大象传媒

In Life Cinematic, filmmakers draw on their knowledge and expertise to shine a light on the artistry of films that they love, be it the perfect protagonist, sound design, chase sequence or simply their favourite single shot.

The series begins with acclaimed British director Sir Sam Mendes, director of Oscar-nominated 1917 as well as (Oscar winning) American Beauty, Revolutionary Road and James Bond films Skyfall and Spectre. Mendes is interviewed by Edith Bowman, coming to 大象传媒 Four on Thursday 30 January and on 大象传媒 iPlayer: watch an introduction above and pull up a chair for Sam's favourite scenes below.

David Lynch’s Reagan-era neo-noir follows clean-cut student Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle McLachlan) as he delves into the terrifying criminal underbelly of his picture-perfect hometown.

Kyle McLachlan in Blue Velvet

According to Lynch, “This is the way America is to me. There’s a very innocent, naive quality to life, and there’s a horror and a sickness as well. It’s everything.”

The film’s opening sequence would be a huge influence on Mendes’ own American Beauty.

• Francine Stock revisits the manicured lawns and gothic horror of Blue Velvet for Radio 4's The Film Programme

In a pivotal moment in Martin Scorsese’s gritty New York thriller, loner Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) telephones the woman he is infatuated with to apologise for taking her to a porn flick on their first date.

Robert de Niro as Travis Bickle

As the socially awkward veteran vainly attempts to explain himself, the camera slowly pans away to focus instead on an empty hallway, as if too embarrassed to keep watching. For Scorsese, it was “the most important shot in the film”.

• Writing Taxi Driver
  Forty years on, Danny Leigh talked to screenwriter Paul Schrader about writing Scorsese's timeless classic.

Slide guitarist Ry Cooder was given just three days to write the music for Wim Wenders’ haunting road movie before the film premiered at Cannes.

Ry Cooder

The result is an evocative, much-imitated score, which the musician has called “a mood; that kind of lonely sound.” With no dialogue in the film’s opening sequence, Cooder’s plaintive guitar seems to act as a voice for Harry Dean Stanton’s aimless drifter Travis.

• Wim Wenders And Sam Shepard
  Director Wim Wenders talks about working with Sam Shepard again, more than two decades after Paris, Texas.

David Fincher’s acclaimed drama about the origins of Facebook saw him team up with notoriously verbose writer Aaron Sorkin.

The film’s dialogue-heavy opening scene perfectly sets up the character of Mark Zuckerberg, as he and his girlfriend talk at great speed in a Harvard bar. Most films average a page of script per minute - Fincher managed to cram 178 pages of Sorkin’s dialogue into The Social Network’s two-hour running time.

• The Social Network's Aaron Sorkin
  Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin discusses the awards success of The Social Network.

Dancer, choreographer, actor and director Bob Fosse’s semi-autobiographical musical opens with a documentary-style montage showing the arduous Broadway casting process.

The editing is tightly choreographed, with repeated movements and match cuts, soundtracked by George Benson’s On Broadway. Fosse was also behind the 1972 movie of Cabaret, a musical that Mendes has directed in New York and the West End.

• Sound of Cinema: All that Jazz...
  Matthew Sweet's selection of jazz-inspired film music.

Lighting indicates shifting moods and merging identities in Ingmar Bergman’s enigmatic thriller about young nurse Alma (Bibi Andersson) and her patient Elisabet (Liv Ullmann).

Ingmar Berman

Bergman and cinematographer Sven Nykvist shared a fascination for light, believing subtle changes could significantly alter the meaning of a character’s actions. The dream-like scene where Elisabet visits Alma in the dead of night was shot using natural light from Sweden’s midnight sun.

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  An appraisal of Bergman, a 'deeply humane artist with great empathy'.

Steven Spielberg called the War Room in Stanley Kubrick’s jet-black political satire “the best film set ever designed.”

Created by maverick production designer Ken Adam, its centrepiece is a sprawling 22-feet diameter table. Kubrick asked for the table to be covered in green baize with a huge light overhead, because he wanted it to look as if the politicians and generals sat around it “are playing with the world like a game of cards.”

• The Spectre of Modernism
  Matthew Sweet meets Ken Adam, designer of famous film sets from Dr No and Goldfinger to Dr Strangelove and The Ipcress File

In a film full of unusually long takes, director Paul Thomas Anderson manages to sustain momentum by using multiple framings within single shots.

The scene where ruthless oil baron Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis) meets Paul Sunday (Paul Dano, who also plays Sunday’s twin Eli) is one of the longest in the film - but the camera only moves a few feet. Yet with each small movement, the dynamic between the characters completely changes, ratcheting up tension.

• Daniel Day Lewis on There Will Be Blood
  Francine Stock talks to Daniel Day Lewis about his award-winning role in Paul Thomas Anderson film.

Loneliness forms the basis of an unlikely friendship between ageing actor Bob (Bill Murray) and young graduate Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) in Sofia Coppola’s sophomore film.

Coppola balances the poignancy of the pair’s relationship with pure visual comedy from Murray, in scenes like the memorable one where he battles against a Japanese exercise machine. Murray was the director’s only choice for the role, who said “I wasn’t going to make the movie if he wasn’t doing it”.

• Bill Murray: The man, the myth, the exhibition
  Bill Murray, star of Groundhog Day and Lost in Translation, and his role in an exhibition at the Baltic in Gateshead.

Acting as both sequel and prequel to Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 epic, The Godfather Part II presents two parallel stories - Vito Corleone’s rise to power and his son Michael’s spiritual fall.

This stunning shot of the Statue of Liberty reflected in a window as young Vito arrives in the US was actually filmed 4000 miles from New York in Rome. Unsure how they would pull it off, cinematographer Gordon Willis told production designer Dean Tavoularis, “Just do a big, black-and-white photo blow-up of it. We’ll put it outside the window and I’ll do something...”

• The Godfather and The Godfather Part II
  Paul Gambaccini explores how The Godfather and its even more successful sequel both won Best Picture Oscars. With James Caan.