Artist Hideout

Between the special effects, the colorful cast of characters and Johnny Depp’s nose taking up half of the screen in one section of the movie, there’s some lessons to be learned from the art of the latest installment of Pirates of the Caribbean, At World’s End.

This evening my wife and I caught the first showing at our local movie theater.

The beginning of the movie begins with a mass hanging where after the many charges and proclamations are read out, a lone boy facing the hangman’s noose begins to sing a pirate song. All the prisoners begin to chime in.

The symbolic and emotional portrayals come to life in amazing ways through the use of great lighting, contrasting colors and fantastical proportions.

Color: The colors in the movie are striking that they are mostly shot in something resembling sepia and gray scale with a good many earth tones contrasting a dark, cold sea that seems wild, alive and uncontrollable. A particular scene stands out in it’s stark vision of Davey Jones locker where Captain Jack finds himself being confronted by crabs that take the form of stones. This bright use of white and overly sharp images brings a reality to the death that Jack has experienced and brings the viewer to that place equally well.

Perspective: Some of the angles and points of views that are used in At World’s End bring everything that is good about cinematography to the forefront and flaunt near impossible angles and special effects almost to the level of too much. It works though and brings with it the world of Pirates in a wonderful package of depth and consistency. To walk away from the theater, you can’t say that it didn’t flow well. A large part of maintaining this throughout the movie was the complimentary way that each scene was maneuvered and captured. During flying rope scenes which are popular in Pirate movies, the camera angles flow like a wild roller coaster ride, but simple scenes work well with a stationary camera. Both elements are used well with a large variety in between. At World’s End may be a bumpy ride but the director takes us on the most graceful of experiences maneuvering our emotions through well thought out scenes carefully planned and executed.

Costumes: Unlike the first two movies, there is a wider vision of cultures in World’s End. These are displayed admirably well. Probably a larger amount of variance would have been in order for the Asian cultures represented. It worked, but probably only because the audience is too caught up in the story line by that time to notice costumes very much.

Scenery: If I were to pick on one element of the movie that I didn’t like. In the scenery there was hardly any familiarity. Gone is the port of Tortuga and a few other familiar areas too. If something is familiar, well… it’s the ships. But even there, the scenery is shot from different angles that make one question if it’s a whole new set. It sure doesn’t feel familiar. Not at all. I guess we can expect that after all the ships have gone through at this point though… right? It might also be intentional to make the viewer feel like they are experiencing something at World’s End. I mean what would one expect At World’s End. Hopefully it wouldn’t be the same familiarity, but something new, different, but still somehow connected.

Final Analysis: I liked the movie. I think it will do well during it’s run in theaters. I am hopeful that number four is going to be equally good. There’s a lot of art that went into this movie and some really well done special effects. The elements of color, perspective, costuming and scenery worked well to create this epic seafaring adventure without making us seasick in the process. I think we can all appreciate that.

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