Spike Lee is responsible for some for the greats ‘Inside man’ and ‘Malcolm X’ both critically acclaimed films, both Denzel Washington appeared as the lead role. Tony Scott the mind behind ‘Man on Fire’, ‘Unstoppable’ and the taking of Pelham 123’ which are also Denzel Washington films. Tony Scott and spike lee have similar and both have been an inspiration to each other and have influenced a lot of different styles.
Has a very clever introduction to the film, starting off with Clive Owen describing his basic back story and what he plans on doing.
Not many directors these days actually create an introduction to the film, sure there’s development of the characters through actions and dialogue.
Take Hitchcock’s Rear window for example, Jimmy Stewart’s character ‘Jeff’ his history of what happened to him and how he got the broken leg are shown within the first 5 minutes. The camera pans over and tracks news papers, magazines, Negatives of photos and a picture of a car crashing and the tyre coming straight towards the camera man which gives you a brief outline of how jimmy Stewart’s got there. Directors have been ripping this off for years, Spike Lee is one of those directors that use subtle mannerisms that Hitchcock produced just 70 years before.
Inside Man’s Introduction starts with a van pulling up next the entrance of Coney Island with a man in white carrying a black bag against a white wall causing the bag to become more mysterious and the object in focus in that shot. Throughout the entire production, the van is driving other locations found in New York, The Charging Bull, and Brooklyn Bridge. Whilst the Van in driving along, the film shows footage of the Fictional Branch Manhattan trust bank. With a collective of Clive Owen says and the van driving through Manhattan and Brooklyn picking up people on their way and the footage of the Manhattan trust bank, you can safely say that’s there’s going to be a bank heist during this film and Clive Owen’s character is the mastermind behind them.
One of the most popular and the most iconic streets of not only New York but the entire world is Wall Street. It’s been exaggerated in the establishment that the film is going to take place in New York.
A Regular van pulling up to the paint with the words ‘Perfectly planned painters, We never leave until it’s done’. These paints are professionally finished whatever they have set out to accomplish and they’ve planned everything done to the bone. Throughout the movie, they’ve got everything figured out. From disabling all the camera with infrared bulbs to taking in a fake blood disperser therefore having something for the police and the detectives outside to watch.
Every second in every minute is essential when creating the perfect bank heist, they might have only been discovered and revealed themselves within the first minute of being in the bank. A masked man in a white (spandex) painting clothes was able to get up the stairs and set up his infrared torch and disable all the cameras without nobody suspecting a thing but it was the other workers started to secure the doors with a tie wrap that the security guard got a little bit suspicious.
They had everything planned. They didn’t want anyone making external phone calls, they striped everyone down to just their underwear and threw away their clothes and they add to put on black (spandex) painting clothes. If somebody didn’t give in their phone because for some reason they left it at home, the guys would look through everybody’s phone until they could ring that phone. If somebody were found of hiding their phone there would be severe consequences.
Later on during the film the Black (spandex) painting clothes played a bigger role as it would aid them for the escape. At first the criminals were wearing white painting clothes then they asked all the victims to take off their clothes and put on the black painting clothes and they forced to go in rooms with 15 to 20 in each room and they weren’t allowed to speak or make noise or else they’d be beaten up. The robbers changed out of their white painting clothes and into black painting clothes in order the police and the detectives not being able to identify anybody because there were no distinguishing features about anybody. They pushed everybody out of the bank using smoke spray grenades.
Throughout the film, the criminals are making sure that the ball is in their courtyard and they aren’t going to lose. Asking for crazy requests like having a jet plane ready for them to escape and get away with the money and the hostages and asking them trick questions ‘Which weighs more: all the trains that pass through Grand Central Station in a year - or the trees cut down to print all U.S. currency in circulation? Here's a hint. It's a trick question.’
After all asking for the hostages and making ridiculous requests, all they were doing were buying time so they could create a hole for Clive Owen to do his business in and building a partition wall in front of the original wall so he could sleep and eat and wait for an appropriate amount of time so he could walk out of the bank without being stopped, get into the car and drive off.
Unknown. (2006). Inside Man. Available: http://www.imdb.co.uk/title/tt0454848/trivia?tab=qt&ref_=tt_trv_qu. Last accessed 8th Apr 2013.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu9-UymSApM&safe=active 2:44 – inside man
Spike Lee is the person for popularising the ‘Double Dolly’ that’s when a camera and the subject are placing on the dolly with a person pushing or pulling the dolly making the subject/subject, floating or gliding.
Either the double dolly is being pulled by a member of the crew or it’s placed on tracks sliding across the rails.
I for one don’t actually like the double dolly shot, it makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable whilst watching the film. With a film like inside man a shot like this wasn’t expected.
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