Bones and All (2022)
This type of shot from Bones and All is one I absolutely love: a shot with a strong graphical component, one that feels designed and wants you to notice that it is designed. It doesn’t feel incidental. It is design from chaos. While most films and filmmakers want you to forget that you’re watching a movie, some films and filmmakers don’t, and Luca Guadagnino is one of them.
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This shot stood out to me as one of the strongest compositions in the film because the composition is so front and center, designed to make the maximum impact. It comes after Maren and Lee are attacked, and the idyllic life they had constructed is instantly turned into shambles. Guadagnino has us stop and take in the wreckage of their dream life. What could have been an incidental insert shot instead becomes a carefully composed image. He doesn’t just want us to remember what happened, he wants us to remember the image associated with it. The violence leaves behind this carefully arranged mess, and the composition makes us feel the impact of what happened rather than simply moving past it.
