Hal O'Brien

We just saw Girl With a Pearl Earring, based on the novel by Tracy Chevalier.

Wow.

I was crying by the end. Not for the reason you think.

I was crying because it's so beautiful. Because the cinematography, by Eduardo Serra (which is nominated for an Oscar), is so absolutely spot on in re-creating Vermeer's light. Because, as I told Ulrika, it's where I want to go, photgraphically, it's what I see -- it's just that I don't have the tools to get it down in a print.

And, at the same time, the adaptation of the novel is as good as anything one may hope for from Hollywood. It's interesting that for both the director, Peter Webber, and for the screenwriter, Olivia Hetreed, this is their First Big Movie.

One of the things I liked best about the book, and which is captured very well in the movie, is how the model for Vermeer's famous painting, Griet, becomes virtually an apprentice, and almost a collaborator for Vermeer. She has the eye. In the scene where Vermeer's wife sees the painting, we hear:

"Why don't you paint me?!"
"Because she understands!"

There was a story told back when, when Kurosawa's Ran came out, that Kurosawa edited the film by going over every foot of stock, and telling an assistant, "Here. Cut here," on the exact frame. This being before digital, it was said Spielberg was so impressed after seeing it that he racked up the movie onto the rare (and expensive) big-deal editing machine of the day.

I feel like I want to do that. I want to go over the movie frame-by-frame.

It's no coincidence that the director and the screenwriter got their starts as film editors, I think.

And the performance by Scarlet Johansson is amazing. Mind you, I tend to really enjoy performances where every nuance of the eyes mean something, and I'm a big advocate of being "in the moment" -- where, even though you're using a script, the lines come forth as if being spoken for the first time. But when Johansson is building up to the freeze-frame of The Pose, she just glides into it. More than that -- she flows into the physical posture, and then relaxes, shifts somehow, into the actual expression captured by the painting.

Wow.

{For those who were complaining earlier about Return of the King not getting an Oscar nomination for cinematography, my advice is, take comfort. It shouldn't win against this, anyway. Like the line goes in Pulp Fiction, "Ain't the same ballpark, ain't the same league, ain't even the same fuckin' sport."}