100 unforgettable movie scenes: Decaying portrait of New York City in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976)
"All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets. I go all over. I take people to the Bronx, Brooklyn, I take 'em to Harlem. I don't care. Don't make no difference to me. It does to some. Some won't even take spooks. Don't make no difference to me."
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In Blossom visual analysis (ep. 1-7): How to film a gothic romance
Although I'm not completely convinced about some of the writing choices of In Blossom, I absolutely LOVE the show's production design and cinematography. @mademoiselle-red wrote a great post about how main character Pan Yue fits the gothic romantic lead archetype, and those gothic elements are not only present in the script but also in the show's visual storytelling.
Lighting
Something I really like about In Blossom is that despite its dark subject matter, many of its scenes take place during daytime and rely on lots of natural light.
One of the show's main themes is that appearances can be misleading and the cinematography often plays with that notion by linking light to deception and darkness to truth. Note how many of the emotionally honest beats of Yang Caiwei and Pan Yue's relationship happen at night (e.g., their couple escapades at the Li Residence, Ghost Market, and Life and Death gambling house) while fakery, corruption, and evildoing happen in the day.
This perversion of the relationship between light and truth helps create an unsettling atmosphere, which is then mimicked by the strong contrast that Pan Yue is lit with when shot through Yang Caiwei's subjective point of view. As seen above, through her eyes, he is a mixture of light and dark, his morality as inscrutable as his shadowy figure.
Camera Angles and Shot Sizes
The show's use of low angles and close-ups further reinforces Pan Yue's dangerousness.
In cinematography, low-angle shots tend to make the subject look more powerful and menacing, and the show uses this technique to great effect.
Even in the intimacy of close-up shots, we can sense the threat emanating from Pan Yue.
For example, look at how much Liu Xueyi's face fills the frame in an early "romantic" scene. The shot feels almost claustrophobic as if he's so single-minded about his goals that he has no choice but to dominate the frame (and Yang Caiwei). It's an unnerving moment despite the soft words coming out of his mouth.
Side Note: I live for Pan Yue's (vampiric) long shots. The production design team was smart for dressing the character in dark clothes with such a sleek cut and drape--he looks like a sexy bat.
The Nosferatu references in Yang Caiwei's tomb are also perfect.
Composition and Framing
And finally, like any good gothic romance, In Blossom illustrates how love can drive one to despair and even madness.
Because of this, my FAVORITE scene of the show has to be the introduction of Shangguan Zhi. Her obsessive pursuit of beauty in hopes of seducing Pan Yue has left her a shell of a human being, and the scene's composition perfectly encapsulates this with how it only captures the elegant lines of her body--not her face or personhood.
Shangguan Zhi is trapped by her delusional fantasy of a life with Pan Yue--see how she's boxed in by the vertical lines of the screen panel she admires--and the show regularly uses architectural lines to show how her desperation has trapped Yang Caiwei as well.
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CINEMATOGRAPHY SPOTLIGHT:
The Green Knight (2021)
Director David Lowery
Cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo
Starring Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton
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