The Director's Six Senses

by Simone Bartesaghi

  5 Atonement (2007). This sweeping English drama, based on the book by Ian McEwan, follows the lives of young lovers Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley) and Robbie Turner (James McAvoy). When the couple are torn apart by a lie constructed by Cecilia’s jealous younger sister, Briony (Saoirse Ronan), all three of them must deal with the consequences. Robbie is the hardest hit, since Briony’s deception results in his imprisonment, but hope for Cecilia and her beau increases when their paths cross during World War II.

  6 City of God (2003). In the poverty-stricken favelas of Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s, two young men choose different paths. Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues) is a budding photographer who documents the increasing drug-related violence of his neighborhood. José “Zé” Pequeno (Leandro Firmino da Hora) is an ambitious drug dealer who uses Rocket and his photos as a way to increase his fame as a turf war erupts with his rival, “Knockout Ned” (Seu Jorge). The film was shot on location in Rio’s poorest neighborhoods.

  7 Saving Private Ryan (1998). Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) takes his men behind enemy lines to find Private James Ryan, whose three brothers have been killed in combat. Surrounded by the brutal realties of war, while searching for Ryan, each man embarks upon a personal journey and discovers his own strength to triumph over an uncertain future with honor, decency, and courage.

  8 Blade Runner (1982). Directed by Ridley Scott. Sound editor Peter Pennel. Deckard (Harrison Ford) is forced by the police boss (M. Emmet Walsh) to continue his old job as Replicant Hunter. His assignment: eliminate four escaped Replicants from the colonies who have returned to Earth. Before starting the job, Deckard goes to the Tyrell Corporation and he meets Rachel (Sean Young), a Replicant girl he falls in love with.

  4.

  Smell

  Directing Actors

  Olfaction:

  also known as olfactics, is the sense of smell.

  This sense is mediated by specialized sensory cells of the nasal cavity of vertebrates, which can be considered analogous to sensory cells of the antennae of invertebrates. In humans, olfaction occurs when odorant molecules bind to specific sites on the olfactory receptors.

  (Source: Wikipedia)

  How to Smell a Lie (Bad Performances)

  I have to admit, I love this chapter. It’s really a difficult one because we are dealing with the intangibles of performance. That’s why the sense of smell that can be so strong but so elusive — it’s there one moment and then is gone — is the perfect metaphor for the performance (also, isn’t it true that we say bad performances can really “stink up” a theater?).

  When you study a new language as a foreigner, some of the most interesting parts are the figures of speech — the ways of saying things that are specific for that language and that culture. Did you know that the capital I in English is unique, in Italian io is never capitalized unless it’s at the beginning of a sentence? According to language and culture scholars, this is because of the emphasis that the Anglo-Saxon language and culture give to the person as a self-responsible being.

  Well, when I heard for the first time that someone can “smell a lie” I thought it was great way to put it. In Italian we say “Puzza di bruciato,” “it smells like burned.”

  Why am I talking about lies related to performance? After all a performance is always a lie, there is nothing real there, right? As I stated in the first chapter about use of lenses to capture reality, as soon as it’s captured, it’s not real anymore, it’s not the truth anymore because I manipulated the reality through framing, lenses, distortion, etc.

  So, if pretty much everything is a lie, it should always smell like it, right?

  Not exactly. The reason why movies are so popular is because they allow us to immerse ourselves in an alternate reality and to suspend our disbelief, and accept what’s on the screen as real. Whether it’s a woman and a man falling in love, a dog who has a superpower, or a robot in a galaxy far far away, we must recognize in these characters human elements, behaviors, and feelings. We need to believe that they are us.

  If what happens on the screen doesn’t feel right, if the behavior of the characters seems forced, then we snap out of the movie and the whole immersive experience is gone.

  It doesn’t matter if it’s sci-fi, or a Western, a drama, or a slapstick comedy. Once the genre, the tone, and the rules of the world are set, we can accept that a DeLorean can travel through time (Back to the Future), we can believe that man can fly (Superman), and lawyers can stop lying (Liar Liar).

  But if the filmmaker breaks his or her own rules and the characters behave in a not-believable way, then we are out of it.

  I still remember my reaction when Neo, from the Matrix trilogy, was able to fly at the end of the first movie. Of course, in the Matrix world you can do anything, it’s your imagination that will allow you to do it, right? But when in the second movie Neo was able to stop the machines also in the real world just by raising his hands in front of them, then he is now like Superman and I didn’t suspend my disbelief for Superman and… I was out of the movie. It’s as if I signed a contract with the movie and now that contract was breached.

