Alfred Hitchcock - 1969
We have, with the thoughtful direction to an infinetewsimal level almost, every single move and moment creates something new, a cinematic feeling. A little shot as a body suddenly appears after a track. Huge amounts of miming.
A couple of other directors particularly came to mind here. It reminded me in many ways of the gangster films of Melville; that kind of blankness, impassivity, the twitiching of the eyes; lonely men. That there is one absultely great scene, and the rest of the film slightly defalted around it (I mean, of course, the photograph espionage) is also a bit like the structure of the railway heist in 'Un Flic' (though the rest of that film is a great psychological 'portrait', or lack of one, too, to be fair).
And there's clearly thought of Lang here as well. The idea of giving clear, simple information with little movements, a static camera for many shots (with Hitchcock also having huge dollies and so on also, of course). The main Langian thought was that idea of a world almost like clockwork (and Franju's homages...). The toy figures, action men pushing around, the bookcase that turns and so on.
We have an unknown man here, we are giving nothing, he knows nothing we basically, as comes clear, no nothing of the actual situation either (of the MacGuffin, obviously). This strange figure has no interest in his family, seemingly, he likes espionage, he likes America; he likes what he doesn't have, really.
no interest in his family, seemingly
Thursday, 14 July 2011
Wednesday, 13 July 2011
Kuhle Wampe
Slatan Dudow (written by Brecht) - 1932
What is this? Really a collection of nice, sometimes excellent images. Overexposed, with some great sociological looks at people. There are often quite fast, basically inserts (this is nearly a photoplay, in some ways). These can move towards overcutting, cutting around presumably didgy performances, but it doesn't matter hugely.
Well, it does in some ways, because the story isn't really told, it's inconsequential certainly. This film does use cinematic devices, indeed, there's hardly any dialogue, but what it creates through purely cinematic means doesn't have much to do with the love plot. We have good tracks on bicycles and swimming, montage sequences with songs and so on.
The message is great, the feeling is great, solidarity. It doesn't come together hugely, but there are some great bits (and the songs are great, reminding me of 'Threepenny'. It's Hans Eisler.)
What is this? Really a collection of nice, sometimes excellent images. Overexposed, with some great sociological looks at people. There are often quite fast, basically inserts (this is nearly a photoplay, in some ways). These can move towards overcutting, cutting around presumably didgy performances, but it doesn't matter hugely.
Well, it does in some ways, because the story isn't really told, it's inconsequential certainly. This film does use cinematic devices, indeed, there's hardly any dialogue, but what it creates through purely cinematic means doesn't have much to do with the love plot. We have good tracks on bicycles and swimming, montage sequences with songs and so on.
The message is great, the feeling is great, solidarity. It doesn't come together hugely, but there are some great bits (and the songs are great, reminding me of 'Threepenny'. It's Hans Eisler.)
Torn Curtain
Alfred Hitchcock - 1966
Again, Hitchcock refines his mis-en-scene. Yet it really is very exciting. Suddenly moving out to a very long view of Newman, then so close for the kissing. High angles, low angles. A spectacular pirrouhetting movement across the lobby. Why the floursishes? Emotion pictures? Julie Andrews' reverse shot suddenly being on the axis; another example.
This is in many ways a baffling film. It does explore the personal and the political, the wronged man, and various things. But the abiding sense I got here was the chaos Newman and latterly Andrews leave behind. All are sacrificed, in a quite stupid, unthinking away. The human feeling of it, the small, slightly absurd finale of how it turns out a food hamper sits there while people bicker.
Again, Hitchcock refines his mis-en-scene. Yet it really is very exciting. Suddenly moving out to a very long view of Newman, then so close for the kissing. High angles, low angles. A spectacular pirrouhetting movement across the lobby. Why the floursishes? Emotion pictures? Julie Andrews' reverse shot suddenly being on the axis; another example.
This is in many ways a baffling film. It does explore the personal and the political, the wronged man, and various things. But the abiding sense I got here was the chaos Newman and latterly Andrews leave behind. All are sacrificed, in a quite stupid, unthinking away. The human feeling of it, the small, slightly absurd finale of how it turns out a food hamper sits there while people bicker.
