xBlog: The original visual thinking weblog

“Painting’s influence on film has been remarked upon in film scholarship and criticism for at least half a century. Lots of ink has been spilled, for instance, on the impact that German expressionism had on the work of Murnau and Lang, not to mention the aesthetic of American film noir; Dali’s collaboration with Hitchcock on the set design for Spellbound’s lurid dream sequence is now part of the lore of art and popular culture. Filmmakers often arrive at the visual look, compositional style, and color temperature of their moving images by sourcing them in the work of master painters. Rembrandt and Edward Hopper have been important touchstones for any number of cinematographers, past and present. And many world-class directors (Raoul Ruiz, Peter Greenaway, David Lynch, Youssef Chahine, Derek Jarman, Mario Bava, and Walerian Borowczyk) trained as painters before devoting themselves to narrative film.” (Thanks Coudal Partners!)