Quick recap:
Patience of Storytelling
Patience of Storytelling
Images from the First 20 Minutes of MORTUARY, Pt. 2
Melodiousness of the shot sequence -- Hooper's ever-floating camera -- Hushed off-screen voices carry the continuity of the film's time.
Characters made to always either enter or exit the frame (carry the continuity of the film's time).
(The empty frame.)
In the Attic-Bedroom
The Magnanimity of the Camera
The movement of characters into and out of spaces -- The importance of the edges of the frame -- A constantly floating camera.
A moment made out of POVs (out of interior experience).
The mother's voice off-screen: "Jonathan!"
Attentions caught off guard -- Relations emerging out of shadows --
A linear configuration of regard, between the entire three-person household.
A sequence made out of configuration, POV, and patient entrances:
"Why are you guys standing in the dark?"
Linearity of regard -- Hooper's orderly configuration -- His framing's fastidious rendering of it.
"How are you gonna make this work?"
The Magnanimity of the Camera
The patience of the story-telling: Hooper's devotion to excavating emotional, textural nicety with the kindest of cinematic attentions.
The interaction and coexistence of the fixed frames.
The flighty mother's exit bridges the frames of the more pensive children -- who share their pensiveness in their continued glances, which, due to Hooper's fastidious and graceful construction, need no extra shots or framing.
The flighty mother's exit bridges the frames of the more pensive children -- who share their pensiveness in their continued glances, which, due to Hooper's fastidious and graceful construction, need no extra shots or framing.
In the Basement-Morgue
A floating POV.
A cascade of frame-entering, of his movement forward -- The importance of the edge of the frame.
"Why would you bring her down here?"
The uptight eldest son's admonishing literally hovers over the carefree little sister, his gesture at her caught in her frame.
"She's just helping me!"
The graceful movement of characters -- The mother and the son encircle the little girl,
whose adorableness effectively disarms her sulky older sibling.
"Yeah! Besides, Mom said I could be down here if there weren't any dead bodies."
"Ooh, did she?"
A remarkable series of shots that captures the the mother and the son's sauntering,
particularly in relation to the girl. A linearity returns when the brother begins
to help the mother put the packages of rock salt away.
The Nicety of the Camera.
The girl enters the others' frame first with her right arm.
"They use it to make ice cream. Someone must have really loved it here."
"Can I have some?"
The shot below floats above the girl's head, the mom's energy radiating downward, the motions of both her mother and her brother (who do these motions largely for her sake) contained in it. This shot is very much hers (the girl's); here, the theorized "camera magnanimity" is bestowed upon her.
"What flavor?"
"Can you get some bottled water and milk?"
She walks into the frame: "And Jonathan?"
"I really appreciate what you're doing."
