"Cinco De Mayo, La Batalla" Topic

Not bad….

YouTube link

Amicalement
Armand

Not bad, but could have been improved a lot by a steadycam. Shakey combat footage gives a faux realism to some shots, but this looks like it was filmed during an earthquake. I don't think any shot was still or smooth and sometimes its jars when you realise the cameraman is going out of his way to actively shake the camera when he should be static, even if he was really there.

Otherwise, the atmosphere was pretty good.

I was impressed, too, by the atmosphere, but I think it's a mistake to criticize the camera work.

I believe, Clibinarium, you would have preferred a staged battle scene as traditionally done in films. And if there was an intent to show the progress of a battle, long steady shots would be necessary.

But we are in an era of "experiential" film making where it seems less important to the director to show WHAT is happening than it is to show HOW it's happening. Trying to put the viewer into the action, not outside of it.

It certainly makes for a dramatic and powerful experience for the viewer, but for those of us--I include myself!--who like to see the action not too differently than we do on the table top, it's more confusing than enlightening.

It kind of goes back to the Tolstoy thing about how battles seen by the generals are simply not at all as they are experienced by the poor grunts who are fighting them.

TVAG

Happy you like it boys!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

I watched this movie on May 5th. I own a copy. I can accept the shaky camera work that every war movie seems to have used since Saving Private Ryan. My main criticism is that I never got a feeling for the over all geography of the battle. This was probably because the makers of the film could not find a single location, which is understand able. But I expected to see the French attacking uphill, as they did historically. Instead, sometimes the French guns were up on a hill, sometimes on the flat; sometimes the French General was looking through his telescope upwards, then downwards, then straight ahead. Most of the fighting seemed to be on the flat. It was all very confusing.

Thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand