressed an old warehouse in Baltimore for a reality show (same one that burned up in Ladder 49, in fact), and was both horrified by the oozing chemicals and active vermin, but totally in love with the quiet, dust-moted stillness with shafts of light leaking through the roof. In the Star Chamber, Hyams combines an action film with some of the deepest legal philosophy ever discussed in a movie.



Capricorn One. Yeah, like the Naked Gun movies, it's a bit harder to watch OJ on the screen these days. And the plot is patently ridiculous. Who cares. Look at those helicopters, buzzing about like angry wasps. Check out that telephoto shot where Lear jet bounces its landing gear off the windshield.



Outland. Elegant simplicity. High Noon in space. Sean Connery makes a jumpsuit look cool. The movie is a cheeseburger: tastes great at the time, but the more you think about it, the worse you feel.



So where are the great-looking B-movies these days? One could argue that National Treasure or Pearl Harbor, which had plots and dialogue so absurd you wonder if they were written on the set, are the heirs to Hyam's films from the 70s and 80s, but these newer films rely so much on digital effects, it's really not the same. They're just a bit too slick, too expensive-looking, to really qualify as B-movies.

So hey -- the field is wide open for me, right? Harvey, baby, call me, we'll talk.