Few movie mannerisms annoy me as much as the gratuitous zoom, which modish hack directors have been using since the 1960s to underline and over-punctuate their shots. For a number of years (particularly in the late '60s to mid-'70s), the ubiquitous zoom, having no correlative to any function of the human eye, was most often deployed as a cheap substitute for actual camera movement. And yet, in the hands of, say, certain French New Wave filmmakers, the zoom could feel refreshingly free and spontaneous, like guerilla documentary footage. Or it could signify varying degrees of counter-cultural psychedelic grooviness, from "Laugh-In" to "Easy Rider" to... "Austin Powers." (Meanwhile, directors such as Altman and Kubrick have been known to use the zoom's telephoto properties with purpose and intelligence -- though the former used it to open up the frame and the latter to lock it down.)
Any device can be used or misused, but not even such egregious clichés as the now-ubiquitous snatch-and-grab and shaky-cam techniques, or the endlessly circling twirly cam, irritate me as much as the wanton zoom. Which is why I found this passage from Glen Kenny's piece on the Duplass's movie "Cyrus" to be both amusing and gratifying. (It doesn't matter if you or I have seen "Cyrus," or how zooms are used in that film; it's the precision of Kenny's bullshit-detector argument that I appreciate.) He observes:
Writing about the film from the Sundance Film Festival, Karina Longworth mused on how, in a film starring more-or-less well known (and in one case, Oscar-winning!) actors, "the classic Duplass anticipatory zooms take on a whole new level of invasive creepiness." Now the veracity/value of this statement rests in whether or not you buy the idea that the zooms that "Cyrus" is replete with are genuinely "anticipatory." I don't think they are. What I saw in the film were a lot of perfectly serviceable/banal medium shots and medium closeups that were almost constantly interrupted by a sudden, jerky, lunging-forward in perspective. One second, you're looking at John C. Reilly's face as he's saying something; the next, you're looking at his eyebrow, and contemplating just how little hair it has on it, and wondering why that is. The effect, frankly, was rather like taking a sizable slug of high-proof liquor, and having it come directly back up from your stomach, and just being able to catch it all in your mouth before you projectile-vomited it. (I allow that this is a somewhat specialized analogy.) Hence, I cannot say that I found myself even a bit on board with Longworth's later defense: "You could say that 'Cyrus' looks ugly, but that ugliness is an artifact of a working method." What "working method" is meant here? The method of drinking a shitload of coffee before you pick up your video camera, so that your thumb hits the zoom toggle on the handle at pretty much any goddamn time? Because if you tally up the number of zooms in this picture, and examine the contexts in which they manifest themselves, it becomes pretty clear that they really have no compelling reason for being. Here is an instance of a critical defense in which some specificity would have been mighty welcome. The debate over this issue has extended to Twitter, wherein the aforementioned Richard Brody protests the Self Styled Siren's complaints about the film's "unmotivated zooms" by way of making a few snide asides about cinephiles who love old Hollywood (because the Siren loves Old Hollywood, you see), and citing precedents that I don't see as particularly apropos, e.g., "Tag Gallagher tells excellent story of R[ossellini] inventing remote-control zoom. See 'Rise of Louis XIV'--lots of zooms there." And indeed, there are lots of zooms in Rossellini's film, and many of his others, and they vary as much from the zooms in "Cyrus" as they do, say, from Jess Franco's zooms into Lina Romay's pubic area in 1973's "Female Vampire" (a fabulous film in oh so many respects!) or Hong Sang-Soo's largely ineffectual zooms in 2005's "Tale of Cinema" or, for that matter, Hong Sang-Soo's more carefully deployed zooms in 2008's "Night and Day." To object to the hallmark of "Cyrus"' visual one-hesitates-to-call-it-style does not, I insist, make one a fetishist for Old-Hollywood style cinematic "neatness," nor does it make one a Jeremiah-Prokosch style philistine. Yes, Richard, zooms represent a filmmaker's choice. In "Cyrus" the zooms are chosen in a way that alienates the viewer with no appreciable aesthetic payoff. I'm not saying this to be a jerkoff; I am genuinely curious as to what Brody thinks the value of these shots are, and what they "mean," besides being expressions of a filmmaker's choice.
