I do believe the best single piece of film criticism that I've read in 2008 (and I've thought so ever since I read it two months ago) is David Bordwell's "Hands (and faces) across the table" -- which, parentheses aside, also happens to be the title of a delightful 1935 comedy directed by Mitchell Leisen ("Easy Living," "Midnight," "Remember the Night") starring Carole Lombard, Fred MacMurray and Ralph Bellamy. (Manohla Dargis's review of Gus Van Sant's "Paranoid Park" deserves mention, too. And Glenn Kenney became my hero this year when he posted "'Pierrot le Fou: An Annotated Bibliography," Parts 1 & 2.)
But Bordwell's article centers on a scene from Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood" (just released on DVD) and the director's orchestration of screen space, which involves creating rhythm and texture by moving the actors, not just the camera. (This, too, is mise-en-scène.) Writes DB:
In books and blogs, I’ve expressed the wish that today’s American filmmakers would widen their range of creative choices. From the 1910s to the 1960s (and sometimes beyond), US filmmakers cultivated a range of expressive options—not only cutting and camera movement but other possibilities too. Studio directors were particularly adept at ensemble staging, shifting the actors around the set as the scene develops.You can still find this technique in movies from Europe and Asia, as I try to show in "Figures Traced in Light" and elsewhere on this site. But it’s rare to find an American ready to keep the camera still and steady and to let the actors sculpt the action in continuous time, saving the cuts to underscore a pivot or heightening of the drama. Now nearly every American filmmaker is inclined to frame close, cut fast, and track that camera endlessly. I’ve called this stylistic paradigm intensified continuity....
(See Bordwell's analysis of the map scene with Paul Sunday, and accompanying frame grabs.)
Without any close-ups or cutting, Anderson has skillfully steered us to the main points of the scene, which are carried by the performers. The drama builds through small changes of position, shifts of weight, and facial expressions that accompany the dialogue. (The somber, plaintive music adds an uneasy edge.) Daniel seems more threatening when we don’t see his reaction, and Anderson’s camera forces us to scrutinize Paul’s expressions and body language for signs that this is a scam. It takes confidence to make a raised hand the climax of a scene, but the gesture gains its force by being the most aggressive moment in an arc of quietly accumulating tension.I get a kinetic kick out of camera movement as much as anybody else, but there's nothing quite so engaging (and subtly thrilling) as a shot organically composed so as not to call attention to itself.All the principles involved here—frontality, spacing of figures, slight shifts of compositional focus, actors’ body language—are simple in themselves, but they gain a strong impact by cooperating with one another. The scene’s quiet obliqueness is characteristic of the film, which, at least until the last few minutes, carries us along with hints about where the action might go and what drives its characters....
This is why Andrei Tarkovsky remains one of my favorite filmmakers. His composing of movement in frame and the frame itself is mesmerizing.
I need to throw Andrei Rublev in again...
Jim,
I couldn't agree more with your statement:
"I get a kinetic kick out of camera movement as much as anybody else, but there's nothing quite so engaging (and subtly thrilling) as a shot organically composed so as not to call attention to itself."
I just saw "Snow Angels" this weekend, and I felt what you describe above through the entire film. David Gordon Green isn't always so subtle with his camera (see "Undertow"), but with "Snow Angles" he has found a balance, and has crafted his first domestic drama with a more subtle camera -- still full of Green's usual trickery -- just not so flashy or kinetic. It's really quite the film.
Very interesting read.... The scenes/shots Paul thomas anderson constructed in TWBB left me in awe after i saw the film. Its the work of a born filmaker. If it were not for the slightly superior NCFOM coming out this year, i believe TWBB would have had a larger cultural impact. I still hope the film will be remembered for a long time because its so much better than 98 percent of movies these days....
~Also, just as a side note...the slow, well thought out shots in this film reminded me of some of earlier M NIGHT SHAMYLAN work....maybe thats just me but i thought it was worth mentioning.Would be great to see some analytical articles on UNBREAKABLE ,or SIGNS one day on scanners...oh well i can hope !
