Cinema- Concept & Practice

by Edward Dmytryk

  The paradox here is that almost all the “reaction” close-ups show no reaction,- they could have been frozen frames of still photographs. True reactions are rarely seen, only the end results, fixed expressions such as might be found on a placard illustrating “joy,” “fear,” “anger,” for example. The transitions from curiosity to doubt, to derision, to joy, take place offscreen while the viewer’s attention is on the machine, the young man who turns the crank, or the anxious commissar. When the viewer’s attention is returned to the peasants the desired changes in emotional attitudes have already taken place. But, contrived or not, the sequence works. Creative editing, a skill at which Eisenstein had few equals, provides the movement which infuses the static scenes with a collective life.

  This technique permeates Eisenstein’s work, and is at the root of his system of montage. Ivan the Terrible is a gallery of portraits and tableaux. So, to a great extent, is Alexander Nevsky. The technique may have been developed to deal with the non-actors he so often used. After all, the art of screen acting is in the listening and in the resulting reaction, not in the pose or the pretense, and few amateurs, or long-time theater actors, for that matter, can handle it.

  For a more modem use of close shot reactions let us examine a series of cuts made by film editor Owen Marks in Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca.* At the piano in Rick’s Cafe Américain, Sam (Dooley Wilson) starts to sing “As Time Goes By,” obviously an old favorite. After four bars there is a cut to a large close-up of Lisa (Ingrid Bergman).

  Shot Length in seconds Total

  1. C.U. Lisa. 27 27

  2. Full shot, Rick (Humphrey Bogart). 7 34

  He enters the room—reacts—heads for Sam.

  3. C.U. Sam. 2½ 36½

  He continues singing, oblivious of Rick.

  * * *

  * * *

  Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in a scene from Casablanca, a Warner Brothers-First National Picture.

  4. Dolly shot, Rick. 5 41½

  He reaches Sam, who warns him with a look.

  Rick looks off; sees:

  5. C.U. Lisa. 3 44½

  She is looking at Rick (offscreen).

  6. C.U. Rick. 3 47½

  A slight reaction. He continues looking at Lisa (offscreen).

  7. Two shot—Rick and Sam. 2 49½

  Sam beats a hasty retreat.

  8. C.U. Lisa. 2 51½

  Continues looking at Rick (offscreen).

  The mood and the situation are interrupted by a full shot cut-away to others, who are then panned over to Lisa’s table, and the sequence is off on another tack.

  Before this series of eight cuts the viewer has learned only that Lisa knows Sam and his boss, Rick. There has been no information of a personal nature, no exposition or explanation; he only knows that Sam, for some undetermined reason, is wary of Lisa, and has lied about Rick’s presence in the cafe. This brief section hinted at an awkward earlier relationship, nothing more. When Sam, at Lisa’s urgent request, starts singing what is obviously a meaningful song, we see the first cut of the series, a large close-up of Lisa, angled out 45 degrees to the left of camera center. She does not react sharply, she does not “make a face.” Her eyes glisten with a hint of tears, but only a hint. With virtually no change, the cut runs for 27 seconds—and accomplishes a great deal.

  The length of the shot is extremely important. It gives the viewer time—time to start making sense out of a puzzling, nonexpository situation. He becomes aware that the song, which has not been previously heard in the film, probably falls into the “our song” category. He recognizes Lisa’s pensive expression as something more than mere nostalgia. On the basis of that expression and that song he begins to sort out the hints and put them together—a superb example of encouraging the viewer to think, of drawing him into the story, of creating an active participant out of a passive spectator.

  The second cut runs 7 seconds. The time has no special significance. 7 seconds is how long it takes for Rick to enter the room, become aware that Sam is singing a particular song, let his demeanor inform the viewer that it has a special meaning for him, and then to exit the shot, with determination, toward Sam, who is offscreen right.

  Cut 3, 2½ seconds long, is a close shot of Sam, singing. It is used here as a filler to get Rick (offscreen) across the room for the next cut. It also serves to inform the viewer that Rick’s attention is only on Sam; he is not yet aware of any unusual presence. A shot of Lisa at this point would have been more than premature; it would have destroyed the drama of the situation and weakened the emotional build-up.

