The Cinematography Discussion #1 (1 Viewer)

[Seth Paxton]

The square-on shot of the truck approaching conveys a sense of purpose and determination.

Agree with that too. This sort of shot of cars/trucks is used all the time for that effect. Isn't it funny how by simply shooting an action from the correct angle a totally different vibe can be produced. I'd add that it also often conveys intimidation to the audience.

 

[Mike Broadman]

Great posts, Seth. I figured that any discussion of cinematography would call in direction. I'm still not clear on how the two are exactly seperated, but I do understand it's different depending on the film-makers.
But I gotta ask one favor.

The use of the mise-en-scene to imply character movement within the diagetic world.

Can you please translate this? I undertood "The use of..." and then I got lost.

 

[Seth Paxton]

I misspelled diegetic as diagetic, sorry.

mise-en-scene - the setting, props, costumes, placement of characters within the scene, movement of these things within the shots

diegetic - the film world, as opposed to the real world. I have heard it most commonly used to describe sounds/music in a film - the score being non-diegetic while music being listened to by characters in the film is diegetic.

Characters cannot hear non-diegetic sound/music.

From the book "Film Art: An Introduction" by Bordwell/Thompson, pg 305

The total world of the story action is sometimes called the film's diegesis (the Greek word for "recounted story").

 

[Allen Hirsch]

Good points, Seth.

I've discovered a few similiar cases where the DP, or sometimes even the film editor, have had major roles in staging and even plot points (probably based on very good relationships with the Director), from listening to commentaries on DVDs. It may be the director's vision, and it's ultimately his/her responsibility, but it really is a collaborative effort that usually garners the best result.

 

[JohnRice]

Thus to the layman they see something that looks like you are really there (lighting, colors, etc are "correct") and they take it for granted as just "pointing the camera".

Seth,

I just can't get across how true that is. First, when you are talking about "reality," the viewer has a frame of reference. When you become more "abstract" and deviate from "reality," the viewer no longer has a frame of reference and the walls fall down, leaving the photographer with more freedom and often a much less difficult task.

Film also doesn't "perceive" anything. It is remarkably mindless, since it has no mind, memory or emotions. A photographer has to "think like film" and know how to get the film to show us what we perceive.

Thanks for the comments, Seth. I was wondering where you were.

I hope folks didn't miss the Roger Ebert review of this film I linked to in my last post. I don't think I've ever seen him gush like that.

 

[Mark Pfeiffer]

FWIW, here's my review of The Man in the Moon, for those unfamiliar with the title. It's a winning family movie.

 

[JohnRice]

Nice review, Mark, and thanks for the link.

Even though it is usually referred to that way, I see calling The Man in the Moon a "Family Movie" or "Chick Flick" (something I am guilty of) is kind of like referring to 2001 as a "Sci-Fi Movie." While it fits, it somehow sells it short.

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

I wouldn't call this film a "chick flick" for the same reasons I would call other coming of age films where boys are involved a "guy" or "boy flick".
~Edwin

 

[Gabe D]

I wouldn't call this film a "chick flick" for the same reasons I would call other coming of age films where boys are involved a "guy" or "boy flick".

No, those are chick flicks too.

 

[JohnRice]

The reason for this preface is because I question whether the fantasy style used in the film is appropriate.

This is part of what I like. I realize they stuck to it faitlfully, maybe at the expense of impact, but I also think it was intentional. In the end, you may disagree with the decision, but it was carried out effectively.

As I was watching Vertigo the other night, I was thinking about how lighting has changed through the years. One thing that occurred to me was that films didn't used to necessarily go for a "real" look in their lighting. Hitchcock is a good example, since he was probably often looking for a slightly unnatural look. I think some of the things Edwin commented on about the lighting in The Man in the Moon would be more accepted if the film had been made in the '40s or '50s. I have always thought it was intentional to give this film a more classic look.

It looks like we'll be moving on to Klute most likely on Tuesday. So jump in with with anything else before time runs out.

 

[Allen Hirsch]

sigh.
I have Man in the Moon at the top of my Netflix queue, but it now shows "long wait". So how many of you working on this thread still have MY copy ?
Guess that means I endorse someone's idea (maybe it was Edwin) that we start a new thread when we move on to the next thread. That way those of us waiting in the queue can contribute, instead of interrupting the next discussion.