Strangers On A Train
Alfred Hitchcock - 1951 (the British release version)
Hitchcock is really remarkable, his own cinema, with these eyeline matches. There are establishing sometimes, but it's really all built around these looks, the effect of them. Most obviously, the look at the tennis match, the distant figure who looks. Hitchcock uses such a lot of technical devices that it is a bit silly to try and nail down too tightly. We have those tracks and moves in, some very fast cutting. Really, we have original, always thinking, always thoughtful, answers to questions of mis-en-scene; how to make it interesting, how to make it new, how to convey emotion. One quick example; the strangle in the glasses.
We have so, so much going on here. The theme of doublings; of Miriam, of the lead (s). Homosexuality, masculinity, the underground wishes. Jekyll and Hyde. Along with that Hitchcock weirdness. Hitchcock seems, at the very highest points of his cinema, to be the master of the small elements of life, where life is really lived. Small looks, small cruelties.
Hitchcock is really remarkable, his own cinema, with these eyeline matches. There are establishing sometimes, but it's really all built around these looks, the effect of them. Most obviously, the look at the tennis match, the distant figure who looks. Hitchcock uses such a lot of technical devices that it is a bit silly to try and nail down too tightly. We have those tracks and moves in, some very fast cutting. Really, we have original, always thinking, always thoughtful, answers to questions of mis-en-scene; how to make it interesting, how to make it new, how to convey emotion. One quick example; the strangle in the glasses.
We have so, so much going on here. The theme of doublings; of Miriam, of the lead (s). Homosexuality, masculinity, the underground wishes. Jekyll and Hyde. Along with that Hitchcock weirdness. Hitchcock seems, at the very highest points of his cinema, to be the master of the small elements of life, where life is really lived. Small looks, small cruelties.
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
The Lady Vanishes
Alfred Hitchcock - 1938
What can we say about Hitchcock's direction here? We have the opening big establishinbg shot. From then on, general establishment, i.e. the train from outside, comes only once or twice, but it is wonderful, in between the bits of action, at once a breath but also fast, exciting.
Hitchcock doesn't do particularly long shots; we are usually working from medium shots up. His camera is often still on this. There can be reframings, and there are also elegant, and fast, tracks and other movements to start a scene often, before it comes still. For this, he often has a few faces in the shot at once, all looking or being looked at (and inviting us to look). Off screen space is created as people are constantly looking off camera; that is the classic Hithcock shot, here.
There are some other distinctive things. He can show only the legs and waist, a sort of lowermedium shot, and in particularly dramatic punctuation points he introduces motifs like these, or cuts to an animal, or zoom-ins (one) or tracks down, to add a little something.
What is the constrcution here? A building up of an odd atmosphere, full of the pettiness and the little cruelties of the English, yet, all the same, oddly dedramatized. Then we have curiousity, the vanishing. I read 'The Birds' as the most acute expression and examination of the 'women's movement', and here we have the medicalisation of a woman's anxiety, a wish to shut her up. Wedding night and other sexual anxieties also are involved. We then move onto English communal effort, fighting the enemy, impossible not to read directly to the war.
We are played with as to the veracity of the stories, usually we are half a step ahead of the protagonists, though hardly omniscient. That there is a masterplan is clear, being slowly unravelled to us, and even more slowly to the characters (so we have a certain smugness, and a certain mystery). Suspense? Once in the train, something odd is certainly going...
The final sequence, static shots of somebody shooting, an eyeline then on what is shot at (and the oddly placed nun) is taken lightly. There is a certain joie de vivre here, a playing with Will Hay, for example, a few self-conscious and cheery plot explanations, the idea that it is all an English jape (this is at the end, the opening is really a catalogue of pettiness, in a way). Quite sprightly, this, with layers of interest.
What can we say about Hitchcock's direction here? We have the opening big establishinbg shot. From then on, general establishment, i.e. the train from outside, comes only once or twice, but it is wonderful, in between the bits of action, at once a breath but also fast, exciting.
Hitchcock doesn't do particularly long shots; we are usually working from medium shots up. His camera is often still on this. There can be reframings, and there are also elegant, and fast, tracks and other movements to start a scene often, before it comes still. For this, he often has a few faces in the shot at once, all looking or being looked at (and inviting us to look). Off screen space is created as people are constantly looking off camera; that is the classic Hithcock shot, here.