P.S. Richard Brody responded with this:
Here's Chris Fujiwara, in a wonderful piece, "Zooming Through Space" (http://www.hermenaut.com/a18.shtml): "Camera movement is concrete and explores physical space; the zoom is abstract and has to do with a psychologized, relational space that opens up or shuts down." The zooms in "Cyrus" provoke a sense of intimacy and tension, of nervousness and isolation. They're motivated by the directors' sense of mood, their emotional relationships to characters and scenes. The zooms reflect the filmmakers' distinctive feeling for the events they depict, for the texture of life. Which is to say, by their desire to see and to show things a certain way--and that desire is the essence of the cinema. And thankfully the filmmakers didn't have producers who walk around with little rule books in their pockets and ask them what the motivation for their zooms might be. Thinking about movies as closed-off dramas is indeed part of the problem. There is a modern cinema, and there is an ambient classicism--the downside of cinephilia--that resists it.
Although I fail to see how the zoom lens, a staple of '60s television and movies, can be considered a hallmark of "modern cinema" itself (in opposition to "ambient classicism," yet), I recommend the entire discussion.
JE: Having watched this clip -- which shamelessly overuses the infamous "24" push-in/pop-out zoom I have discussed previously, creating a sense of finicky distraction that shifts your attention from what's in front of the lens to what's behind it, for whatever reason that might be -- I would like to smack the directors over the head with a very long zoom lens. But the scene itself indicates the (brain) damage has already been done. This is just embarrassing.
UPDATE (06/22/10): Bill R. weighs in at "The Kind of Face You Hate" with a zoomeriffic Sam Fuller quotation (from "White Dog"), and another apt observation that made me laugh out loud in an "it's funny because it's true" kind of way:
Having not seen "Cyrus" yet, I was only able to, at best, kind of see what he was talking about. Also, not having seen "Cyrus" yet, I was most unwilling to talk about it here at all, because, well, what do I know about it? Then, over the weekend, I was watching "At the Movies," and saw Michael Phillips and A. O. Scott's review of the film. Scott based his entire negative response to "Cyrus" on those zooms, and showed a clip of "Cyrus" to illustrate his point, prefacing the clip by asking Phillips, and the viewer, why the camera was doing what it was doing. What the camera was doing was, in fact, zooming in arbitrarily on John C. Reilly, and then pulling back suddenly, or, when Marisa Tomei enters the scene, zooming in on her. In the case of the Tomei zoom, you might say that, well, she just got there, and the camera wants to isolate her. Which would be fine, if she wasn't already, not only center-frame, but the only thing in the frame at all that you might want, or feel compelled, to look at.
38 Comments
The thing about Kubrick and zoom is that he kept the camera still 98% of the time. It's when zoom meets shakey that things start to get exasperating. It's as if a lot of these new filmmakers aren't watching the films of great directors. You watch any film made by Kubrick, Spielberg, Kurosawa, etc, they all kept the camera on a dolly or a tripod. By the way, how about those beautiful zoom back shots on Barry Lyndon. That's great zooming!
I'm right there with you Alex. There is a big difference between watching the cinematography of a Kubrick movie vs. that of a 160 minute episode of TMZ.
I like the gratuitous zoom!
Sure, I guess sometimes it comes off like a daddy with the camcorder, zooming in just to do something. But overall, I think it's one of those stylistic flourishes that is unique to the medium, even when it exists for its own sake and/or nostalgic or retro purposes.
Ultimately I don't feel like there that big a difference between zooming in and cutting to a closer shot. Either way the world shrinks away and focuses you on one specific thing.
