Thursday, April 7, 2016

"The economy of the repetitive angles (the tight close-ups, the low-angles, the high-angles, etc.) -- not only professional in their unity, but in their simplicity and their insistence they create the material system (the economy) of the scene's spatial and emotional triangulations. Simplicity, but in service of fastidiousness. Notice how he lets his dreamy close-ups carry only the evocation of the eyeline." (From a previous post)


Notice how the space is denoted to us in discrete sections, which are populated by different characters.  The space is defined by a census of its population, of sorts.  It reminds me of a story on the Spontaneous Combustion set, where Hooper tells Cynthia Bain on their first day on the Lisa's apartment set that he will shoot the scene in pieces such that the apartment is only "revealed" to the viewer "little by little," in complete relation to the characters' populating of it.



The outward pushing of the hanging lamplight (as well as the branches of the indoor tree) in this moment of the "White Lady" apparition I would cite as one of the most effective displays of the unnatural uncanny in film.




It is not until late into the scene that we are given a wide shot of the entire living room, one which disperses the characters into every corner of the frame, providing a sort of comprehensive map to the details given.  This sort of scene design is similar to the one employed in the gas station scene of Texas Chain Saw Massacre.









And there it is, the wide shot.  Steven's traveling in frame effectively denotes his previous position, his awkward, unenhanced movement merely one from point A to point B in a purely topographical image.  The motion picked up and even manifested by the camera itself in the shot below's forward-driving rush.










I guess this is the year of Djinn/Poltergeist. What would you like to see more of here? Surprisingly, personally I would like to spend more time with Eaten Alive (also The Funhouse, but there's something about Eaten Alive's visuals and doleful Americana setting that I find addictive).

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How about Mortuary or Mangler? There's been few of those. Anyway, thanks for keeping the great job here.

Anonymous said...

"Invaders from Mars", "The apartment complex", "Djinn".

JR said...

Thanks for the feedback! Really appreciate it. 'Mortuary' definitely (surprising even myself). I think I may start on "The Apartment Complex."