There are some other distinctive things. He can show only the legs and waist, a sort of lowermedium shot, and in particularly dramatic punctuation points he introduces motifs like these, or cuts to an animal, or zoom-ins (one) or tracks down, to add a little something.
What is the constrcution here? A building up of an odd atmosphere, full of the pettiness and the little cruelties of the English, yet, all the same, oddly dedramatized. Then we have curiousity, the vanishing. I read 'The Birds' as the most acute expression and examination of the 'women's movement', and here we have the medicalisation of a woman's anxiety, a wish to shut her up. Wedding night and other sexual anxieties also are involved. We then move onto English communal effort, fighting the enemy, impossible not to read directly to the war.
We are played with as to the veracity of the stories, usually we are half a step ahead of the protagonists, though hardly omniscient. That there is a masterplan is clear, being slowly unravelled to us, and even more slowly to the characters (so we have a certain smugness, and a certain mystery). Suspense? Once in the train, something odd is certainly going...
The final sequence, static shots of somebody shooting, an eyeline then on what is shot at (and the oddly placed nun) is taken lightly. There is a certain joie de vivre here, a playing with Will Hay, for example, a few self-conscious and cheery plot explanations, the idea that it is all an English jape (this is at the end, the opening is really a catalogue of pettiness, in a way). Quite sprightly, this, with layers of interest.
To Sleep With Anger
Charles Burnett - 1990
There aren't visual fireworks here, it is quite typical modern classicism. We have establishing, then moves in. As before, Burnett goes pretty close to these (necessary in colour? Don't start). He has some quietly distinctive moves, focussing on feet, and some delicate track-ups of bodies. The takes are long as before, but we here have a more neutral, stiller, as much as anything indoors, film than 'Killer Of Sheep' (the difference in class of the protagonists may partly explain this).
As far as composition, which is always simple, well done, there is surely something in the use of colour here; red dresses, or other items, coming at once, moves to blue, yellow lights. Also the autumn painting, and the most visually distinctive scene, the huge yellow sky over the burning railway. I wouldn't venture now to give symbolic keys, but this, at the least, adds vitality to the mis-en-scene.
And Burnett's editing. He likes to crosscut locations, or rather not between, but shows, with a simple cut, two actions in different places taking placce at the same time. Cinema as cutting time and space. He also frequently uses the elliptical edit, moving time on a little way abruptly. These don't really come across as jumps, but it's not far off.
We have a slowburn construction, not dead time but a build up of character across a series of average length scenes.
For all these words though, this is poetry, there is a curiousness (not just the opning sequence), an unwordliness. This is, essentially, a mythical tale, of the devil and the man (American South), brought up to modernity (this might have more in common with 'The Horse' in this respect than 'Killer Of Sheep'). It is about how ancient myths work in modernity. Ultimately, surely Burnett argues the old picture of a kind of masculinity must be rejected; in that sense, it is a propogandist film, or rather one with a clear message.
The tale structure gives this kind of beyond-realism sense, that Harry really could be the devil. But this doesn't divorce it from realism; it is just self-conscious realism, reality as packaged in a modern tale (but 'I don't want to hear any more tales', as the mother says...). The low-key (and completely brilliant; we're finding this across Burnett, just look at Glover's grey eyes, how the mother starts to wear that wig..) acting, the neutral locale, and the details make this realist, but with this poetry intermingling. A film to be read in various ways, but each can't be seperated.
There aren't visual fireworks here, it is quite typical modern classicism. We have establishing, then moves in. As before, Burnett goes pretty close to these (necessary in colour? Don't start). He has some quietly distinctive moves, focussing on feet, and some delicate track-ups of bodies. The takes are long as before, but we here have a more neutral, stiller, as much as anything indoors, film than 'Killer Of Sheep' (the difference in class of the protagonists may partly explain this).
As far as composition, which is always simple, well done, there is surely something in the use of colour here; red dresses, or other items, coming at once, moves to blue, yellow lights. Also the autumn painting, and the most visually distinctive scene, the huge yellow sky over the burning railway. I wouldn't venture now to give symbolic keys, but this, at the least, adds vitality to the mis-en-scene.
