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Street lights, camera, action: how LEDs are changing the look of films Street lights, camera, action: how LEDs are changing the look of films
(5 months later)
City lighting is changing. Just as gas lamps were replaced with electric streetlights, so neons are being replaced with LEDs. And with them, the way our cities look in movies, as in real life, is morphing. Christopher Doyle’s cinematography in the 1980s and 1990s for Wong Kar-Wai, including Fallen Angels and Happy Together, would look completely different had it not been for the electric glare of neon – but as cities set out to modernise lighting systems, reduce some of that city glare and cut municipal electricity bills, the films of Doyle and others will become visual archives of how our cities used to glow.City lighting is changing. Just as gas lamps were replaced with electric streetlights, so neons are being replaced with LEDs. And with them, the way our cities look in movies, as in real life, is morphing. Christopher Doyle’s cinematography in the 1980s and 1990s for Wong Kar-Wai, including Fallen Angels and Happy Together, would look completely different had it not been for the electric glare of neon – but as cities set out to modernise lighting systems, reduce some of that city glare and cut municipal electricity bills, the films of Doyle and others will become visual archives of how our cities used to glow.
Here are five films in which a city’s lights are almost a character in their own right. What have we missed? Tell us your picks (and don’t say Bright Lights, Big City).Here are five films in which a city’s lights are almost a character in their own right. What have we missed? Tell us your picks (and don’t say Bright Lights, Big City).
Los Angeles in Collateral (2004)Los Angeles in Collateral (2004)
Cinematographers: Dion Beebe and Paul CameronCinematographers: Dion Beebe and Paul Cameron
The eerie green lighting of Los Angeles in Michael Mann’s 2004 Collateral is suitably clinical. As Tom Cruise the contract killer and Jamie Foxx the hapless taxi driver move around the city, the latter coerced into the former’s night-time business, that sickly hue accompanies them. Now that LA’s yellow sodium streetlights have been replaced with LEDs, however, it means the end for that on-screen version of the Big Orange. Shot through HD cameras, the lights gave the film its glow – an effect Mann had actively sought in moving the shoot from New York.The eerie green lighting of Los Angeles in Michael Mann’s 2004 Collateral is suitably clinical. As Tom Cruise the contract killer and Jamie Foxx the hapless taxi driver move around the city, the latter coerced into the former’s night-time business, that sickly hue accompanies them. Now that LA’s yellow sodium streetlights have been replaced with LEDs, however, it means the end for that on-screen version of the Big Orange. Shot through HD cameras, the lights gave the film its glow – an effect Mann had actively sought in moving the shoot from New York.
New York in Taxi Driver (1976)New York in Taxi Driver (1976)
Cinematographer: Michael ChapmanCinematographer: Michael Chapman
Shot when Manhattan was simultaneously experiencing both a heatwave and a rubbish strike, this 1976 Scorsese film uses lighting to lead our eyes to follow those of Vietnam veteran Travis Bickle, who plots to purge the city of the peep shows, the prostitutes, the “animals” that come out at night – the “whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal”.Shot when Manhattan was simultaneously experiencing both a heatwave and a rubbish strike, this 1976 Scorsese film uses lighting to lead our eyes to follow those of Vietnam veteran Travis Bickle, who plots to purge the city of the peep shows, the prostitutes, the “animals” that come out at night – the “whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal”.
As Bickle drives through the seedy streets in his taxi, the lights of the city’s adult movie theatres, bars, tunnels and diners seep through the car’s windows and on to his face. The moral degradation finds him even in his cab. But as with LA, the lights of New York are undergoing a massive retrofit that will alter the look of the city and firmly entrench Taxi Driver as a particularly 20th century film.As Bickle drives through the seedy streets in his taxi, the lights of the city’s adult movie theatres, bars, tunnels and diners seep through the car’s windows and on to his face. The moral degradation finds him even in his cab. But as with LA, the lights of New York are undergoing a massive retrofit that will alter the look of the city and firmly entrench Taxi Driver as a particularly 20th century film.
Bangkok in Only God Forgives (2013)Bangkok in Only God Forgives (2013)
Cinematographer: Larry SmithCinematographer: Larry Smith
The lighting in this Nicolas Winding Refn film set in Bangkok is used with so much precision that it could almost have been painted on. The Thai capital looks like a smorgasbord of sin. Inside the hotels, the Muay Thai boxing club, the bars and clubs, the lights create an atmosphere of menace and frenzy.The lighting in this Nicolas Winding Refn film set in Bangkok is used with so much precision that it could almost have been painted on. The Thai capital looks like a smorgasbord of sin. Inside the hotels, the Muay Thai boxing club, the bars and clubs, the lights create an atmosphere of menace and frenzy.
Peter Bradshaw summed up that crimson world: “a place of deep-sea unreality in which you need to breathe through special gills – and through which the action swims at about 90% of normal speed through to its chilling conclusion. It is a kind of hallucinated tragi-exploitation shocker, an enriched uranium cake of pulp with a neon sheen.” Whether you agree with Bradshaw’s five-star review – and many have argued that the film priorities style over substance – the lighting is undoubtedly spectacular.Peter Bradshaw summed up that crimson world: “a place of deep-sea unreality in which you need to breathe through special gills – and through which the action swims at about 90% of normal speed through to its chilling conclusion. It is a kind of hallucinated tragi-exploitation shocker, an enriched uranium cake of pulp with a neon sheen.” Whether you agree with Bradshaw’s five-star review – and many have argued that the film priorities style over substance – the lighting is undoubtedly spectacular.
Tokyo in Enter the Void (2009)Tokyo in Enter the Void (2009)
Cinematographer: Benoît DebieCinematographer: Benoît Debie
Gaspar Noe’s psychedelic headfuck of a film follows a dead drug dealer’s restless spirit as it floats through (and above) a lurid Tokyo nightscape. The film sets out to shock, and the relentless strobes and graphic hallucinatory sex scenes certainly knock your socks off. But after all the throbbing beats and freaky shagging are over, it is Noe’s neon reimagining of Tokyo that remains.Gaspar Noe’s psychedelic headfuck of a film follows a dead drug dealer’s restless spirit as it floats through (and above) a lurid Tokyo nightscape. The film sets out to shock, and the relentless strobes and graphic hallucinatory sex scenes certainly knock your socks off. But after all the throbbing beats and freaky shagging are over, it is Noe’s neon reimagining of Tokyo that remains.
Vienna in The Third Man (1949)Vienna in The Third Man (1949)
Cinematographer: Robert KraskerCinematographer: Robert Krasker
No rundown of cinematic street lighting could omit Carol Reed’s classic thriller. Flickering shadows follow the befuddled Holly Martins as he searches the city’s postwar warrens for a witness to the death of his old friend Harry Lime – a search that takes him to some spectacularly lit sewers. It’s the kind of lighting you could never replicate in the city today: The Third Man was filmed, in part, by actual Vienna lamplight. Water was reportedly poured over the city’s cobblestones to achieve that sinister gleam.No rundown of cinematic street lighting could omit Carol Reed’s classic thriller. Flickering shadows follow the befuddled Holly Martins as he searches the city’s postwar warrens for a witness to the death of his old friend Harry Lime – a search that takes him to some spectacularly lit sewers. It’s the kind of lighting you could never replicate in the city today: The Third Man was filmed, in part, by actual Vienna lamplight. Water was reportedly poured over the city’s cobblestones to achieve that sinister gleam.