  I recently saw a movie called Fury1 with Brad Pitt. An interesting concept not fully realized that throws me out of my suspension of disbelief with just one line of dialogue, an inappropriate, unreal question that a character asks at the beginning of the movie: “Where is the front?” Wait: what? You are in the middle of Germany at the end of the Second World War! It’s okay to want to portray a naïve, inexperienced soldier, but this is too much. This character is too stupid to be alive. Then I’m out and I watched the rest of the movie with my sense of disbelief very alert. It wasn’t fun.

  Figure 4.1

  As director you must be able to smell the lies of the performances. You must be able to see that what your actors are portraying is not right nor real.

  After all we are trying to represent the truth.

  Let’s take for granted that the script and story are believable (this is not a book on screenwriting, there are plenty of them around, my suggestions are listed in the reference section at the end of the book). Now, your task as director is to make sure that the way the lines are said, the way the characters are moving around the environment and use the props is believable.

  How to do that?

  There are three things you should start doing:

  Observe: study behavior, observe the real world, and remember how people behave. Observe how you and your spouse/partner or siblings behave.

  Use the collection of pictures to see how people portray events and situations. Do you remember the images you’ve found while searching for the word conflict?

  Talk to the actors: ask them if they felt natural what they were performing. Sometimes I notice that actors have an instinct to do something but they restrain themselves because it is not in the script or you just asked them to do something different. Let them trust their instincts and see where this leads them.

  During the blocking rehearsal let them try, follow their instinct. You have your ideas, your storyboard, your shot list. You already have seen this movie in your mind for quite some time now. It’s time to see what others can bring to the table. Let them play and if you see something interesting, you incorporate their ideas. If it doesn’t feel right or you really need them in a certain position for a certain shot, explain what you need.

  Directing Actors and Directing Beings

  Recently I’ve found two very interesting video interviews from directors Christopher Nolan and Steven Spielberg.

  Christopher Nolan describes actors as “lie detectors.” Good ones are able to understand very quickly if you are trying to trick them. The classic example is when, in order to save time and avoid resetting the light, a director asks the actor to find a motivation within the character to move into a certain position. The conclusion is, let the actor understand your predicament a
nd he will work hard to help you; try to outsmart him and you’ll find your relationship and the trust that comes with it going down a very bumpy road.

  Steven Spielberg once talked about how he directed the actors on Close Encounters of the Third Kind.2 He points out that he had to be a different director depending upon the actor with whom he was dealing. While for Richard Dreyfuss everything was coming from external input, for Melinda Dillon, a method actor, everything was coming from an emotional internal experience.

  Figure 4.2

  I’ve found these interviews very profound because they pointed out one big truth: actors are human beings who are passionate about their craft. It’s important to create a relationship based on trust and also respect their methods.

  Inspiration for Realistic Blocking

  It’s important to remember that blocking must look natural and real, even if it’s forced by camera or location factors.

  The first time a teacher talked to me about blocking, I didn’t understand at all what he meant. The exercise was about shooting a page-and-a-half scene, with two characters and one camera position. I could pan and tilt but not move the camera either handheld or on a dolly. Okay, kind of easy. Well, wait, there was more. We were told we must have at least one close-up for each character.

  Now, how could I get a close-up for each character if I could not get closer with the camera? The character would have to come close to the camera and then move away in order to give space to the other character.

  At the beginning it seemed a silly exercise. Then it became an impossible exercise. And then it became an Illuminating one!

  Blocking in front of the camera means that the size of the character can change, without the necessity of moving the camera. All the focus was on this question: How might these two characters behave naturally and realistically, exposing their story to the lenses in a way that the audience could understand them and feel for them? The answer was easy: through well-thought-out blocking.

  The sources of inspiration are:

  The script: of course, if in the script it says that a character is dressing, or picking up a phone, or sitting on the couch, this is the first source of inspiration for the blocking. It’s the bare bones part of it.

  Personal and work related activities: these are all the action (“the business”) that the character can do in the environment where the scene happens. Look how incredibly realistic the blocking of a West Wing episode is (the first big “walk and talk” of the pilot is poetry).

  Figure 4.3

  Figure 4.4

  Emotional state of each character: every character is living a personal moment. Whether it is based on the expectation of the outcome of the scene or other elements that are affecting his mind and his behavior, it’s important to consider these aspects. As in this amazing episode again from The West Wing called “Two Cathedrals.”3 In one of the flashbacks we discover that Jed Bartlet has a way to involuntarily show when he makes his mind up about something, via the line “You stuck your hands in your pockets, you looked away and smiled.” By the end of the episode, when we see him doing exactly the same thing about a very important decision, we won’t need to hear him saying it, as his behavior speaks volumes.