 

[JohnRice]

Well, folks.
It looks like we've pretty much played this one out. We will be moving on to the next film, Klute, probably on Tuesday.
I've been thinking about Edwin's suggestion of starting a new thread for each film, but I think that is somewhat against my basic idea, which is for us all to be exposed to new films and in new ways. I still think it is best we stay with one thread, but I also recognize the reason for Edwin's suggestion. So this is what I'm going to do. When the discussion has been completed on each film, I will open the thread to include all the films that have already been discussed for a couple days, or longer if necessary. I'm hoping folks have subscribed to the thread so they know when discussion is opened and when we move on to another film.

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

Boy, am I glad this thread is still around. Just as predicted, with FOTR losing the big win at the Oscars tonight, its total chaos out there and I think this is one of the few threads right now that is civil.
Now back to the regularly scheduled programming...
~Edwin

 

[JohnRice]

Yes, Edwin,

This thread should be active for at least another six weeks.

 

[Seth Paxton]

All I know is that (insert film/actor here) got ROBBED!!
so much for civility.
But a bit on-topic congrats to Lesnie for his DoP win. People think it's all scenery but I had him 2nd behind Deakins and 2 shots are the reason why. 1 - the wire camera shot that tracks the orcs down the mountain near the end. 2 - the tracking shot following the fellowship across the bridge and then panning back to the Balrog.
Great camera work.
I won't have any shots nearly as active as that to talk about for OoS (well, there is one like that which I will mention).

 

[JohnRice]

While we're killing a little time on some general Cinematography talk, Seth's comments on LOTR made me think of a shot in Shawshank Redemption that always impressed me. It is when Andy arrives at the prison. As I recall, it follows the bus driving up to the prison, flies over the prison to show that prisoners in the courtyard and is perfectly timed to arrive on the side of the prison as the bus arrives. Really seems to be a pretty complex shot to me, anyway.

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

While we're killing a little time on some general Cinematography talk...

Having seen New Zealand up close and personal, LOTR's cinematography was not at all that compelling to me. Some of the panning shots in the screening I saw were jittery. Since I have only seen it once, I will have to watch it again to see those shots that are REALLY worthy.

~Edwin

 

[PatrickL]

Klute

Dir. Alan J. Pakula
D.P. Gordon Willis

Cast
Jane Fonda: Bree Daniels
Donald Sutherland: John Klute
Charles Cioffi: Peter Cable
Roy Scheider: Frank Ligourin
Dorothy Tristan: Arlyn Page



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Pretty photography is easy; it really is the easiest thing in the world. But photography that rounds a picture off, top to bottom, and holds the content together, is really the most beautiful.....it can also be pedestrian in certain ways if it happens to be appropriate to the story. You try not to put the photography in front of the story; you try and make it part of the story. -Gordon Willis, interviewed in the book Masters of Light






This quote goes right to the heart of what good cinematography should always be about: serving the film in the most integral way possible. Cinematography that articulates all the nuances that a director is working to get across is the most beautiful, but often it's work that is pleasing to look at out of context that gets the praise and attention, whether it is articulate or not. Many times I will find myself touching on cinematography in a conversation, only to realize that the other person is actually talking about the art direction, and only indirectly about the cinematography. Sometimes they are talking only about the rendering of the tonalities and values. When someone tells me how "beautiful" a movie is, and supports the opinion by telling me that every frame is like a gorgeous work of art that you'd want to hang on your wall, this tells me something about the photographic values, certainly, and how the person responded to them. But it doesn't tell me if the cinematography is any good and does what it is supposed to do, which is to serve the director's vision and to be expressive in the context of the movie.

I don't want to give the false impression that the rendering of tonalities and values are not important. They are essential. What I do want to stress is that composition is a crucial, defining storytelling tool available to the cinematographer, in collaboration with the director. All films, whether they have pretty subject matter or not, present the opportunity to have expressive composition appropriate to what is happening on screen, but most films suffer from compositions that are unimaginative and stale or inexpressive or inappropriate.