This is a great point. In order to have a variety of shots within a mostly static scene in a verite style film like "Cyrus" the obvious choice is to zoom and not cut. I think most of the reaction against all of the arbitrary zooming is that if we are expecting cuts, the zooms are visually alarming, and so we ask for a reason for the zoom.
So do we treat a zoom like a cut? It seems like the Duplass Brothers already do.
There seems to be a natural aversion to zoom nowadays. sort of Zoom=bad filmmaking. Even if you call it tawdry, what about its sober cousin the slow-imperceptible-zoom? Isn't that a gorgeous device being employed by guys like Tarantino to wondrous effect. I hope someone really reinvents the classic zoom.
My attention keeps zooming in "Emersonon" in the byline. Can we fix that spacing?!
And you should trademark the phrase "wanton zoom." It's perfect!
I mentioned this in one of your Avatar posts but here it goes again: my biggest problem with that film was the "wanton zooms" from long shot to medium shot that were used during some of the establishing shots. The zooms were completely arbitrary, did not follow the stylistic choices of the rest of the film, and pulled me right out and reminded me that I was watching a movie. For me, those zooms were the single worst part of the film. The rest, I could live with.
For comparison, this style of zoom was used to great effect in Battlestar Galactica (as was shaky cam) because it fit the show's overall aesthetic; it felt somewhat as if it were being documented by an embedded film crew (while still feeling as though the camera were objective rather than representing the eye of an individual).
Oops, I guess I ought to stop using my zoom so much. I'd no idea it was so annoying. Plut
My god, that's amateurish. It's like those cheesy reality shows where they push in on someone to highlight their unabashedly superficial emotions before going to a cutaway interview. If you're going to go for the gimmicks on this kind of level to tell me that what I'm watching is important, I'm just gonna smack you for being a liar.
Thanks for the clip, which I'll take as a warning. This style is as fresh as an AT&T ad from 2003.
Or an MTV interview segment from 1988 (during which they'd randomly swap out various film stocks and video formats, too).
The zoom only works if used for comedic effect, and even then it's hit and miss. Black Dynamite was the last movie I saw that used it effectively, and that was referencing blaxploitation movies that did the same thing.
And as great as the reviews for Cyrus are, I can't imagine watching another movie by the Duplass brothers, or any more movies from the mumblecore movement. Skin crawlingly intolerable.
What I actually find most interesting about Brody's argument is his belief that being a "classicist" is inherently bad, and being "modern" is inherently good. When people do that - label the opposition, and themselves, rather than discussing the actual matter at hand - it makes me feel they don't really have a very well grounded argument. Also, since he's using labels, shouldn't it be "post-modern" cinema, rather than just modern?
Anyway, I have to say, I was a little disappointed to see you talk about zooms without talking about Sergio Leone. Surely the man deserves a place in the list of good zoomers?
Excellent points both. So many either/or arguments are really false dilemmas. A zoom has to do with "modern cinema" as much as anamorphic widescreen does -- because it wasn't invented until later on. And speaking of anamorphic widescreen: Leone is indeed a master of both the zoom and 'scope. I wish I had the time to research and put together a video essay on the use and misuse of the zoom lens, particularly in the '60s and '70s...
I'm pretty sure (if memory serves) that this particular effect was used in "In the Loop". I remember being kinda distracted, wondering if this was supposed to be some sort of documentary, news-roomy approach. Luckily the movie was funny.
I don't think any movie in the history of cinema has more zoom in and outs than Death Race (understand that I was able to determine this by catching ten minutes of it on cable).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i69xj7--pJY&feature=related
I think you're conflating zooming with camera tracking.
A zoom is an adjustable telephoto effect done with the lens, with or without actually moving the camera; a dolly shot involves moving the camera (on a dolly!); a tracking shot involves the camera following a moving subject -- on a dolly, or handheld, or with a steadicam...
