Bridge of Spies(Oscar Nominated)

For my oscar nominated film I watched Bridge of Spies. The movie opens with a shot of a man painting a self-portrait, which is interrupted by a phone call. This is followed by a fairly long scene of the man walking to the park to pick up something underneath the bench, take it back to his house, and opens up a small package, all the while being pursued by FBI agents who eventually break in and arrest him, but not before, with them in the room, he covertly scoops up the paper and smears it with pain so it cannot be read. This begins a precedent that is continued throughout the movie of long scenes that often include fairly long shots without a terribly large number of cuts, or scenes that only cut back and forth between a few cameras. very frequently the camera will move with a moving subject and adjust zoom and focus to mirror the action. These are used masterfully to create suspense, as shots will often start off very innocently and gradually move toward more dramatic subjects. The quintessential example of this is the long awaited meeting between Donovan(played beautifully by Tom Hanks) and the shadowy figure, Vogel, who no one knows anything about and brought Donovan to Berlin for the negotiations. The camera follows Donovan into the room, finally cutting back to Donovan just before you see Vogel. As Vogel begins to talk it cuts to his midsection, slowly rising until the mystery man is finally revealed. These long, suspense filled shots and scenes are absolutely perfect for this drama centered around espionage, as James Donovan first appears in a heated negotiation with another lawyer over insurance, foreshadowing the big negotiations he will have to participate in later on, before he is ambushed the following day with a request to defend the Soviet spy, Rudolf Abel, captured in the first scene, who takes a liking to Donovan, saying he reminded him of the "standing man" he once knew who was beat by a mob, but got up after every punch. After the obligatory period of hesitation, he resolves to take the case despite the strenuous objections of his family. He courageously wages an uphill battle to defend the man, but ultimately has all of his objections and efforts cast aside for a guilty verdict, but he manages to secure a prison term instead of the death penalty, an achievement which earns him great hatred amongst his countryman, as he can no longer ride the train without receiving glares of hatred from all the passengers. These scenes set up the other great technique accomplished during the film of the parallel. The first parallel is a running one between the predicaments of Abel and the American reconnaissance pilot Francis Powers, both beginning with tense interviews, Abel with Donovan, Powers on a polygraph before his CIA reconnaissance mission. It then follows both of them culminating in Abel's failed supreme court appeal, followed by Powers' sentencing hearing before a Soviet court. The story then makes a major shift away from the defense of Abel and the capture of Powers to the mysterious letter from Vogel that brings Donovan to East Berlin to negotiate a prisoner exchange, completing a parallel with the first scene of Donovan negotiating an insurance settlement. The talks make a series of twists and turns as a second American, a student named Frederick Pryor is arrested by the East Germans, and Donovan goes out of his way to try and recover both. After a series of the long, high suspense shots that define this movie, an exchange is agreed, and everything, all the tension builds toward the exchange scene on the bridge. The familiar Americans and Abel walk up with the camera at a level angle, but it then cuts to to the Soviets, who are shot from a low angle, highlighting them as the scary, powerful bad guys. In this scene, which is a perfect example of the depth of shot that so frequently accompanies these long, complex scene, after long, dramatic reveals of Powers and Abel, one last curveball is thrown as Pryor is not where the Germans said he'd be. The CIA officers want to just get back Powers and get it over with, but Donovan makes one last stand, and Abel, reaffirming his admiration of this "standing man" who has kept going through every curveball, refuses to cross until the Pryor shows up, which finally happens and all the tension is relieved, and the victory is won. The movie concludes with a truly perfect final shot, as Donovan is riding the train into work, and the passengers reading the papers look up at him just as they did before, but instead of hatred they express admiration, showing the amazing trip from rock bottom to the glorious victory for Donovan. Satisfied, he looks out the window and sees a group of kids vaulting fences in their backyard as they play, which is a sharp departure from when he looked outside the window in Berlin and saw people shot trying to climb over the wall. These incredibly powerful parallels perfectly summarize all that has changed and ties everything up as the story comes to an end. This is a moving, suspenseful, and ultimately powerful drama that shows what a good, principled "standing man" can do in the face of all the lies and deceit of espionage, and all the amazing things a good man can do. I would give this movie an 8.5 out of 10 and will watch it again.