  Cut 4, a waist-figure dolly shot, 5 seconds long, brings Rick into the piano. With suppressed anger he starts to speak to Sam (the only bit of dialogue in the series) but stops in mid-sentence, halted by the singer’s expression. Sam’s eyes shift toward offscreen right. Rick’s eyes follow Sam’s look, then focus intensely on something or someone offscreen. Although there has been no set-up holding both principals in the same shot, nor will there be, the viewer understands that Rick has caught sight of Lisa.

  Cut 5 is a large close-up of Lisa. It is 3 seconds long. It is not shot from Rick’s point of view, though it serves as one; it is the viewer’s point of view. Lisa is looking at Rick, offscreen left, and even though she has not been seen spotting Rick, the viewer will take for granted that she has been watching him since he entered the room. There is no movement of Lisa’s face, only tears in her eyes; eyes which say everything the viewer needs or wants to know, and 3 seconds is all the time he needs to absorb it. Just when the viewer looks for Rick’s reaction—he gets it.

  Cut 6, a large, matching close-up of Rick, looking camera right, eyes fixed on Lisa (offscreen) is also 3 seconds long. It is not 3 seconds long to match the previous close-up, but because it takes that long for Rick to show surprise, then a subtle and quickly suppressed disapproval. When the reaction is complete, so is the shot.

  Cut 7, a two shot of Rick and Sam, catches the singer already moving the piano and himself out of the picture. Only 2 seconds are needed to indicate Sam’s exit, which clears the way for the dramatic scene the viewer fully expects will follow. Sam stares off at Lisa throughout the shot.

  Cut 8 is a close-up of Lisa, actually a continuation of the shot used for cut 5. She continues to regard Rick for 2 seconds. But before the situation can be pursued, the scene and the mood are disrupted by a cut-away to a new set-up with other characters.

  This series of cuts, aesthetically quite restrained and extremely economical, is as fine an example of a truly unique facet of film-making, the close-up reaction, as can be found in any film. It is also a perfect example of the art of getting information across with subtlety and indirection. And it addresses one aspect of film theory, the attempt to arrive at structural formulas. Here, there is no set formula, no “painting by the numbers,” no “sets of three,” no sets of any kind, actually, and no rules except the first rule of film editing: Each cut shall run long enough, and just long enough, to deliver its message. It is interesting that Lisa is seen only twice after Rick’s entrance. It is enough.

  Although more than half an hour of the film has elapsed before Rick and Lisa come face to face, and nothing in that 30 minutes has informed the viewer of a previous relationship, it takes less than one minute of largely close-up reaction to let him know that the two have shared a deep and memorable love at some (for now) unknown time in the past.

  A sequence of this kind, which contains no obvious or broad reactions, yet says a great deal through what filmmakers call “looks,” must take advantage of only the finest screen acting; acting that isn’t “acting,” where the eyes tell the emotional story though the face barely moves. A person off the street, however willing, or an actor conditioned to read the lines, however beautifully, will rarely fill the bill.

  A shorter series of over-shoulder close-ups from The Young Lions illustrates the point in a different context. Hope (Hope Lange) is visiting her husband, Noah (Montgomery Clift) in an army prison wher
e he is being detained for going AWOL. Seated, they face each other through a heavy glass partition, and talk through a speaker system. Because of this arbitrary positioning, the sequence was shot in a series of over-shoulder shots, each strongly favoring one character or the other. After a few cuts in which they speak briefly of Noah’s predicament and the difficult decision he must make concerning the army, he pauses.

  The over-shoulder shot is one of film’s most useful angles. Montgomery Clift and Hope Lange in a scene from The Young Lions, a 20th Century-Fox film.

  1. Over-shoulder close shot, Noah. 7½ seconds.

  He studies Hope curiously, then speaks, “Hope, stand up.…”

  2 O.S.C.S., Hope. 8 seconds.

  She looks at Noah uncertainly, hesitates.

  Again, he says, “Stand up!” She rises slowly, until her head is out of the shot.

  3. O.S.C.S., Noah. 2½ seconds.

  His face lights up. “Honey.…”

  He starts up.

  4. O.S. two shot—Noah and Hope. 5 seconds.

  As he continues to rise, “How long is it?”

