Hindsight

I watched Vertigo last night and I found it really interesting watching it knowing what's going to happen. You pick up visual clues that you may have missed the first time around and you also interpret characters actions or words differently. I'll get back to Vertigo in a moment, but this just reminded me of a short film that we watched in the film screening class which I hadn't consciously planned to talk about...

We were discussing surprise and suspense in films and the differences between the two - surprise in film is the unexpected twist that is the highlight of the story and About A Girl certainly featured a surprise. You can watch it online here, the brief summary of it is:

As a girl related stories about her ordinary teenage life, there is an uncomfortable sense of sadness underlying her easygoing tales.

Directed by Brian Percival, it's the monologue of a 13 year-old girl. Speaking directly to the camera as she walks through the backstreets of an English town, she starts out talking about trivial things in her life, her unrealistic dreams of becoming a famous singer and random anecdotes. This is inter-cut with footage from her life from an objective point of view, so we gain insight into her life with her parents and her friends. She draws the audience in through her personality, we laugh at the things she says in her strong accent and pass off her seemingly naïve comments as things all young people say.  


Hand-held camera is used which keeps the visual rhythm constant and flowing with the dialogue and her movement. For shots of significance and emotional impact a steady cam is used and her monologue stops, which is jarring and completely changes the pace of the film. It gives these scenes more impact, not only because of the narrative aspect, but also because stylistically they completely contrast with the flow of the rest of the film.

There is a mounting sense of disquieting sadness leading up to the surprise moment which was completely and utterly unexpected, confronting and forces you to re-think the whole film. Re-watching it with the ending in mind we became aware of the clues leading up to the twist, everything the girl said had a much deeper meaning and we no longer passed small comments off as unimportant. This made her story all the more tragic and made me understand and appreciate the excellent filmmaking that went in to it.

Maybe I’m an unobservant audience member if I miss out on some hints while watching a film. However I prefer to think that re-watching films adds depth to them because you’re no longer watching them just to see where the narrative goes – you’re watching to see how it gets there. Hindsight basically.

And now back to Vertigo…

The first thing I thought whilst watching it last night was how little James Stewart had changed in 18 years since The Shop Around the Corner (1940) which we watched only a couple of weeks ago. I’m not unfamiliar with his work but I don’t think I’ve watched anything with him in such quick succession before, which really made this obvious to me. 

Vertigo gets better with each viewing and you’re able to focus on the characters and the themes of the film such as obsession, love and manipulation and begin to appreciate what a unique masterpiece it is. We don’t entirely miss these things the first time, it’s just that our main focus is following the intricate narrative. I found it a more disturbing story this time with Elster completely using Scotty in the elaborate murder of his wife, Scotty becoming obsessed with Madeleine and after her death imagining that he sees her everywhere. He then forces Judy to undergo a makeover so that she becomes Madeleine. Judy also first agreed to pretend to be Madeleine for Elster and then did the same for Scotty in the hope that it would make him love her. 

I also noticed stylistic elements that were used to help convey the narrative, such as the use of light – especially the scene in which Scotty and Midge visit Pop Leibel, where it suddenly becomes very dark as he tells them of Carlotta Valdes and only lightens again when they leave the shop. The setting plays a big part in the film and San Francisco is more of a character itself than just a backdrop to the story.

The use of camera is another element that Hitchcock always uses to brilliant effect, it is obvious that each angle and frame is so well thought out to serve a specific purpose to the film and each shot is composed so effectively. 

Reading about Vertigo afterwards, I found this interesting piece of trivia on IMDb:

Uncredited second-unit cameraman Irmin Roberts invented the famous "zoom out and track in" shot (now sometimes called "contra-zoom" or "trombone shot") to convey the sense of vertigo to the audience.

This is a really interesting technique and one that has been used many times since. I can still remember when I figured out how to re-create that technique (playing with a digital camera while in the car). One thing I love about watching classic films, is that you’re seeing techniques the first time that they’ve ever been done, things we might think of as neat camera tricks but don’t give second thought to were invented by second-unit cameramen over 50 years ago!

Time-lapse

 Wow. I just watched this video Room with a view: 1 year of timelapses from hotel windows featuring footage of a years worth of time-lapse photos in different locations around the world. Being an excellent photographer, each shot is composed so beautifully that the images would work well as individual photographs.. but look amazing when combined. 
  Time-lapse photography is something that interests me, but it's not something that I ever really think about - but now having seen this, I want to do something similar, even though I don't think it would turn out quite as spectacularly.
  