Great article
Hmm. Might this be why I found NCFOM so beautiful and TWBB so drab in comparison? Have I been raised too long on camera movement?
Phillip --
I agree with you about Tarkovsky, and for that matter almost all Russian filmmakers. I think that is one reason why some have such a hard time with the deliberate pacing of Russian films. "Solaris" and "Andrei Rublev" do come to mind, but aside from Tarkovsky I was reminded of this in a more recent Russian film "Russian Ark" where a 90 minute steadicam shot takes the viewer through a dreamlike experience of Russian culture. The film is a gimmick, and even though only 90 minutes doesn't seem that long, to watch one shot for that particular amount of time could have been quite taxing. But the film works, and this entry by Jim made me think about this film and how even though there is camera movement, is a 90 minute steadicam really all that exciting? I would place the excitement on the mise-en-scene, since there are no cuts, the blocking, acting, costumes, art direction, etc. are all crucial to the 'action' of the film.
It is quite the experience, and the deliberate pacing and movement of actors through expansive space is something that always brings me to Russian cinema.
This quote about "Russian Ark" by Roger Ebert sums it up: "If cinema is sometimes dreamlike, then every edit is an awakening. Russian Ark spins a daydream made of centuries."
Hopefully "Russian Ark" offers a much needed resurgence for Russian cinema so that it can be brought back to the forefront of film buffs the way it was when Eisenstein and Tarkovsky were being taught in every film class in the 70's.
jim, i am really enjoying your interaction with this film. One that you have been in some ways resistant to, but in many ways, has provoked you a great deal.
to someone who may not be completely aware of your opinion of this film upon release...it would seem that you consider it brilliant based on your subsequent writing on it.
Kevin,
I'm a fan of "Russian Ark" and "Solaris".
Another great filmmaker that popped into my head was Hitchcock. "Notorious" when the camera slowly moves in on the cup of tea. No cuts. But absolutely incredible. Or "Rope" for that matter.
NCFOM better than TWBB? Pish posh.
The first time you see DP speak (to a group of people indoors that erupts into bedlam)HW is standing behind him on his left. The camera has DP in the center of the frame, and zooms in slowly on him as he speaks, and then moves ever so slightly to the left so that HW is the focal center and then eases ever so slightly back to DP as the focal point.
Also the haunting, sinister, pre-"Eraserhead" - Eraserhead-evoking image of Wini Shaw's face, a tiny dot encompassed in darkness, singing as her floating head comes in closer and closer and closer until it is as big as life in front and center. This unbelievable moment is in Busby Berkeley's "The Gold Diggers of 1935." Haunting, eerie, mesmerizing, perfect.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qZws4r7IQPk
There is, of course, the great shot as Paul Sunday comes to see Daniel, and the camera zooms in on the conversation at the desk, and then suddenly stops at an awkward moment, only to pick up again after the moment is over. Great subtelty there, and fantastic.
I love Russia, though, and can't wait to see more Russian cinema, as I know they do things over there that are nearly never, if ever, seen in America.
Zach,
I recommend "The Sacrifice" by Andrei Tarkovsky.
One of the best talents going around is the Russian filmmaker Andrei Zvyagintsev who with his debut film, the astounding THE RETURN, and then with THE BANISHMENT last year, looks well set for a great future. The way he composes a sequence when two family members interact always manages to leave a great impact on us. As little Ivan sits in the rain, his plight breaks us, and the subsequent sequence when he sits in the car is quite poignant.
Alongside Paul Thomas Anderson, and Nolan these three will make some of the greatest and influential fimmakers of the future.
As a friend of mine pointed out, There Will Be Blood seems to be largely about the relationship between religion and commerce.. two things that don't mix, just like oil (pun not intended) and water. The organic nature of the shots in the film not only harmonize with its superficial subject matter, namely oil, but are completely appropriate for the evocation of the tensions between to establishments that should have no relationship. The only logical outecome would be that there will be blood.
If you believe American filmmakers lean too heavily on flashy tracking shots and fast cuts, you should also say that European/Asian filmmakers do the exact opposite -- over-rely on long and static takes to stand in for dramatic "tension."
Balance is why TWBB works.