  In only 18 seconds, and no on-the-nose dialogue, information important enough to influence a vital decision is given through eye-contact in separate close shots. The viewer knows that Noah will voluntarily return to his unit and its brutal captain.

  In cut 1, 7Vi seconds long, Noah studies Hope’s face and has a hunch. His “Stand up” is followed immediately by cut 2, an 8 second over-shoulder close shot of Hope. She hesitates, feeling he’s had enough trouble. Noah repeats, “Stand up!” Her expression is noncommittal as, facing full front, she rises slowly until her head is out of the shot, and the camera dwells briefly on her midsection. Since she wears a shapeless black dress and a light top coat, no stomach bulge is evident, but the fact that her head, usually the center of attention, is allowed to leave the frame while the camera remains on her torso, makes it possible to deliver a clear message.

  Cut 3, an over-shoulder close shot of Noah, is a little more than 2½ seconds long; just long enough for him to break into a beaming grin and jump up to join her in a longer, standing shot. As he moves he starts his next line, “Honey.. which is completed in cut 4, a loose over-shoulder two shot, 5 seconds long. His line “How long is it?” and her answer “Five months” only confirm what the viewer has just learned. It is simply the icing on the cake. Hope’s subtle expression and the unrevealing but informative shot of her stomach has blown her secret by the end of cut 3. Again, no structure or rhythmic effects. The rhythm of the scene is in the staging, the playing, and in the film editor’s judgment of just how much information a viewer needs and gets from every cut, and in his superior instinct for the viewer’s limit of forbearance.

  These three scenes demonstrate the image’s superior potential for dramatizing a scene, and the opportunity it offers the viewer to think along with the film’s characters. A brilliant line of dialogue can evoke a viewer’s admiration but it will not allow the time needed to analyze it, since more dialogue will nearly always intervene. But a silent shot, or one with purely supporting dialogue, will encourage the viewer to interpret, to think, as the scene unfolds, and thus more fully grasp its theme and its emotional thrust.

  Notes

  * At a seminar I shared with Jean Renoir, I was amused and a little surprised to hear him plead ignorance of the esoteric nomenclature the film students threw at him. I was also pleased that we were in the same boat.

  * Casablanca can hardly be called modem, but nothing in the last forty or more years can be called a better example.

  8

  The Art of Separation

  An interesting aspect of the evolution of filmmaking is the speed with which viewers have assimilated the changing conventions of the craft. Creative filmmakers once felt compelled to move carefully when dealing with innovative techniques lest they lead to confusion. Now they must use all their cunning just to keep abreast of the average viewer. Even obvious paradoxes of a medium sired by incongruity and bom of contradiction are taken in stride. The most casual filmgoer accepts the fact that the “moving picture” is an illusion, a succession of tiny transparencies, no more than an inch square, which, at the instant of their projection on the screen must be absolutely still, and that the giant reflections on the flat screen are merely two-dimensional reproductions of people and things. However, overriding all this is the viewer’s willingness to assume that these reflections are three-dimensional, and more real than most “live” representations.

  Some of the more intriguing inconsistencies are those of visual dysfunction. One of the incongruities that help to individuate the medium is brought out in the example detailed in Chapter 7. The apparent inconsistency is this: In a scene enbracing two people it is not necessary to establish them in a two shot or a master in order to inform the viewer that they are, in fact, in each other’s presence. Indeed, the cinematic separation of the two will always draw the viewer closer to them as individuals and as a pair. The contradiction may need a little explication.

  In the Casablanca excerpt, the paths of Rick and Lisa cross for the first time in the film, an event the viewer has been anticipating. It would seem dramatically logical that here, of all places, the two should be shown in an inclusive set-up to establish their positions relative to each other. Yet, in this short sequence they are not seen together at all, for good and sufficient reasons.

  First, the long close-up of Lisa which gives the viewer time to put things together also establishes the song, “As Time Goes By,” as a motivating factor in the sequence. When Rick enters the room in a full shot, hesitates, and looks offscreen right, the viewer knows that there are two principals, Sam and Lisa, in that direction, and to remove any ambiguity a routine cut would have shown Sam as the object of Rick’s look. But here, creative editing assumed that the viewer would accept the song, and therefore the singer, as the focus of Rick’s attention. The assumption rendered the cut-away redundant, and the shot stays with Rick through his look-off, his angry reaction, and his exit from the set-up.

