Throughout cinema history, great filmmakers have established their signature styles, so much so that their work is instantly recognizable to fans and even more casual moviegoers. For some directors, their writing techniques, thematic material, and casting choices are what make their work stand out from their peers'.
Oftentimes, though, great directors will have certain visual trademarks that they employ over and over again throughout their careers, giving their movies a unique visual stamp that allows audiences to immediately identify their films. These involve choices ranging from camera moves and shot composition to their choice of the film stock itself.
Spike Lee - The Dolly Shot
Director to documentaries. But what every Spike Lee film has in common is that, at least once in all of his films, a character stands on a moving dolly and looks directly past the camera as he's being pulled forward. This creates a surreal effect in which the character appears to be floating above the ground.
Spike Lee's films all have a homemade quality that's a part of their charm, and this trademark is a perfect example of Lee's signature style in action.
Akira Kurosawa - The Wipe Effect
Legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa pioneered the "wipe effect," a transition between images. As opposed to a traditional cut, the wipe effect is when a bar moves across the screen, hiding the first shot by revealing the second. Of course, Kurosawa also used standard cuts and dissolves, but this transition became a trademark of his throughout his career.
It was later used in Hollywood films, most famously in Kurosawa as the main influence on him, and so it stands to reason that his wipe effect transitions were inspired by Kurosawa.
Wes Anderson - Slow Motion Tracking Shots Set To Pop Music
Wes Anderson is one of American cinema's most distinct visual stylists. Examples abound of his signature slow-motion tracking shots. They're often accompanied by popular music soundtrack selections to add a cinematic flair to key emotional moments in his films.
The scenes often have a dreamlike quality to them, and they also allow the audience to fully take in the elaborate production design, another visual trademark of his films for which he's become famous over the years.
Alfonso Cuaron - Elaborate Long Takes
Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron isn't the only director known for his long tracking shots, but he takes the sophistication and complexity of this technique to new heights. 2006's Children of Men contains two extremely elaborate single-take sequences, one in a car, and one that follows the hero character through a war zone.
Perhaps most impressively, though, is the opening of 2013's Gravity, which consists of a 12-minute long take that carries the entire first act of the film up until the action starts.
Stanley Kubrick - Symmetrical Composition
Stanley Kubrick has made a theme of the film involves mirrors and reflections (i.e, "Redrum" is "Murder" spelled backward).
But examples abound of symmetry in composition throughout his filmography, including 2001: A Space Odyssey, Full Metal Jacket, and A Clockwork Orange. Kubrick is one of the most meticulous visual stylists to ever direct films, and so his symmetrical set design and shot composition make his work instantly recognizable.
David Lynch - Moving Objects
There's no filmmaker more unique than David Lynch, whose films often have an eerie, dreamlike quality that's created by his visual and audible trademarks. One of the devices he uses to create this surreal, disorienting experience is a cutaway or a closeup on a random inanimate moving object.
The object is often immaterial to the plot, but these shots add sensory elements that help create Lynch's signature nightmarish mood. The most notable example of this is the ceiling fan in Twin Peaks, which is prominently featured in seven episodes of the show. The sprinkler system in the creepy opening of Blue Velvet is another memorable example, as is the ominous clock tower in The Elephant Man.
Martin Scorsese - The Moving Camera
Another director who's worked in countless genres over the years is Martin Scorsese. Regardless of which genre he's working in, his films tend to have a kinetic quality to them, which are defined by jarring edits by longtime collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker, as well as a camera that is almost constant motion, including sweeping camera moves that land on a character's face.
In The Irishman, a scene as simple as Pacino's Jimmy Hoffa testifying before the Senate involved a swooping crane shot. His other mob movies employ this technique quite a bit, but he also uses a constantly moving camera in his 1993 costume drama, The Age of Innocence.
Steve McQueen - Long, Still Camera Takes
Tracking shots and moving cameras are impressive, but there can also be great power in a still camera capturing a long, uninterrupted take. This creates a voyeuristic quality that filmmaker an NC-17 rating.
In his Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave, McQueen uses this effect to excruciating effect when Solomon Northup is hung from a low hanging tree branch and must stand on his toes to keep from choking to death. The shot is 90 seconds long, but it feels like an eternity.
Lars Von Trier - Handheld Camerawork
Director Lars Von Trier is known for creating controversy with his films, which often deal unflinchingly with very upsetting subject matter. Part of what makes his films so provocative is that they are often shot using handheld, documentary-style camera techniques, which give his movies an uncannily realistic feel, despite some of them being surrealistic in their content.
Von Trier named this style of filmmaking "Dogme 95," which he co-created with fellow Danish auteur, Thomas Vinterburg. The "95" refers to the year 1995 when Von Trier announced this new style of filmmaking at a centennial celebration of motion pictures in Paris.
Oliver Stone - Multiple Film Stock, Lenses, And Color Palettes
Another filmmaker who's no stranger to controversy is Oliver Stone. His films are also infused with a kinetic, sometimes even frantic and chaotic, quality. He achieves this style by often experimenting with different film stock and/or color palettes in the same film. In Natural Born Killers, he combines 8mm, 16mm, and 35mm film stock, as well as celluloid and video, to create collage-like effect from the film's beginning to end.
He also uses different film stocks throughout JFK and Nixon and combines black and white and color palettes in U-Turn. In 2012's Savages, he not only changes color palettes but includes webcam and cell phone footage, as well.
