As I read Garret Cooper's "Narrative Spaces" and Stephen Heaths' "Questions of Cinema", I began to wonder how much of cinematography is intentional. Of all art forms, video is best at replicating life, portraying it as it is seen naturally. Thus the role of the cinematographer is to choose how to frame this slice of life. However, it seems that the choices of the cinematographers fall into one of three categories: decision of the cinematographer, film convention, or a natural choice. I will address all three in this post.
The first to address is decisions by the cinematographer. There are two types of choices. The first is the usual choices by a cinematographer. These include how to light a scene, what camera angles to shoot a scene, what is to be in and out of focus, etc. Most of these types of decisions have to be made for each scene, and all have a large variety in the selections made by the cinematographer. The second type of choice is a breaking of film convention, which I will discuss in more detail in the next paragraph.
Film conventions were discussed in detail by Cooper as he described how cinematographers use many of the same techniques for effects. This includes “shot-reverse shot” to portray conversation, two actors coming into the same frame to portray love, or the frame zooming in on a face to show fear. These standbys have been in the movies for many decades, and are almost always used to portray there intended state of being. When a cinematographer chooses to break these conventions and portrays these states of being in a different way, it stands out. It tells the audience that something is different about this current situation. For example, the way Alfred Hitchcock portrays the relationship between Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine as being not quite natural since their courtship is portrayed with both characters in shot. This lets the audience realize that the relationship began too aggressively. These conventions have been so well established that they feel natural to audiences, as if this is the way life really is.
The final type of choice by the cinematographer is that of the natural choice. This is less of a choice, and more as something that the cinematographer must do, or a plainly logical choice. This is dealt with a lot in narrative space. The point of narrative space is to have the audience know what is occurring outside the frame on screen. It is the duty of the cinematographer to ensure the narrative space is accounted for. However, it is in my opinion that the cinematographer cannot make a choice when working with narrative space. If something occurs off screen, it must be accounted for on screen before or after the event occurs. This is why the narrative space has a naturalistic quality; it exists with specific instructions as to how to use it. In order to create a narrative space, there must first be an establishing shot to create the narrative space. It is only then that the narrative space can be exploited. It also feels that the director, as opposed to the cinematographer, has control over what exists in the narrative space.
Thus the amount of control the cinematographer has over the visual experience depends on aspect of the shot. The cinematographer has nearly complete control of the smaller details like lighting and shot angles. The cinematographer does usually have to work within the paradigms of previous established shots, even when they are defying such paradigms. The cinematographer has the least control over the narrative space, which is governed by a specific set of rules in order to makes the film logical. This is how the cinematographer has control over some but not all of the visual aspects of film.
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6 comments:
The focus of your post is excellent! After seeing a workshop on cinematography, I developed a deep respect for this craft that I barely knew existed. It has its own Oscar for a reason!
You also pick the classic example to discuss cinematic film conventions: the shot-reverse shot. There are other classics too: A wide shot that serves as an establishing shot to open scenes so the viewers understand they are seeing something new, point-of-view shots when the director and cinematographer want the audience to see what a character in the film is seeing, and the close up to display intensity because nothing says intensity like a 40 foot projection of a person only from the neck up. And as an example of these techniques not being used conventionally, to support your example from Hitchcock's Suspicion , can be found in Michael Haneke's Caché, where the viewer is constantly at odd angles for the action. And you are right-when conventional techniques are used unconventionally, it does, in fact, stand out.
Conventional techniques can also make an action stand out when they are used at odd times. This is evident in Suspicion’s climactic scene. Benson, one of the inspectors, breaks the clarity of direction when he gazes out of the left of the frame at a painting, thus drawing the off screen space onscreen for no apparent reason. According to Stephen Heath in his book, Questions of Cinema, this interrupts the homogeneity of the narrative economy. Once again, a conventional technique - gazing out of frame to bring off screen space onscreen - has been used unusually by the cinematographer and demonstrates his control over the film.
"I began to wonder how much of cinematography is intentional."
I think this is a great question to raise. Of course the best cinematography wouldn't feel intentional - like our professor mentioned last class, we aren't supposed to notice that it's all a well-scripted "lie." But there is a method to the art form, and you are absolutely right to analyze the cinematographer's decisions.
Working off of your observations, I would argue that we could narrow the cinematographer's decisions into just two categories: Creativity and necessity.
The "necessity" category would include the basic demands, such as making sure there is adequate light. This category would also include insuring that steps are taken to tell the plot, such as accounting for the off-screen action you mentioned. Film convention itself could possibly fall into this category - we wouldn't keep using the same techniques if they weren't effective in telling the story.
That leaves the "creativity" category. This might include decisions to break convention for artistic reasons (rather than necessity), but it also would entail decisions above and beyond the basic set-up. The cinematographer might say something like, "Now that there's adequate light to capture the scene on film, let's set up a bright key light to cast a shadow across the actor's face."
Regardless of how we categorize the cinematographer's choices, it's great that you've acknowledged the importance of the role and what a difference it can make in a film.