And if you REALLY wanna be a picky troll, "Steadicam" is a brand name, like Kleenex.
And I learned that from YOU, I think!
True, but like kleenex, xerox, 'scope, google and other brand names, it has fallen into generic usage. I intentionally did not capitalize it because I wasn't referring to an actual Steadicam™ but to any counter-weighted camera-stabilizing mount system (including those made by other companies, like MK-V and Sachtler... and even ones you can make yourself!).
Whoops, my comment about zooming vs tracking was meant to be in response to Just Another Film Buff's comment, but it didn't get threaded properly.
The best zooms I can think of are the ones in Robert Altman films. They're not so slow as to be "subtle"*, but not fast enough that it feels like a home movie; it feels more like you're leaning forward to get a better look at something. In fact, I think that's why they work; the camera isn't zooming for some amateurish effect, like in the "Cyrus" clip, but because it feels like Altman wanted you to see a fascinating detail you might miss otherwise.
The clip from "Cyrus" there is baffling in its random zooms. I found myself wondering, did they plan out how these zooms would look, and when they'd happen? Did they want to make their movie feel like a home video? I can see where that idea might have its use, but I'm not sure that's what the idea was. It really does feel like they're doing it to reject what most people do in their movies, to be unique. Unfortunately, there's a reason that people do these things, and it's not to be mundane; it's because it works so much better than calling attention to your camerawork every few seconds.
* I actually find the "subtle" zooms/dollies, the kind you usually see when a character is revealing something, to be pretty distracting. I find myself watching the corners of the screen to see how slow the camera is moving. Am I the only one?
No, you're not the only one. It's annoying because it's such a cliche.
"Or an MTV interview segment from 1988 (during which they'd randomly swap out various film stocks and video formats, too"
Also known as NATURAL BORN KILLERS.
David Cronenberg once said in American Cinematographer:
"One tool I never use is the zoom lens because it doesn't correspond to my idea of filmmaking. It's just an optical gadget; it's purely practical. I will always prefer moving the camera because I find it physically projects you inside the film's space. Zooming...keeps you outside."
This makes perfect sense for Cronenberg, who's thematically obsessed with physiology. But really, it's also a matter of taste, because the human mind "zooms in" all the time. Sure, arbitrary zooming becomes tiresome after a while, but I can think of many useful applications of the technique. Especially when the canvas you're dealing with has limited resolution, as is the case with television.
I've directed a series of travel shows in which it was our goal to focus on what happens in the moment, as opposed to showing a series of more or less static tableaus. The best way we could achieve this was to step back with the camera and shoot with a tele lens. Zooming back and forth became an essential way to cut in-camera. It allowed us to avoid many set-ups, while the distance made us less obtrusive to what's going on. That's how Altman used the technique.
Any camerawork that draws attention to itself, whether is faux-amateur or robotic spinning rigs is just plain irritating. Anyone who makes an effort to imitate a style of cinematography, rather than choosing how to best frame a scene so we are paying attention to the story and characters, should be smacked. It's like a drummer who launches into a solo for the duration of a song, rather than keeping the beat.
That statement assumes that story and characters are the film's principle concerns, which isn't necessarily true. Indeed, story and characters aren't even necessary elements of a film.
All camerawork draws attention to itself in some way. Otherwise, there would be no cinema, there would just be filmed plays.
The style in that clip reminds me of Firefly/Serenity. The only difference being that it actually works in Firefly, still the greatest television show I've ever seen. But zooms like that have no business being in a low-key film like Cyrus.
I recently had the opportunity to hear a Q&A with the Duplass brothers and briefly spoke one on one with Mark afterward. They talked about their methods for making their films. The actors are allowed to move organically in the scene, in the moment, and they keep the lighting, sound guys, crew, etc out of the way so that they can do that. They don't rehearse beforehand so that everything you're seeing is very fresh and spontaneous.