First, a little info on this film. "Klute" was the first of director Alan J. Pakula's "Paranoid Trilogy" (including also The Parallax View and All The President's Men) all shot by Willis. The plot concerns a semi-retired prostitute (Bree, played by Jane Fonda) who is placed under surveillance by a private detective (the secondary but title character, played by Donald Sutherland) while also being stalked by a sadistic one-time trick (played by Charles Cioffi). We learn early on in the film that the stalker is the man who dispatched Klute to investigate the call girl in the first place - with a reveal so early in the film, clearly the filmmakers are hunting a different animal than typical suspense thrills. "Klute" owes a great deal to film noir conventions, but turns the genre on its head by making us privvy to the femme fatale character's interiority rather than the expected mental machinations of the detective, who is initially kept more than a little mysterious. The movie begins to achieve a surprising depth when Klute and Bree connect emotionally. The depth is not from the mere fact that a kind of love story emerges, of course, but rather from the unique and sophisticated way it is depicted and how it ties into the scheme of genre-revisionism - Bree's fear of being domesticated is at odds with her desire for liberation and safety, and this subtextual conflict is what begins to generate most of the tension in the film. If most conventional noir can be said to play on male paranoia about women, "Klute" alters the equation with substantial female paranoia about men. By the final reels, "Klute" presents a "hero" male who tames the femme fatale through true emotional intimacy, and a "villain" male who seeks to tame her through violence.


"Klute" is not pretty. Exceedingly dark at times and depicting New York as gritty and confining, the film is even ugly on occassion. Sometimes you can't see the actors clearly, and sometimes the camera is where the action isn't. The biggest strength of Gordon Willis' cinematography for "Klute" is the composition - not in that he composes pleasing pictures, mind you, but that the compositions are so clearly dictated by communicating the story with the most impact. Another great strength is how Willis renders the light, or more typically the lack of light, in "Klute." Again, it can not be said that this is done just for the sake of making striking images - it is done judiciously and with a towering command of craft but always to articulate what is going on in the film. Other work by Gordon Willis is even more accomplished: The Godfather trilogy, Pennies from Heaven, Zelig, Manhattan. I chose "Klute" partly because it hasn't been talked about so much, because it's a terrific film I have a lot of affection for, and mostly because it's one of the least "pretty" films on Willis' resume. "Klute" offers a better chance to focus on what this brilliant cinematographer brings to a picture through composition and the rendering of darkness, when rigorously applied in service to the story.



Look at the efficient economy of the two sequences that begin the film, pre-credits. Both take place at the dinner table in the home of Klute's best friend Tom Gruneman. In the first sequence, we are shown a warm, convivial gathering. After an establishing shot that shoots the scene at just enough distance to suggest remove...

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...Willis uses a dolly shot from left to right, evenly scanning the people conversing on the far side of the table. A strong cut to the empty chair where Gruneman was seated begins the next sequence, which takes place in the same setting but contrasts with the first sequence in several ways. The lighting is now darker (and more harsh - notice the toplight) and more artificial, emphasizing the more somber mood at this gathering (Gruneman is now missing, we're told, and the only clues to his disappearance are obscene letters that he allegedly wrote to another woman) After an establishing shot from the same remove as the one in the earlier sequence...

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...Willis shoots each of the characters in solo shots, in marked contrast to the shared film space in the dolly shot in the earlier sequence. Even when one of the obscene letters is passed from Mrs. Gruneman to Klute, Willis retains the two in seperate shots, increasing the sense of isolation. The dialogue in the scene eventually lands on the official police posture that Gruneman is just one of many such cases in which a husband leads an undetected double life. There is an insert shot of family portraits, which Willis composes with a keen understanding of what they mean in the context of the scene. Note that Willis' composition emphasizes the distance between the two portraits, and also that he shoots them in no physical relation to
any other objects, making them appear less like they belong in a home and more like they are police evidence.

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The next time we see these characters, Klute has accepted the assignment of going to New York to investigate the disappearance of his friend. The text of the scene is meant to make us uneasy about his abilities - he's never investigated a missing persons case before, and admits that he doesn't spend a lot of time in the city. Willis understands the most salient point of the scene and, after a brief establishing shot, emphasizes and increases the intended unease by framing each of the characters (again, in solo shots) to the left of frame,...

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...and Klute to the right.

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When we first see Bree, she is indiscernible in a long line of models at a go-see. When going in closer, Willis again uses a left to right dolly shot, this time scanning down the line of models as each is judged.

