So Far: The Most Beautiful Shots of the 21st Century (2000-2016)

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• BillH August 1, 2017, 1:10 PM

  Well, I made it to 0:57.

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• Terry August 1, 2017, 2:59 PM

  Nada one- in my opinion.

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• Ten August 1, 2017, 5:24 PM

  Most excellent. (Sorry the commentariat isn’t more artistic.) I recognized most, although conspicuous by its absence is The Darjeeling Limited (2007, Wes Anderson). https://youtu.be/xYK8r3anY6I?t=43s

  Fabulous to see Cast Away again, probably one of the finest films ever made.

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• Ten August 1, 2017, 5:26 PM

  …and https://youtu.be/j9U216E-dTs?t=27s

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• Mhf August 1, 2017, 6:13 PM

  Bullshit a friend posted a pict of his newest granddaughter on twitter. None of that shit came close

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• ghostsniper August 2, 2017, 7:00 AM

  If that’s the best, I didn’t miss much by avoiding most movies created in the last 20 years.

  Take any recent movie trailer, puff 10 tons of hot air between each clip, and there ya go, a new flik sure to mesmerize the dumbed down masses.

  None for me, thanks.

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• Ten August 2, 2017, 7:17 AM

  Rightists gotta signal, eh [i]ghostsniper[/i]?

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• wheels August 2, 2017, 8:27 AM

  It has nothing to do with right-wing versus left-wing, Ten. At least, I hope not. As for me, I expected the “most beautiful shots” to be a series of photographs showing either the splendor of nature or quiet moments of human emotion. A series of clips from movies, most of which I’ve not watched, doesn’t do it for me.

  Perhaps there’s emotional content for some of them if you’ve seen the movies in question, but I question the “most beautiful” characterization if the beauty comes from the context and is not inherent in the shot itself.

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• ghostsniper August 2, 2017, 9:19 AM

  What’s the frequency Tenneth?
  I’m anti-religion, and anti-bullshit wars, anti-gov’t and of course anti-voting.
  But somewhere along the line you got the big idea I am a rightist…..

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• Ten August 2, 2017, 9:40 AM

  It has nothing to do with right-wing versus left-wing, Ten.

  It has to do with the right’s reflexive corollary to leftist virtue-signalling. The right – the ostensible right – loves its cultural signals and revels in its tradition of passive resistance to leftism, which having swallowed the left’s psychotic lead for a century, amounts to bitching about Hollywood or SJW or Democrats from 20 years ago or vegans or some other dumb, smug goodism. The right has less evident capacity to actually write politicians about what they carp against all day on blog comment threads.

  This time it’s stuff like this:

  As for me, I expected the “most beautiful shots” to be a series of photographs showing either the splendor of nature or quiet moments of human emotion. A series of clips from movies, most of which I’ve not watched, doesn’t do it for me.

  Exactly. You have an opinion, you haven’t seen the works involved, and you know they aren’t your cup of tea. Does all that reconcile? The evident fact that ‘quiet moments of human emotion’ are common enough in the arts to at least offer you a choice – between them and Tarantino’s latest snuff film – escapes you but yet your opinion of them stands anyway. After all, we all know the left is synonymous with Hollywood and so forth and so on. QED.

  Perhaps there’s emotional content for some of them if you’ve seen the movies in question, but I question the “most beautiful” characterization if the beauty comes from the context and is not inherent in the shot itself.

  And again the pretzel logic. No, they are beautiful shots, they’re beautiful shots unless you first adopt the context that there is no context – apparently you have – and conclude without seeing it that the film medium is simply incapable of conveying pathos.

  ‘Perhaps there’s emotional content for some of them if you’ve seen the movies in question‘ is the point.

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• Ten August 2, 2017, 9:47 AM

  I’m anti-religion, and anti-bullshit wars, anti-gov’t and of course anti-voting.
  But somewhere along the line you got the big idea I am a rightist…..

  Fine. Somewhere along the line I got the idea that you come off like a rightist – the brave cultural resistance, the us-vs-them friction, the allusions of moniker-patriotism.

  Nevertheless I shall endeavor in the future to hold your opinion as importantly as one should.

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• Vanderleun August 2, 2017, 10:07 AM

  Ten, I checked out that clip for The Darjeeling Limited and you have a point. Then again I find that regardless of their content, all Wes Anderson films are extremely beautiful in terms of their look and their shots.

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• Ten August 2, 2017, 10:46 AM

  Yes, Anderson’s style is unique and vivid and I’d imagine that it’s been analyzed for how and why. He’s a gem.

  Another missing film is Ben Stiller’s Walter Middy. Full of fabulous scenes, but arguably none more so than this: https://youtu.be/FMDsONzh6Qw

  And yet again, it’s the much broader context that makes it work.

  I dislike Hollywood as much as the next guy, but I can still find it can put out real art. Not complete, encompassing, broad art touching on all aspects of existence – we know it stinks at that – but art it is, and from time to time it transcends its origin. I’d count that as a win among losses…

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• wheels August 2, 2017, 1:21 PM

  You have an opinion, you haven’t seen the works involved, and you know they aren’t your cup of tea.

  More an expectation, from thinking of “shots” as referring to still photography. And how do you get that I know that these aren’t my cup of tea? Project much? I don’t deny that movies can be beautiful; I just don’t go to see movies very often anymore, mostly because my girlfriend doesn’t care to watch them.

  I’ve seen about a dozen of the films referenced, and recognized about that many more from previews. As best as I can tell, any thrill of emotion related to the clips in the video comes, not from the excerpt itself, but from what led up to it. The grandeur and beauty of a sunset view doesn’t depend on knowing what happened earlier that day or later that night.