And Burnett's editing. He likes to crosscut locations, or rather not between, but shows, with a simple cut, two actions in different places taking placce at the same time. Cinema as cutting time and space. He also frequently uses the elliptical edit, moving time on a little way abruptly. These don't really come across as jumps, but it's not far off.
We have a slowburn construction, not dead time but a build up of character across a series of average length scenes.
For all these words though, this is poetry, there is a curiousness (not just the opning sequence), an unwordliness. This is, essentially, a mythical tale, of the devil and the man (American South), brought up to modernity (this might have more in common with 'The Horse' in this respect than 'Killer Of Sheep'). It is about how ancient myths work in modernity. Ultimately, surely Burnett argues the old picture of a kind of masculinity must be rejected; in that sense, it is a propogandist film, or rather one with a clear message.
The tale structure gives this kind of beyond-realism sense, that Harry really could be the devil. But this doesn't divorce it from realism; it is just self-conscious realism, reality as packaged in a modern tale (but 'I don't want to hear any more tales', as the mother says...). The low-key (and completely brilliant; we're finding this across Burnett, just look at Glover's grey eyes, how the mother starts to wear that wig..) acting, the neutral locale, and the details make this realist, but with this poetry intermingling. A film to be read in various ways, but each can't be seperated.
The Best Years Of Our Lives
William Wyler - 1946
This is a terrific piece of classical filmaking; and its shot by Greg Toland. So we have that huge depth, sides of faces (facing away) allowed close to the camera, and those huge pinsharp rooms. The compositons have Wyler's zigzagging, which acts as a depth cue. These formal devices are very much part of the general picture of society that is trying to be built up.
I mean by that that having so much in one shot, in the long takes, gives that sense of clautrophobia, anxiety and stuffiness to the composition and the frame. Form and content together, the former reflecting the uneasiness that is throughout this film. It isn't too extreme, apart from the music not massively milked, but it really is what gives the film its life.
This film, for all its typical structure, is sharp in the way it head-on confronts a social issue, and a difficult one. If I praised 'The Hurt Locker' for giving thirty seconds to the issue, Wyler does so for two and three quarter hours, and should be credited accordingly. A serious film about serious feelings, which doesn't try to hide the complexity; there is so much going on here. We have not only the main one of the returning veterans, but inter-generational stuff, issues about marriage; in other words, it is complex, like life can be.
Is it a little staid? It is an intricate realist picture, technically brilliant (the phone booth shot, of course), but I wouldn't call it poetic; more like daringly understated in that scene. What this film has is detail; the editing hardly lets us lose a second, a moment, of the action of the lives. This is the connection to neorealism; we watch them make a cup of coffee. This, combined with its social breadth, also put me in mind of 'Rocco and His Brothers'. These are high marks for a studio product to live up to, but this is one of the finest.
This is a terrific piece of classical filmaking; and its shot by Greg Toland. So we have that huge depth, sides of faces (facing away) allowed close to the camera, and those huge pinsharp rooms. The compositons have Wyler's zigzagging, which acts as a depth cue. These formal devices are very much part of the general picture of society that is trying to be built up.
I mean by that that having so much in one shot, in the long takes, gives that sense of clautrophobia, anxiety and stuffiness to the composition and the frame. Form and content together, the former reflecting the uneasiness that is throughout this film. It isn't too extreme, apart from the music not massively milked, but it really is what gives the film its life.
This film, for all its typical structure, is sharp in the way it head-on confronts a social issue, and a difficult one. If I praised 'The Hurt Locker' for giving thirty seconds to the issue, Wyler does so for two and three quarter hours, and should be credited accordingly. A serious film about serious feelings, which doesn't try to hide the complexity; there is so much going on here. We have not only the main one of the returning veterans, but inter-generational stuff, issues about marriage; in other words, it is complex, like life can be.
Is it a little staid? It is an intricate realist picture, technically brilliant (the phone booth shot, of course), but I wouldn't call it poetic; more like daringly understated in that scene. What this film has is detail; the editing hardly lets us lose a second, a moment, of the action of the lives. This is the connection to neorealism; we watch them make a cup of coffee. This, combined with its social breadth, also put me in mind of 'Rocco and His Brothers'. These are high marks for a studio product to live up to, but this is one of the finest.
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