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This is exceedingly economical, in that the set-up of the shot allows us to see not only Bree being rejected by the casting agents, but also to see her uncomfortable reactions to the judgment placed on the model who succeeds her. The set-up of the shot also re-inforces the idea that the models are little more than cattle being appraised - this is certainly one of the points of the subtext in this scene, but the blunt directness of Willis' composition makes it the defining point. The other savvy quality of this shot is that it is formally similar to the shot around the dining table in the first sequence of the film, and therefore the viewer subconsciously links them together. Why does Willis do this? Because he's efficient on so many levels, he is drawing a sharp contrast between our first glimpse of Klute, and this shot which gives us our first glimpse of Bree. Both are initially defined in relation to groups - Klute to friends, Bree to anonymous competitors.

From typical storytelling conventions (and from the title of the movie), we would expect the film to resume focus on Klute and his investigation; it's a curve ball that we instead tail Bree about for a lengthy period of time. Following her depersonalized humiliation at the go-see, there is a shot of Bree walking through her urban surroundings. It is one of many such shots in the movie, that define her as diminished or anonymous in the city environment. I lost count of how many shots depict her among a crowd, blending into a crowd, or dwarfed by buildings or artificial environments. Consistent with Willis' sensibilities that cinematography should not call enough attention to itself to throw the audience out of the picture, none of these shots is what I would call obvious. Each is just enough to do the job.

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In some instances you can't see the actor well but the emotional structure of the scene is working - there's great clarity in that. To perceive exactly what is happening without getting any closer - that's the trick -Gordon Willis, interviewed in Principal Photography






Willis keeps Bree in considerable darkness in a phone booth where she calls her service to hook up with a "commuter" for a "quick 50." Bree is almost a silhouette for most of this scene, save for a gesture just after she gets herself the job. There's nothing admirable about keeping a scene dark just for the sake of making a dynamic image - what's pertinent here is that Willis uses darkness to reinforce the secrecy of what Bree does, to contrast with the bright images of her "legit" job looking for work as a model, and also to emphasize the one moment when Bree *can* be clearly seen, when she experiences a compulsive rush securing her call-girl gig. We register this moment strongly because Willis has set it apart visually and thus rendered it urgently important.

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What follows is an example of what Willis meant when he said that cinematography can even be pedestrian in certain ways if it happens to serve the film. In a sequence of Bree working as a prostitute, Willis mixes the harsh natural light from the hotel window and some indoor practicals, and shoots the scene in long takes in a couple of fixed positions for results that begin to approach "documentary" aesthetics. This adds immeasurably to the intended de-glamourization of the scene. Willis keeps Bree and her client in a sustained close two-shot during their deal-making, making us aware of the physical intimacy, but the exchange of money signals a wider shot looking slightly down on them, which bluntly dissapates the feeling of intimacy. To emphasize that Bree is in control of this situation, a contrast to how we've previously seen and will see her, Willis shoots part of the scene looking over her shoulder. Throughout the movie there are countless shots of Bree over someone else's shoulder, underlining her as an object of scrutiny, but shots of others over her shoulder are infrequent. Willis even does a big no-no in this scene, allowing most of the customer's body in the frame but cropping him off at the head. Besides adding to the "documentary" aesthetic, it reinforces Bree's control in this situation.

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I find it perversely amusing that after all this business of Bree going about freely in the city without discernible fear, the first overtly suspenseful moments in the film are signalled by her arrival at home. The business of her entering her apartment building, surveying the staircase, climbing the stairs, looking both ways down the hallway, and reaching her apartment door are treated as if they pose terrible dangers. This doesn't come totally out of the blue in the narrative - we know that she had reported breather calls and told the police months ago that someone may be following her - but it's interesting how her general paranoia hasn't been illustrated up to this point and has been made specific to the area just outside her home. Subconsciously, this makes an association for the viewer that Bree's home (and by extension, her situation as a single sexually liberated woman living alone) produces anxiety, which ties in with the themes that emerge later in the film. This is a result of the text and of the direction, of course, but Willis doesn't miss the opportunity to compose these shots so that they produce anxiety and express claustrophobia.

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The shot of Bree ascending the stairs is recalled later at a key moment when she ascends on an escalator.

The end of this section of the film is signalled by Bree getting an anonymous breather phone call, and the camera tracking steadily backward from her in bed to emphasize her fear and vulnerability.