  If your argument is that the excerpts themselves are beautiful without the wider context, what is it about looking up at a man from underwater that makes it so beautiful? Is it the artful rippling of the water’s surface, the lighting, or what?

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• ghostsniper August 2, 2017, 2:20 PM

  “….I got the idea that you come off like a rightist….”
  ====================================

  If I had to *pretend* to be one side or the other it would most likely be the right, for pretending to be left would push me over the edge into full blown insanity – – flailing on the floor screaming, “My pussy hurts!”

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• Ten August 2, 2017, 4:09 PM

  And how do you get that I know that these aren’t my cup of tea? One reasonably concludes it from a measure of indifference: A series of clips from movies, most of which I’ve not watched, doesn’t do it for me. …plus an opinion that while negative was still important enough to share… I expected the “most beautiful shots” to be a series of photographs showing either the splendor of nature or quiet moments of human emotion.

  You did? I expected to see whatever it was the producer of that clip saw fit to entitle the way he did and the host of this site probably assumed would translate as such just fine. So it’s not projection as much as a reasonable conclusion.

  Here’s another context. It’s a little rude of the commentariat – while consuming the creative content at AD of not inconsiderable effort and taste – to risk the temerity to ding the host just because their anonymous opinions on things they don’t appreciate are somehow important enough have them declining the courtesy of letting those things pass in silence.

  That tacit, inflated loutishness gets a little predictable. And yes, predictably, culturally-rightist too, at least as often as not. I realize this all seems overblown but still, the cultural right really needs to wise up.

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• Ten August 2, 2017, 4:25 PM

  If your argument is that the excerpts themselves are beautiful without the wider context, what is it about looking up at a man from underwater that makes it so beautiful?

  Given that beauty lies in the eye, what is it about looking up at a man from underwater that isn’t beautiful … once there is context.

  Oh, I’m aware that to traditionalists Michelangelo was a real artist – which he was, obviously – and Handel was a real composer – that turgid warhorse The Messiah notwithstanding – and that Piss Christ is sacrilege and Pollack a sham – and Rothko really did suck – and that such warrants an endless rant against whatever it is we find it endlessly virtuous to rail against, but my point is simply that when you frame things a certain way you tend to get what you expect. If Hollywood sucks then Hollywood sucks.

  When you frame things culturally you tend not to appreciate stuff just because of where you find it or how it stacks up to a preconception.

  So the question is obviously moot. Both of ours are: I can no more debate the nature of beauty than you, obviously, and neither of us have succeeded in determining the nature of the abstract either. Because without a wealth of, well, everything, abstract is all you’ll have.

  I’m content not being qualified to challenge that. But you could.

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• Casey Klahn August 2, 2017, 7:17 PM

  I spent most of the 21st Century, until recently, raising little kids. I can comment on a lot of Disney, and super hero movies, but artsy stuff I’m afraid I’m very sporadic with. The Piano gets me in the gut, and is a beautiful work of art. La La Land gets some high brow criticism but I enjoyed it at face value. Birdman – I enjoyed that one, too. Yes to all Clint Eastwood movies, esp. Gran Torino.

  Who am I kidding, though? I watch John Wayne reruns as much as possible, and while I do I’m grinding an ax.

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• Gordon August 3, 2017, 8:33 AM

  I watched that, and I’m reminded that there are people who can see things before they happen. Or, perhaps, can see what they want to happen, and have the skill and resources to put it on film. The process is a complex ballet between director, cinematographer, lighting, and other folks who you don’t see on stage on Oscar night. But someone saw that shot in his or her head, before anything else happened.

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• wheels August 3, 2017, 9:44 AM

  … once there is context.

  That was my entire point. Having the preconception that “beautiful shot” referred to still photography, I was misled by the title of the video. Once I realized that it was clips from movies, the title led me to expect, “the clips in this video are the most beautiful shots available in the specified time period” or “each clip is the most beautiful shot in the movie it came from.” Having seen it, I expect the author likely meant, “these clips are the moments from these movies that, in me, engendered a highly emotional response.”

  Perhaps the moments really are the most beautiful. I’ve no objective way of knowing, and nobody else does, either, without knowing the criteria on which the choices were based. Perhaps I’m emotionally stunted. Perhaps the video’s maker is presuming that his tastes are (or ought to be) universal.

  It’s a little rude of the commentariat – while consuming the creative content at AD of not inconsiderable effort and taste – to risk the temerity to ding the host just because their anonymous opinions on things they don’t appreciate are somehow important enough have them declining the courtesy of letting those things pass in silence.

  “Shut up,” he said? Really? How can there be a conversation if nobody is permitted to express a differing opinion? How is saying, “this doesn’t really do it for me” an attack on our host for posting it? I can accept that the video’s maker is sincere in his belief that his video is as he described it. I can believe that our host shares this belief. I can also believe that he doesn’t share that belief, but is of the opinion that it’s a worthwhile starting point for a discussion.

  I do appreciate what’s done by Gerard here; over the years, I’ve reblogged or linked to a number of things he’s posted, besides pointing them out to friends personally. I tend not to comment very often though, on any website, and I suspect (without making the attempt to look up posts with comments I’ve made) that my comments here can mostly be seen either as mild criticism or “my experience was [this].” I seldom feel comfortable making a comment that just boils down to “me, too” or “nice.” If that comes across as lack of appreciation, I apologize, but so be it. I’m younger than our host, but I don’t believe it’s by too many years, and my personality has been kind of set for several decades.

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• Ten August 3, 2017, 3:30 PM

  Having the preconception … I was misled …

  Snowflake.

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