Road to Perdition

Cinematography is a crucial part of film-making. It is what we see on the screen and without it film is nothing. When film just started all it was the moving picture and how they shot it. Each film has a special way to show you what is going on and how it is happening and can convey different feeling and emotions and different tones the event are unfolding in. in can show you the thoughts of characters or put you straight into the action of the film. Today we will talk about a film very heavy with cinematography and uses all it elements to its advantage. Let’s take a look at the film, Road to Perdition.

This film uses many ways to show you how the characters are feeling or how they should be seen by others. They use focusing shot to tell you what a character thinks of another. It the beginning of the film the main character, Michael Jr., thinks of his father as someone he isn’t very close to so we only see the father, Michael, from a distance. As they get closer throughout the film, there are more and more close up shots of Michael.

They also use lighting in this effect through the whole movie. In the beginning they use the lighting to show the father as a dark and secluded character and use the lighting to hide his actions and things he’s about to do. As the story progresses he slowly starts to leave the dark shading to show he is opening up to us and his son. But close to the very end he goes back to the dark to finish off his business before leaving the dark entirely because he has left that world behind. They also use the lighting to hide elements from the viewer to have us guessing what is going on. An example of this is that they hide the tommy gun through the film, mostly at the beginning, to wonder are they just going to have a talk or will there be bloodshed.

They also use camera angle to hide things from us till the seconds we are supposed to see it. They do this multiple times through the movie and in different ways every time. An example is when Michael kills Cornely in the bathtub but we don’t see it till the mirror reflects it to us while the door is closing. Another is actually at the very end when it gives us a shot of Michael looking out at his son and we only see Michael Jr. through a reflection in the window but what we don’t see till it’s too late is that the assassin in sitting in the back of the room behind Michael in our view.

There are so many different styles and technic’s in this film that are worth seeing because explaining them doesn’t do them justice. There are many that I didn’t mention and many great scenes to be witnessed. Overall this movie is a great watch that I would recommend to those that like great camera work.