Whether you think this method produces positive results or not (I love "The Puffy Chair" and enjoyed "Cyrus", despite being a distracted two or three times by the zooming) I think they deserve some respect for having a unique style of working that hasn't been eroded by bigger stars and a bigger budget. Their focus is on the acting, and perhaps they won't be great filmmakers like Kubrick or Altman if they don't evolve visually, but I respect that they've developed a niche for themselves by being true to the way they want to make films.
That is certainly their working method, and the actors seem to enjoy it a lot, too (I heard Marisa Tomei interviewed on NPR and she was quite challenged and engaged by the approach -- basically breaking down the script and then building it back up again in rehearsal). But, of course, it has nothing to do with their trigger-happy zooming, which exists quite independently of anything the actors are doing -- as in the clip above, where the lens pushes in or out at random, sometimes before or after an actor has moved, but never in a way necessary to follow that movement or register an emotional beat. As I say, I find it distracts attention from the characters because it keeps reminding you that somebody is standing there playing with a camera. If they have Brechtian designs, I'd like to know why...
Good point, they weren't always zooming in reaction to the actors.
Zooms are tricky. For me, if I use a zoom while shooting, I'll pretty much use any other technique; it's freeing to just embrace the zoom, the most maligned of all cinematic effects. But by that I don't mean it should be used randomly.
The film that I find has the most effective, fluid dynamism of camera-movements is Fellini's 8 1/2. The only moments I find distracting are the occasional rapid zooms/de-zooms, which were in style at the time (1963).
But one effective zoom in that film is the vision of Claudia Cardinale saying "I come to cleanse, to purify..." which zooms to an off-kilter composition, and I believe the grain of the film-stock "freezes in place" (that happens at other points as well). But that works because it heightens the artificiality of the dream (which the protagonist then wakes up from)
I love a good controlled zoom, it flattens out an image in a uniquely 70's way. Maybe its misplaced nostalgia but I love it and will continue to.
This thread seems excessively bitchy, which is a non-argument I usually wouldn't put out there but I can't help but react to the vibe.
I was curious about these Duplass brothers and was interested in Cyrus so this past weekend I sought out Puffy Chair and Baghead and must say I enjoyed both quite a bit. The style used in both films seems to be right in keeping with the style of the clip above. I feel that the sudden zoom-in's and out's are in keeping with the filmmakers overall approach. The camera work is reacting to what's happening in a spontaneous way. It lends a feeling of immediacy to scenes of people being hurt, open, wanting, whatever. Where normally I would count out a technique like this as something I am not into, I would say that the Duplass Brothers were able to use it in a unique way that tells the story. I usually hate a distorted wide-angle look to things but Wes Anderson pulls it off. I would say I don't like snatch and grab handheld craziness but the Bourne movies work. It's all in how you use it, not the technique itself, and I would say this technique of the brothers gives their films that feeling of 'yes! this is a Duplass' and serves the story and the characters.
So chill out.
I can say this about "Cyrus": it wasn't worth busing an hour to Toronto and getting stuck in the city all day because of the G20 protesters. Anyway, it wasn't the camerawork that annoyed me, it was the musical montages. There are like ten or twelve melancholy montages with quirky/sappy guitar playing over the (in)action.
But overrall I didn't mind it: the acting is good. Jonah Hill turns out to be good at the dramatic stuff.
For me, this style has only really worked in The Office television show, which is specifically evoking the reality show/amateur documentary style replete with "confessionals" and subjects' camera-awareness. In The Office, this style adds. When the zooms have no apparent context, they subtract and distract.
Forget the zoom -- the shakey cam is what ruins these films. Would it really be that difficult to put the camera on a tripod, and move the tripod arm to capture events? I can understand a slight zoom -- zoom has its purpose (remember all those Fulci films with the insane zooms?) and the results can be striking, though I think an axial cut would be more interesting (an axial cut is a jump cut where the camera moves closer -- or further away -- from something when cutting).