  However, the “filler” close shot of Sam which follows and serves to give Rick time to cross the room (offscreen) eliminates any possibility of confusion. It also intensifies the viewer’s emotional involvement by postponing, if only for a few seconds, the anticipated confrontation.

  (It is apropos to note here that in a well-constructed, well-edited film, a cut introduced for one purpose will often serve other purposes as well, sometimes to the editor’s pleasant surprise. The cut of Sam, inserted to bring Rick across the room in less than “real” time, also functions as a point of view shot and a suspense-building hiatus. One would be hard-pressed to say which purpose is actually the most important.)

  When Rick does see Lisa, she is not shown in the traditional point of view shot which, following the rules of film perspective, would be an angle closer in size to the two shot of Rick and Sam; she is shown in a huge close-up, a head. Strictly speaking, this shot does not show the viewer what Rick sees, but what the viewer sees Rick looking at. It is the viewer’s point of view, not Rick’s, and its purpose is to extract from the viewer an emotional reaction quite apart from, and possibly contrary to, that which Rick feels; to evoke the viewer’s response to the emotion in Lisa’s eyes. If the viewer is not touched and, at this point, does not want more than anything else to see Rick and Lisa together, there is no point in continuing the film.

  If asked why he cut a sequence in this fashion, a creative cutter would cite no rules; he would probably answer, “It just seemed the right thing to do.” But in analytical circles, the Casablanca excerpt would be seen as a close relative of the technique known as “separation”; a cutting procedure most frequently employed in sequences of extended dialogue. The number of characters involved is usually two, but it can vary; a sequence in The Carpetbaggers moves to its climax in a series consisting of 14 consecutive closeups of four separate characters,* but this would be considered somewhat uncommon. The functions of the procedure also
vary. It is used in solving problems of pace, of rhythm, and of emphasis, but the only factors to be considered here are the engagement and the participation of the viewer.

  The late Viennese architect, Adolph Loos, wrote, “The work of art is the private affair of the artist. The house is not.” A slight variation makes an ideal motto for the filmmaker: “The creative quality of a film is the private affair of the filmmaker. The film is not.” A film which pleases its audience may please its maker, but the film made only to please the maker and interest a few theorists is a total waste of time. It is essential to engage the viewers in this particular work of art, and the only way to judge the extent of their engagement is to measure their participation in the film’s close-ups.

  Let us set up an imaginary sequence in which two characters are holding a conversation. As it heats up dramatically, we start cutting alternatively from a close-up of one character (a), to a close-up of the other (b), and back to (a) again. The number of consecutive closeups varies with the values of the scene: sometimes only two or three are used, but a conversation of some length or importance may require a good many more. The succession of close-ups may be interrupted; a group of five or six close-ups may be followed by a fuller shot for a change of rhythm, emphasis, or position, then the (a), (b), (a), (b) series may be resumed. Occasionally, a long series of close-ups will be sustained, but the practice is exceptional. At one time it was considered proper to arrange cuts in multiples of three, and in a very short scene that is still a common practice. But for an extended sequence that convention is now deemed archaic, and the number of close-ups is mandated solely by the dramatic needs of the scene.

  As the analysis of the Casablanca excerpt showed, a close-up is rarely a true point of view shot (unless the characters are standing nose to nose, and then a very close profile two shot is more effective). Although each separate close-up in a “separation” series is technically the other participant’s POV each functions at a much higher level when it is also the viewer’s POV—in other words, when the viewer feels the character he watches is speaking to him as well, and that he is directly involved in the verbal exchange and the emotional development. To be sure, a great deal depends on the quality of the material and the personalities and talents of the actors, but the size of the shot and the focus of the actors’ attention also plays an important part. The viewer’s engagement is roughly proportional to the size of the close-up and the direction of the actor’s “look.” The most effective angle can be within 2 or 3 degrees of camera center, when the actor is looking almost into the viewer’s eyes, although it is usually a little wide of that mark.