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Willis has a very obvious chance to repeat this camera move at one point later in the film but he does not. He saves it for when it counts for something, when he wants the viewer to subconsciously recall the track backward from Bree, isolated in bed. He uses the track backward when Bree has regressed to her pimp. It's another example of how attuned Willis makes himself to the material, and how he shoots subtext.

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The first encounter between Klute and Bree follows soon after the breather call. The text of the scene has Bree dominating the exchange, controlling access to her apartment and generally being a smart-mouth. Because we've seen other sides of Bree, we know this is an act of sorts, and Willis underlines what's true in the scene rather than what the text presents. He shoots Bree in a diminishing angle (with the camera higher than she is) through the door, framed way over to the left side of the screen. For the reverse angle, he shoots Klute more to the center, closer, and at a slightly intimidating angle (with the camera lower than he is).

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Most movies today are recorded; they're not photographed. They're not mounted; they're just recorded...as opposed to thinking out exactly what the film is supposed to accomplish and what the scene is supposed to accomplish; and then thinking about how we put that up on the screen appropriately. You can photograph...two people talking to each other. Which is the right way? It's very easy to just record it. You just get the scene in the camera. You shoot a close-up and then another close-up in a two-shot and the scene will be done. But maybe there was another way of doing it so that the content was strengthened. And maybe that other way was better filmmaking. -Gordon Willis, interviewed in Masters of Light






The next encounter between these two, a few scenes later, is even more expressively photographed with compositions that unquestionably strengthen the content. Typical filmmaking syntax would dictate that a two person scene be shot angle-reverse angle, with each actor about the same size in the frame as the other. Instead, Willis composes the two actors with great contrast. Most striking is the fact that the lion's share of the dialogue in this scene belongs to Bree - the long scene is nearly a monologue- but Klute is the one who Willis holds in consistent close-up, while keeping Bree consistently much smaller in frame. For the first third of the scene, Klute's back takes up a wide portion of the shot of Bree, effectively masking off most of the frame in darkness.

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Klute's close-ups, meanwhile, are dominated by the hanging light fixture, with its blown-out bright light.

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This is a nifty contrast of light values, of course, with a dash of wit exhibited by shooting directly into the light source, making Bree's hanging lamp fixture recall police interrogation lamps. But Willis wouldn't have done it if there wasn't a motivating point besides creating visual interest through contrast. The fact that Bree is associated with darkness in this scene adds to the viewer's suspicions about the contradictions we've seen in her character, and that fact that she is pinned to one side of an otherwise dark frame communicates that she is in some kind of confinement. What the size of Klute's closeups do in this scene is to pit everything that Bree says against how he is perceiving it, and to frame everything that Bree presents to him as "performance." I can't stress enough how much this scene, one of the best in the film, is aided by Willis' brilliant choice to make their shots inequal in the way he has.

The scene takes a turn when Klute, with gentle force, moves Bree to the bed. Bree has unzipped the back of her dress, in an effort to seduce him, and thinks she has succeeded. Willis holds on a close-up shot of Bree's exposed back as she becomes aware of the truth: Klute has heard someone on the roof and has guided her to the bed to get her out of the line of fire. The lingering image of Bree's exposed back expresses her vulnerability more interestingly and more poetically than shots of the actors' expressions would.

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Another thing I appreciate about this scene is the way Willis maintains the illusion that the light is coming from the places we see lamps. There is no unjustified stream of back light to prettify Fonda's hair, for example, and no discernible extra light that wouldn't seem to actually be in this apartment. No doubt Willis is bouncing light around to create the illusion that there isn't light, of course, but I admire his attention to making the light in this scene convincing. To digress a bit and address the photographic values, I think the slightly blown-out lights around the apartment, rendered in great relief from what is otherwise a dark setting, give this scene a distinctive noir-like feeling without being stereotypical visually. A suspense sequence that follows thereafter, with Klute chasing the stalker up on the roof of the building, maintains the illusion that all light is coming from his flashlight.

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A scene in which Bree pursues her acting career has the unmistakable Willis touch. Willis begins the scene on the black portfolio cover, with just the agent's hand holding it open, emphasizing the de-personalizaton of the encounter. Although Bree and the agent are actually sitting quite close to each other, Willis at first maintains them in seperate shots, to convey the lack of real connection. When Willis does go to a two-shot, he puts them to one side of the frame, while the other half of the frame is occupied by a table with an incense burner hard at work. This glimpse of the agent's office is given the same weight as the characters at this moment, and the over-decoration defines how we view the agent and the situation as much as what is being said.

