Hue's Blog

Gomorrah

A meditation on violence.

Gomorrah (or Gomorra) is crushing, because it does not need to crush.  From the opening scene in the tanning salon to the last shot of a backhoe carrying bodies aloft, this film is a languid meditation on the power, and powerlessness, of violence.

It is this meditative quality which is so difficult to analyze.  There is a scene in the airport where two principal characters, a corporate criminal and his protege, meet the protege's father.  The father is overwhelmed with pride in his son's success.  The two principal characters leave the father, but the camera doesn't follow.  It lingers on the father as he wrangles his emotions.  It one of many beautiful and a counter-intuitive framing decisions in the film.  One expects that kind of work from a director/cinematographer.  But the director of Gomorrah was Matteo Garrone, and the cinematographer was Marco Onorato.  What could the director have said to the cinematographer to produce this luxurious, non plot-driven camera work?  I couldn't figure it out.  I brought Giles Nuttgens, the cinematographer for Water, Swimfan and my film Saint John of Las Vegas, to see Gomorrah.  He couldn't figure it out, either.

We found our answer buried in the end credits.  The director was listed as the A camera operator.  So the film's look and feel benefited from the collaborative director-cinematographer relationship.  But the instantaneous choice of frame was instinctively the director's.

Links: Wikipedia | IMDB | Netflix | Amazon

A Serious Man

I know what I don't know.

It's been said of Robert Altman that "actors could do whatever they wanted in the sandbox, but it was his sandbox."  In that same vein, I am struggling to describe the sandbox of Joel and Ethan Coen's A Serious Man.  And I am suspicious of my efforts to analyze the components (acting, sound design) because they will be more clever than smart.

Strangely, A Serious Man, a Jewish American story, reminded me of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, a colonial Irish story.  So let me defer to a greater mind, writing about the experience of being a minority in a different time.

"Pity is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the human sufferer.  Terror is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the secret cause." - James Joyce

Links: Wikipedia | IMDB | Fandango | Netflix

  

Video - Prosumer vs RED

I am grateful that we were able to shoot Saint John Of Las Vegas on 35mm film.  But video is an option that any filmmaker should, and will have to, consider.  Byron Shah shot this great test highlighting the surprising strengths of some new and inexpensive cameras.

"We tested 2 DSLRs (professional stills cameras) that shoot HD, the Panasonic Lumix GH1, the Canon 5D Mark 2, and RED (which was included as the control in the experiment).  What we found was that while these small cameras have their limitations (they record a very compressed format that can fall apart easily and they're not really set up as professional cameras so they can be fussy to use) they can, in many situations, shoot lovely images.  They are amazing for night photography, and when using 35mm format lenses render some beautiful pictures. And of course they are small and cheap, fast and light, and fantastic for framing. It's so easy to put the camera exactly where you want it!"

Here is the test.  Thanks, Byron!

Star Wars: Uncut

The New, New Media.

We have no idea what the real impact of social media will be on the film community.  We can get our panties in a bunch over the number of twitter followers, or blog reviews, but we need to get beyond social media as a distribution channel.  People use social media because they reserve the right to have a voice.  This is Generation C, for Create.  I still believe there is a market for ticket sales, DVDs, etc. but the purchasers will part with their money if and when they feel their needs have been addressed.  And those needs are to participate, not just to consume.

So...this fantastic experiment Star Wars: Uncut (thanks, Scott Hoffman.)  People pick their own 15 second clip and remake it according to their liking.  When it's done they'll knit the clips together and have a completely remade Star Wars.  What is it, then?  A fan film?  A new   kind of commentary?

Tarkovsky defined art as "taking a personal truth and making it universal."  Each person working on Star Wars: Uncut is taking fifteen seconds and making it personal.  The parts will be added together into a body which will be universally unerstood.Maybe this is a glimpse at what's in store for us: Social Media = Social Art.

Loves Of A Blonde

We don’t need no stinkin’ master shots.

Basic film coverage involves a master shot and closer detailed shots.  The master shot captures all the action, and all the characters in question.  In confined quarters, the only way for the lens to capture the full range of action is to put the camera in the corner, high and pointing down.  You may not be able to visualize the shot, but you’ve seen it before.  It’s a “nothing” shot – unmotivated by story or feeling, purely expositional.  It lets the air out of the tires, and leaves you flat.

Milos Forman had other ideas for Loves Of A Blonde.  In the classroom scenes, in the dorm room scenes, and amazingly in the dance scene, Forman did not “establish” the space.  In fact, he opened the dance scene by shooting an empty piece of the floor!  Shooting a scene with no master, with no safety net, without any guarantee that the shots will cut together, is a risk.  But on tight schedules, with limited set-ups, it can pay off, and save time on lighting a whole room just to put the camera high up in the corner.  Giles Nuttgens (cinematographer) and I were emboldened by Loves Of A Blonde to shoot several scenes in Saint John of Las Vegas with no master, and it worked.

Links: Wikipedia | IMDB | Netflix | Amazon

The Informant!

If you can’t trust the narrator, who can you trust?

When we hear a disembodied narrator, we take it as the voice of God.  Does anyone doubt Ray Leotta’s constant narration in Goodfellas?  Sissy Spacek, in Badlands, has a distorted perspective, but we trust and believe her.  In The Usual Suspects, Kevin Spacey may be lying to Chazz Palminteri, but he is still omniscient and in control.  Even in an extreme case, like Last Year in Marienbad…okay, that’s too extreme.  I will limit myself to films I have a chance of following, narratively.

In Steven Soderbergh's The Informant!, Matt Damon narrates the story, but we doubt him immediately.  At first, his apparent delusion seems tangential to the story.  We believe his facts while we doubt his analysis of those facts.  But eventually we can’t believe him at all.  And only in the end, when he is finally confronted with his delusion, does his narration synch up with reality.

The result is a marvelous audio/visual version of an Eisenstein montage – we hear the narration, we see the events, and we create a story that reconciles the difference between the two.

Links: Wikipedia | IMDB | Fandango | Netflix

Reservoir Dogs

It's about the work.

Writers use movie dialogue to advance the plot, reveal character or dole out information.  Work-specific talk is used sparingly to cement the film's authenticity – like a dab of super-glue.  But Quentin Tarantino doesn’t dab Reservoir Dogs with work talk.  He slathers it.  The opening diatribe about waitresses earning their tips, Steve Buscemi and Harvey Keitel in the bathroom, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn and Lawrence Tierney in the office...the movie is full of guys talking about, and relishing in, their work.

Each one of our professions has its own lexicon, which we learn and practice like a secret code.  We use that language to distinguish ourselves, measure competence, establish hierarchy and build rapport.  We enjoy the opportunity to sound intelligent and competent.  At night, go to any restaurant that caters to a business crowd, and listen to the dinner conversation.  Off the clock, out of the office, uncompensated, what are most people talking about?  Work.

But when we work, we are acting.  None of us were born CPAs or nurses, or in the case of Reservoir Dogs, criminals.  We learn our profession and its language at the same time.  We audition our identities in meetings, in presentations, and in the break room.  We perfect our work persona.  So when Steve Buscemi talks about being a professional, we relate to him as an actor, playing a character, playing an actor.

Links: Wikipedia | IMDB | Netflix | Amazon