  Figure 4.5

  Figure 4.6

  Emotional relationship: social, personal, intimate. These are the most common labels of the space that surrounds us. Based on the emotional relationship between the characters we can imagine an escalation in the way they can invade each other’s spaces. This not only considers sexual attraction, but also attitude and use of the space as a tool to achieve what they want. A threatened whisper into somebody’s ear might be more powerful because it already shows how one of the characters is willing to break into a space that he shouldn’t be violating. One last example from The West Wing. In this scene from the episode “Five Votes Down,”4 Josh Lyman confronts Congressman Wick about an important vote. Notice how Josh walks into the room and controls the conversation until the congressman finally fights back. When Josh says, “I’m so tired of Congress I could vomit,” he is physically nauseated and distances himself from his opponent. The congressman doesn’t dare to close the gap between the two of them until Josh gives in. The blocking clearly represents the fight over power between the two characters.

  Figure 4.7

  Figure 4.8

  Figure 4.9

  Figure 4.10

  Figure 4.11

  Figure 4.12

  * * *

  1 Fury (2014). In April 1945, the Allies are making their final push in the European theater. A battle-hardened Army sergeant named Don “Wardaddy” Collier (Brad Pitt), leading a Sherman tank and a five-man crew, undertakes a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Hopelessly outnumbered, outgunned, and saddled with an inexperienced soldier (Logan Lerman) in their midst, Wardaddy and his men face overwhelming odds as they move to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany.

  2 Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Science-fiction adventure about a group of people who attempt to contact alien intelligence. Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) witnesses an unidentified flying object, and even has a “sunburn” from its bright lights to prove it. Roy refuses to accept an explanation for what he saw and is prepared to give up his life to pursue the truth about UFOs.

  3 The West Wing, Season 2, Episode 22, “Two Cathedrals.” Written by Aaron Sorkin, directed by Thomas Schlamme.

  4 The West Wing, Season 1, Episode 4, “Five Votes Down.” Written by Aaron Sorkin, directed by Michael Lehmann.

  5.

  Taste

  Style exploration

  Taste:

  gustatory perception, or gustation is the sensory impression of food or other substances on the tongue and […] determines flavors of food or other substances. (Source: Wikipedia)

  Exploration and Discovery

  Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to position your tongue on a piece of film or a CCD sensor. The kind of taste we are talking about here is “an individual’s personal and cultural patterns of choice and preference.” In other words, taste is how you feel about what is or isn’t beautiful or proper.

  Part of your growth as a filmmaker is developing your own taste criteria for judgment. Often taste is confused with vision, but, as we will discover in the next chapter, vision is an entirely different beast.

  Ron Howard, the Academy Award–winning director of A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man, and Apollo 13, once said:

  You know directors, some of them — some of us are sweethearts, some of us are jerks, some of us are talkative and some are very quiet. None of that really matters very much — although, you know, I always think it’s nice to be decent to people, but that’s me. It’s not imperative. The big thing is taste — taste and judgment. That’s what it’s all about. It’s understanding, you know, what exists in the possibilities in the story you’re interested in telling, and how many of those details can you capture, how can you sequence them in the editing. What does that add up to?1

  I completely agree that directing is a matter of taste but still, what does that phrase mean: “You must have taste.”?

  I might like something the majority doesn’t like, something that is different. Does this mean that my taste is wrong? Can a person’s taste be “wrong”?

  I know that I love lasagna and hate cabbage and, besides my mother, nobody can tell me I’m wrong. It’s my own taste.

  When we are talking about movies, you don’t have that much freedom.

  You can still freely talk about your taste and use it to make creative decisions but there are some guidelines that would be helpful to follow.

  The fact that we are not directly involved in the consumption of our own product forces us to consider not only our own taste but the audience’s as well.

  I want to be specific here. We are not talking about marketing or distribution strategies.
Lots of very bad movies have been made by trying to please an audience’s taste in a cynical manner.

  Here we are purely talking about enjoyment of the experience and the best use of communication skills. As we learned in a previous chapter there are methods and rules that, after more than a hundred years of filmmaking, we know are effective. Lighting scheme, camera movement, and crossing the line are just a few examples.

  How can you discover your own personal taste, and how can you sharpen your sense of it?

  Taste in Stories

  The first step is obvious: figure out your own true taste in movies — what you do and don’t like.

  Make a simple list of your favorite movies. I know, sometimes this can be very tough, but be honest and don’t let the most recent movie you saw be the first one just because it’s easy to remember. Write down just ten titles. While you are making this list, note the genre of the movie and the central story element that seems to be the key for you in each movie.

  Here is my list, in no particular order:

  Star Wars (sci-fi) — hero’s journey

  Dead Poets Society (drama) — coming of age

  American Beauty (drama) — never too late to be coming of age