The 'impossible' crane shot from Soy Cuba (1964) [video]
Soy Cuba contains lush and gorgeous B&W cinematography. The film opens up with the camera flying over the waters of Cuba; the reflection of the water is glistening in a way unlike other films. I believe they used an X-ray film strip to achieve this shot.Mikhail Kalatozov has included another impressive shot at the end of his previous work, "The Cranes Are Flying." (Palme d'Or at Cannes 1958) The camera follows the protagonist, then gets seamlessly lifted up by a crane to depict the entire street parading.While Soviet-era films does not have much exposure in the English-speaking world, there are so many gems, critically and technically. The filmmakers were acutely aware of great filming techniques.Also check out:Walking the Streets of Moscow (1964)
- B-roll scenery contains another lush reflection of the Moscow watersIvan the Terrible (1944/1958)
- Eisenstein is an ardent practitioner of the montage, and prefers to static camera shots. However, his compositions are very imaginative, and there is no shot you want to miss. His film also briefly experiments with color, and he exploits colored lighting to emphasize the characters' psyche.Anything by Andrei Tarkovsky
- Tarkovsky is indisputably a master of Russian cinema after Eisenstein. He often shoots in nature, but no director shoots with such rich texture of the mud. His long shots emphasizes the bleakness inherent in the Russian psyche.The Ascent (1977)
- Set in WWII, the film shows the resistance escaping the Nazis covered in snow and panting in the cold. Great snow photography.Hard to Be a God (2013)
- A sci-fi story on the immigration of humans to a different planet, the colonizers inhabit the inhospitable environment. Like Tarkovsky, the slow dragging in the mud conveys the dreary lives.These are recommendations I came up off the top of my head relating to cinematography, but there are definitely many more to appreciate.