I think this topic is very important. After the cinematography workshop, I have a whole new respect for DPs and their interactions with the director and actors. Case in point Shane Hurlbut on the set of Terminator: Salvation http://hub.tm/?QHNYC
The cinematographic film conventions you mentioned are very apparent in Sleepless in Seattle and even in most of Suspicion. Do you think the DPs of these movies were told to keep it conventional? Or how much of it was their choice? As far as Hitchcock goes, I would think the latter with lots of directorial input. But what about Ephron? She's directed several other love stories intent upon using the "shot-reverse-shot" or the gaze offscreen depicting the longing of her protagonists. Case in point: You've Got Mail. Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks are perpetually seated in front of the computer pining over their email lover. Yet she uses 2 different cinematographers: John Lindley for Mail and Sven Nykvist for Seattle. This makes me think that Ephron has a high input on the conventions of cinematography.
Also, I agree with your comment that once these cinematographic conventions are broken it stands out. Just as we saw in Cache, Christian Berger's cinematography was jarring. We had long takes, long shots, extremely long establishing shots and very little conventional "shot-reverse-shots." Do you think this was more of the work of the director or the DP? Considering Michael Haneke's other film Funny Games (if you thought Cache was creepy, Funny Games is about 20x more so) is shot in the similar manner, it can be said that Haneke's influence is more apparent than the actual DP's, which was different than Cache. It's really hard to say who deserves more credit for these unusual and unexpected scenes, but it is interesting to consider.
I agree with Laura. I have completely underestimated the work of the cinematographer. And it was not until the workshot last week that I began to realize just how much so.
I think that you bring up a very good point when discussing the amount of control that the cinematographer has on the shots. As you mentioned, certain things can be carefully orchestrated to be perfect, lighting among them. But other things depend on other people and other aspects of the film. As we talked about with Steve Milligan, the relationships between director and cinematographer vary greatly, and so the produced visions of those relationships are forever in flux.
However, I think that some of the aspects of cinematography that make it appear natural succeed in doing because they are, in fact, organic, accidental, or beatifully coincidental. Two specific examples come to mind. The first is from the clip in class we watched when the rain from the window main was projected onto the character's face by the lighting. Though this was far from intentional, the affect is brilliantly sombering, more poignant than any words or intentional staging would produce. The second example is from Requiem for a Dream (clearly a favorite citation of mine). When Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn) is giving her soliloquy about old age, the camera angles ever to slightly to the side. This, too, creates a more poignant and signifcant moment, authenticating every word of Sara's emotional speech. But, as was later written, this was an accident--the man filming was so touched by how powerfully and truthfully she spoke, he began to cry, tilting the camera. So, in many ways, the cinematographer's work is both brilliant art and the occasional lucky coincidence. As you said, he has control of only one of these aspects.
The original post discusses the extent to which a cinematographer has control over the visuals in the film. MarylandDevil claims that the cinematographer (or DP) has the least control over narrative space. I was thinking about this in the context of Sleepless in Seattle. The entire film really depends on the editing together of disparate scenes of Annie and Sam. I assume that this must have been part of the film in the script itself. The DP had to make sure the effect worked well, but would not have had much creative influence.
It is interesting how much we have come to accept conventions like shot-reverse shot as standard. The original post mentions how it stands out when someone like Hitchcock breaks with conventions. We have absorbed something that is really unnatural and normalized it. It is mentioned above how Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine are shot with both characters in view. This view of the event is really the physically natural one; however, we have come to expect something different after watching films all our lives.
Steven,
I'm so sorry for the tardiness of this comment, but I've been having MONUMENTAL issues to links and blog posts, and just now computer issues in general (i.e. my computer has more abortive, false starts than a meth-addled track sprinter)
About your post, I really liked how you pose the question of cinematography as an intentional (or, as is implicitly posited, UN-intentional) art form. We discussed this a little bit in class (I asked a similar question about it in discussion), but it is an interesting question.
In the film we watched in lecture on Monday ("Visions of Light"?), there was a scene in which a cinematographer positioned a monologuing character against a lit window that was being rained upon. The rain trickling down the panes was reflected/refracted onto the speaker's face, giving him the image of tears trailing down his cheeks despite his deadpan delivery of a tragic personal story. In the film, this was listed as a completely accidental (but eagerly adopted and repeated) feat that conveyed immense meaning and subtlety to the plot, despite being purely coincidental.
I think that this incident captures perfectly the position and intentionality of cinematography, at least in Hollywood productions. The cinematography, the lighting, the continuity editing, all of it is designed, repeated, abandoned, or planned with one and only one goal in mind: to tell the story in the most effective manner possible. Retroactively, film theorists and critics may go back and re-analyze the works to come up with psycho-social, philosophical or metaphysical explanations about why or how these effects might work (or whether they have an entirely new and unintended effect all together). However, the ORIGINAL intention of cinematography was to make something (no matter how high- or low-brow in subject matter, theme, or message), "work" as a narrative whole. We saw in class with the re-spliced "Sleepless in Seattle" trailer that editing and cinematography can induce or create new meaning where before there was none (or a different meaning); however all of those were intentional choices made not to address "gaze" or narrative space, but to convey a new narrative meaning in the simplest and most effective way possible.
Of course, that doesn't mean that they DIDN'T take advantage of narrative space, or of matching eye-lines to create an out-of-frame subtext that links two subjects across physical, cinematic, geographic, temporal, and narrative barriers. But they probably didn't MEAN to, when they did it.
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