The Place Beyond The Pines Analysis

The Place Beyond The Pines (2012) by Derek Cianfrance is a drama/thriller film starring Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper and Eva Mendes and follows a mix of the life of a motorcycle performer, Luke, who starts robbing banks to support his young child, and half way through changes to following a cop, Avery, who shoots and kills Luke when in a police chase. Then the majority of the story is about the son of Luke, AJ, and his interaction with the Avery's son, Jason. The two sons don't know the history their dads share and become friends and slowly discover their parents pasts.
This film had  a lot of different and interesting cinematography elements in it which I can analyse and adapt to put into our final film.
The first opening sequence is a long take, using hand held, following Luke through a carnival. The purpose of this long take is to establish the location and give the audience a sense of place.

 It also makes the audience see a third person POV of behind the character, much like the sequence shot in Elephant (2003) by Gus Van Sant, and this shows us where the character is going, what he interacts with and what he's looking at. Due to these things being obvious to the audience, they attach themselves with the character and empathise with them and to see what their part is in the narrative of the film. This technique is repeated later on in the film where Luke's son is walking through a party and the shots are two small sequence shots from the back of the character, used in the same effect. I liked the use of this long take as it was a mobile and done through an interesting location which means the audience are instantly engaging with the film and the character shown.
There was also an alternative use of POV sequences in this film as the majority of it was shot Hand held to give a more 1st person POV or 3rd person restricted POV to it and make the audience feel as though the camera is them. A good example of this would be at 1hour 15 minutes into the film where AJ is in a pharmacy store trying to steal some drugs for a party. The camera starts by following him into the store from behind (much like the shot at the start of the film with his father) and then pulls away so he is facing it, looking off to the side behind a shelf.

The camera then rapidly pans to the direction in which AJ is looking so the audience see the quick camera movement as if they themselves have just turned their heads to see what AJ is looking at.

This alternative style of POV sequences is very interesting and engaging with the audience due to the 'control' they feel as though they have in the scene. When they want to know where AJ is looking they see his face, and after that is established we move with the camera to where he is looking.
The final convention I would like to point out is the use of an interior lighting change. This occurs at 15 minutes into the film where Luke is inside a church at the back, watching his son being christened. He begins to cry for a bit then dips his head down, making his face and head darker. He then lifts it up after he stops crying, and turns looking into the sunlight.

I believe this is symbolic of the character Luke moving on with his life, as he wasn't invited to the baptism of his own son and he knows he isn't wanted by the mother to help out at all so he realises this and the light symbols change for him. I think it works well here because the location of a church already implies change/redemption so using it here gives a heavy emotive feeling for the audience to sympathise with Luke and want him to change.
All in all The Place Beyond The Pines was a very interesting film, especially in terms of cinematography, as it uses a wide variety of conventions to portray different emotions, themes and actions throughout. I will keep in mind the conventions I have picked out here when making our final film and perhaps incorporate the technical styles used into it, to increase the quality of it.