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There are no other shots in the scene. Most notably, the agent's office has been reduced by Willis into one flat perspective. When Bree leaves, Willis goes for an "open shot" and stays on the couch where Bree had been sitting, while we hear the business of the end of the scene (the agent talking on the phone, Bree leaving and closing the door, all offscreen). We can "see" all this business without seeing it because of the strength of what we have seen; Willis knows not only that rendering an entire multi-dimensional environment in this scene would be unneccesary but also that the scene is stronger and more effective without it.

This sensibility is also in evidence at the therapist's office. The establishing shot is not of the office, or a two-shot of Bree and her therapist, but of children's drawings on the wall.

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No other visual information is given, or needed, at this point about the environment besides the drawings, and what the closeups of Bree and the therapist, depicted in spatial opposition, convey.

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Allow me to digress just a bit here on the subject of the scenes with the therapist, which pop up throughout the film. Although Jane Fonda is superb in these scenes, and some of this material is important and unique, a good portion of what's communicated in these scenes is redundant. It is redundant *because* Fonda, Pakula and Willis have done the job of communicating subtext so exceedingly well on the rest of the picture.



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The idea was to compress this world Jane Fonda was living in so it was more claustrophobic and had an underground feeling. The villain is like the mad scientist living on top of this glacier-like building, looking down on all the rest of Manhattan. -Gordon Willis, interviewed in Principal Photography






The rendering of many of the spaces in the film as single flat perspectives is part of Willis' scheme to depict the claustrophobia of Bree's environments. On the other hand the villain, when solitary, is depicted in relation to more open spaces, most notably against the Hudson River (fans of Freud: note the cranes)....

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...and against the Manhattan skyline from a helicopter. Willis accentuates the surrealness of this shot by keeping the camera fixed to the helicopter in one position, so it appears that the skyline is moving while the villain, in the helicopter, is fixed in one position on screen.

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But again, this isn't Willis showboating to make empty tour-de-force cinematography, which he eschews. This helicopter shot comes just after the villain suspects that Klute is onto him, and the tilting skyline in motion speaks to the fact that his world has become unsteady.

One scene in the movie (of Klute and Bree buying fruit at a street market) veers toward warm romanticism without much dialogue. The feelings of intimacy between the two characters are communicated through looks at each other and through the actors' movements. Willis enhances the feeling of this scene by composing it so that the colored lights of the street are behind the actors. By shooting in a shallow depth of field, the lights become blurred and romantic, while remaining consistent with the rest of the movie.

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In a series of mostly short investigative scenes, Klute and Bree attempt to locate Arlyn Page, a prostitute who used to work with Bree but who's become a junkie and made herself scarce. The scene where they actually find her is pivotal - the shock of seeing Arlyn sunk so low compels Bree to run away from Klute and to the safety of her old pimp. Willis handles all this material expertly. Most interestingly, he works to obscure or de-personalize Klute and Bree before they reach the pivotal scene with Arlyn. A shot of the two searching for Arlyn's picture among morgue shots renders them as near silhouettes

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In a scene where they ask after Arlyn at a seedy-looking whorehouse, Bree and Klute never face the camera. The fact that anonymous johns and prostitutes do face the camera (looking at us, which is rather unsettling) adds to the disorientation and unease.

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Next, in another short scene accomplished with two shots, Klute asks Arlyn's one-time landlady for information while Bree waits at the end of the entrance hall. Willis gets bold here, rendering Klute and the landlady as a near total blur, with Bree a dead silhouette in the distance. The shot is abstract, but it is consistent with the progression of this phase of the film, and it can't be said that Willis hasn't laid the groundwork for it.

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The disorientation continues as Willis shoots just outside Arlyn's apartment. Willis shoots Klute and Bree in a voyeuristic fashion, as if we are spying on them past garbage and debris as they climb the stairs. Then there are two shots that should not cut together and, in truth, don't make filmic sense in strict terms, but are totally consistent with the disorientation that Willis is going for. After Bree pauses for a moment on the stairs, seemingly spooked, the next shot is of the villian's perspective, although it is not identified as such and there is no associated information that says it is.

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The choice to mix in a shot from the villain's perspective doesn't fall to the cinematographer; the fact that the shots are composed to maximize the feeling of disorientation is Willis' doing.