It is a cinematography technique, according to Wikipedia, whereby the frequency at which film frames are captured (the frame rate) is much lower than that which will be used to play the sequence back. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing.  
It captures events which change slowly or in a subtle way over time and allows for these things to become more obvious - like day turning to night, tides changing, clouds moving across the sky, seasons changing, plants growing and so on..  Looking at these sequences from a photographic perspective, it is a great way of showing how light changes over the course of a day and how the angles of the sun and the colour of the light change. 

When used within a film, for example as a short sequence, it would be a stylistic element of film form, used to show the passing of time within the narrative. If I recall correctly, it was used in Adaptation (2002) and possibly Planet Earth (2006), I'm sure I've seen it in other films, so I'll have to do a bit more searching... 

Narrative Form

We started last week by discussing narrative form which is the structure of a story and the way in which it is told in a film. The audience derive meaning from the story through things such as their experiences and knowledge of previous texts (such as films, books or art).

It was brought to my attention (this may reveal my ignorance..) that there is a difference between story and plot:  

a story is made up of inferred events and explicitly presented events; the plot includes explicitly presented events as well as non-diegetic elements.

The thing that stood out to me was how the story goes beyond the plot in suggesting events which are never seen (ie. inferred events) but are still vital to the story. This is something that we do every time we watch a film, but something which we’re not aware of doing or at least for me it’s something that I never put much thought into.

So watching the introduction of Hitchcock’s North by Northwest with this knowledge in mind made it quite interesting to see just how many small things we pick up on, make connections to and then draw conclusions from. The music creates a hectic atmosphere and its combination with the images of crowds, congested traffic and sky scrapers leads us to believe that it is rush hour in the city. Roger Thornhill enters dictating a memo to a woman – we realise that this is his secretary and he is a successful and busy executive, and we assume inferred events, for example the dictation began in an office and then the two made their way to the foyer where we first see them.  I think it’s fascinating the things we’ve assumed from just a few moments into the beginning of a film.

On a side note – re-watching the titles of North by Northwest reminded me somewhat of the titles of Mad Men which I’ve just started watching (yes, I am slightly behind) and will probably post about it when I’ve seen a few more episodes, but I’m loving it so far! 

Sunrise

As part of my film course at uni, we have to create a blog and update it each week with our thoughts on what we watched or discussed, as well as other things that we've found that may have inspired us in some way... I found the template of the uni blog site thing a bit vapid, so decided to create a lovely alternate blog here...

So the first film that we watched last week was a silent film called 'Sunrise - A Song of Two Humans' (1927).

‘This song of the Man and his Wife is of no place and every place; you might hear it anywhere, at any time. For wherever the sun rises and sets, in the city’s turmoil or under the open sky on a farm, life is much the same; sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet.’

Thus reads the first title cards of the silent film directed by F.W. Murnau. These are used to introduce the characters to the audience and the premise of the film. After the opening they are seldom used (because apparently Murnau disliked using them) therefore allowing the other elements of the film to convey the narrative. 

‘Sunrise’ worked well without the use of many story cards not only because it is a simple concept to follow, but also because the other elements (music, camera, performance etc.) work so effectively that it easy to keep up with what happens on screen.

The music is very effective in portraying the mood of the film and also to set the pace, emphasising the characters emotions and actions. For example, before the man takes his wife out in the boat his movements are very strained and he looks as if he is literally being weighed down – his shoulders are hunched and his head is bowed down. The music captures this feeling – using a constant and repetitive beat, in a low note to emphasise his emotions and reluctance to do what was planned. The repetition in the music also creates suspense – as it remains constant without building up. This creates a feeling of tension as we know what direction the film is moving in and we want to know whether he will drown his wife and what will happen next.

With all the great technology that exists today, it is sometimes so easy to forget that it wasn’t always the same. When I think about some of the techniques that were used in this film (for example the use of superimposition which was created during the filming process) I feel a stronger sense of respect for the film-makers and am amazed by what they achieved and can understand how it inspired many films after its release. 

And now for something a bit different...

I just saw a link to this video on someone else's blog and have to post it here because it is an excellent piece of editing. It features clips of films from 2010 which doesn't sound like much but is a reminded me how much I love films, or reinforced my love of films!