Ultimately, the whole "movies with storylines/just people talking" amateur films, or mumblecore if you prefer, is going to have shakey cams and zooms, because that's what's expected. They focus on the pointlessness of life -- a life not interested in art or technique -- and maybe they're saying, "Hey, anyone can make a movie! Just do it! It doesn't matter if you know what you're doing!" -- then again, didn't Warhol and Paul Morrissey do Chelsea Girls like 40 years ago -- which is basically everything this movement is -- but without being even half as interesting?
Then again, nearly every OTHER big indie film coming out nowadays is just a ripoff of the French New Wave. So, it's only understandable... all these "big indie" films are a joke, you have to look deep down in the underground to find the true gems..
It's sad, too, because we live in the most exciting time ever for filmmakers; cameras are so cheap, and it's easy as hell to edit movies and distribute them yourself. Unfortunately, despite a few big names (Ryan Trecartin for example), no one's doing anything particularly noteworthy.
I wish more people would study Jon Jost movies -- now there's a director.
I haven’t seen Cyrus, but I will when it screens here because 1) I think a zoom is a wonderfully stylistic choice of spontaneity who’s disorientating effect can work wonders for a feeling in a film. It's heavily discouraged in film schools as "amateur", and I feel rebelling against that 'rule' is a beautiful gesture. And 2) I am very fond of their first film.
I know Jim Emerson is a fan of Skolimowski, and a great example is Skolimowski’s superb use of it as that impulsive shift between setting/circumstance. I'm just thinking of those brilliant zoom outs in Walkower and Barrier. Beautiful.
Well, I'm a little late on this one, but I've just seen the movie. Frankly, Cyrus is by far the worst movie I've seen this year, but that has nothing to do with the zooming. Actually, I thought the camera was pretty stable and there wasn't that much zooming around. I was looking forward to it after reading all these comments, but except for a few moments here and there, the zooms were ok, although there not shy to use it (I can't see the clip shown with this post since I'm at work and it's blocked, but I guess it's from the beginning, the only moment I thought the zooms were really annoying and superfluous).
In fact, I would say that 90% of the time the zooms were there for a reason, but always the same: to emphasize a reaction of surprise or to point out that something important is happening. Which is pretty lame, the camera is mainly overstating what the actors are already acting (quite well I might say). And that's the main problem with this movie: all the caracters are always explaining themselves over and over in pretentious discussions on the nature of their relationships, when everything is already spill out quite clearly by the acting. And the staging is worst than the zooming: it's essentially some talking heads, two or three persons talking while siting, everything shot in close-up. Is there a less cinematic staging technique than that?
I mean, they should watch some Rohmer before making another movie, he knows how to shoot a conversation: mainly long takes, actors are moving and interacting, moving around the frame, etc. Every shot is different! And he knows when to show the talker and when to show the listener. In Cyrus, like most movies these days, we always see the talker, with a few reaction shots from the listener (ouh, he's angry! ouh, now he's surprised!), but what's the point of showing what we're already hearing, especially when someone is telling the truth and the body language (or rather the face language, since we dont see any other part) doesn't give more information? Why not show the listener then, so that we can have two layers of meaning? The acting in Rohmer is always saying something else than the words, there's an interaction, not a repetition. And his dialogues are always put in a larger canvas, a philosophical one usually, which opens the movie to something more complex than the trivial matters at hand. Cyrus, on the other hand, is pretty irritating with all these "mature conversations" who only resonate in the little microcosm of the movie. And, like someone else pointed out, the melancholy music montages are pretty bad. For me, Cyrus was like a non-movie: no sense of mise en scene, with dialogues overexplaining what little is already obvious in the image (thank God the actors are good! or maybe, if they weren't, the dialogues would have been more useful, stating what they wouldn't have been able to play). Anyway, I think the zoom controversy is besides the point, the real problem is in the script and in the staging, the zooms are only the most ostentatious part of this whole mess.
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