After the scene with Arlyn, Bree's fear propels her to act on impulse and return to her pimp. She tries to numb herself as she makes her way through a crowded club. She moves to the music, seemingly desperate to shake off what she's seen at Arlyn's. She flirts as she passes by one guy, and then stumbles and falls into a small group of men drinking at a table. She sits in one guy's lap and starts making out with him, finally leading him to the dance floor, but then she leaves him stranded when she sees an old club friend in the crowd. She makes her way, still stumbling somewhat, through the crowd until she is standing before her pimp - her gaze toward him says that she wants to return to the fold, to his "family".

Willis accomplishes all of this business in one uninterrupted tracking shot. A still can not capture this; the sequence begins Chapter 19 on the disc, around the 62:50 mark. Why does this scene demand a continuous shot? Willis understands that every time you make a cut on film, the next image needs to carry the same import or feeling, and that if it doesn't, you chase away what you established. All of this business, of Bree weaving her way through the club to her pimp, is of the same feeling and import. The scene would not be enhanced one bit if it had been shot in small pieces - that would have, I think, potentially given false attention to the specifics of Bree's actions. The continuous tracking shot maintains the focus on Bree's emotional state without any chance of sidetracking the audience.

Before I move on to the bold choices that Willis makes for the riveting finale of the film, I want to touch on a sequence that is not, in my very humble opinion, up to par with the rest of Willis' work on this movie.
The scene is an exterior; on the disc it begins Chapter 14 roughly at the 46:38 mark. The location appears to be Fifth Avenue, with Central Park visible behind Bree and Klute as he hands over surveillance tapes of her phone calls. The scene seems to me too bright for the rest of the picture, except for maybe one other exterior after Arlyn's death. Also the compositions are pedestrian, and not in a way that is expressive, until the final shot of the scene, of Bree tossing the tapes into a trashcan as she blends into the crowd. The scene is significant to the subtext of the narrative: Klute turning over the tapes is a major statement that signals the next phase of their relationship. The scene may have been truncated, which may explain the choppy editing, or maybe Willis was up to something with these compositions that I didn't grasp.

The finale has one of the boldest choices that Willis makes in the film, and the one that pays the most dramatic dividends. When the villain has cornered Bree, Willis holds the two in silhouette through quite a bit of dialogue. In this case, it is to withhold the actress from us, to increase our anticipation when we can see her.

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Quote:



There's a certain power in not actually completely seeing for a moment. In "Klute"...there was a scene where she was up against a window. It was more interesting to play it that way and then at any given moment you go around and see her, rather than looking at her all the time. When you finally see her, what you want is a revelation. -Gordon Willis, interviewed in Principal Photography






The scene leads to a sustained close-up of Jane Fonda as Bree that is thrilling in its directness. There are a great many examples in the history of film of close-ups that are held for a long time. What makes this one especially rare is that the actress is mostly only listening - how often is a shot like this justified, and how often can an actor rise to the challenge? Willis and Pakula knew a golden opportunity when they saw one. Rather than the typical choice of continuing to vary the shots of Bree, with corresponding angles of the villain and of the tape player they're listening to, the sustained close-up intensifies the horror of the scene.

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I hope that some of you will give "Klute" a look. It's a film I've seen many times that I haven't tired of, and although it's one of Gordon Willis' earliest films, I think his work on it is outstanding.

I look forward to discussing it.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Wow. I've just recently completed a film class and finally learned what cinematography is. Unfortunately, I've never seen any of these movies save Vertigo. Man in the Moon looks like a pretty cool checkout, but I'm a little hesitant on Klute. Any thoughts?

 

[PatrickL]

Dome, I notice two Godfather pictures listed among the favorite films in your sig. Gordon Willis also D.P.'ed those, if that helps sway you to check out Klute. Of course, *I* think you should check it out.
My post was about the cinematography and I didn't get the chance to say it - Jane Fonda's performance is one of the most convincing, committed and flawlessly articulated I have ever seen an actress give.
Also, here are a couple of links to other writing on Klute on the Web that might appeal. The first is far more academic than the second. The interview with Borden is very readable and nails a lot of the reasons why I love the movie. Be warned, though - she spoils a lot more than I did in my post.
Senses of Cinema - Klute
Filmmaker Lizzie Borden on Klute