Dark Movies

What is the fascination with not lighting night scenes in movies and television these days? I understand its night time. I understand that they want it to be realistic. But if you can't see anything, why should you care what happens? If something grabs me in the dark, I am going to be terrified. If something grabs a character in the dark, and I can't see who the character is or what has them, I don't care. I may as well be watching the radio.  They've taken the concept of "reality" too far.

Things that go bump in the night are scary when they're in your night, for real. When they are in a movie, you need to be able to see something. I think today's lighting directors need to go back to school and refresh their memories on things like backlighting and the use of softboxes. Let's at least get a rimlight on the main part of the scene so the viewer has some idea whether the hero or the villain is on top at any given moment.

I had to watch part of Blade Runner (1982, Ridley Scott) for my lighting class. This movie sucks. The dialog is awful, the acting is worse than the dialog, the story is crap. (Okay, that was definitely a personal opinion - I never could stand Philip K. Dick's writing anyway.) I know it's a cult classic. Cult classics tend to be so bad you have to love them. This one's just bad. I don't love it.

What was good was the cinematography and the lighting. This is one gorgeous movie - if you turn off the sound so you can skip the dialog. Maybe play some Vangelis for background, but definitly kill the dialog. Anyway - you can see what is going on, but the entire movie is dark. Film Noir done well.

Its almost as if someone said well, if noir is good, no lights at all must be better. Honey, if the story is so bad you don't want viewers to see it, don't film it.