Visual Language - The POV

[J.R. Hud]

In the spirit of my scene breakdowns I've done at dvxuser, I wrote an article on my blog some of you director types may find interesting. Please check it out !

:nerd: :bye2:

http://www.cineobscure.com/visual-la...point-of-view/

[Emanuel]

I believe that's time for a new sub-forum entitled directing. Jarred? I'm speaking as director too.

E. :-)

[J.R. Hud]

These days there seems to be many director/dp people. I'm still waiting to find my DP (Like Macgregor and Jack).

[Rudi Herbert]

Nice read!

[Tom]

Nice. You should post this at Deakins' forum and see if he did all these things consciously. He would probably get a kick out of your analysis.

http://www.rogerdeakins.com/forum/index.php

[J.R. Hud]

Nice. You should post this at Deakins' forum and see if he did all these things consciously. He would probably get a kick out of your analysis.

http://www.rogerdeakins.com/forum/index.php


I think I will do that !

A also wrote another article today using The Godfather Part 2 as an example.

http://www.cineobscure.com/visual-language-using-the-actor-subtlety/

[HockeyFan12]

The POV shot functions, pretty much entirely, in terms of placement of the audience. The audience can be placed:

•Fully within a character's subjectivity. (As is the case with most POV shots.)
•Indirectly within a character's subjectivity.
•Within the director's subjectivity.
•"Objectively."
•Anywhere in between, or somewhere contrasting multiple subjectivities.
•No where. (Events take place offscreen.)

The POV shot is powerful primarily because it can engender audience alignment and sympathy. This is common in horror movies, where we want to experience fear vicariously through someone; thus horror directors frequently provide many POV shots in scare scenes. Alternatively, the POV shot can establish a disconnect between our world-view and that of a character; so POV shots from the monster (in horror) or from an antagonist can hinder alignment or scare us because of the emotional/cognitive disconnect we experience when we see them. The POV shot can also simply give us information (so and so sees so and so, knows such and such). The formal device only functions within the context of narrative, so the POV shot can function any number of ways, but it always grants subjective access.

In many ways, the insert is a point of view shot from the director. In comedies, wherein vicarious experience is problematic (we don't want to feel pain in slapstick comedies after all, do we?), inserts can provide a comic disconnect between the director's (and audience's) viewpoint and that of the characters.

The shakicam you mention is another form of subjectivity--but a less direct one. The shakicam tells us that the world seems hectic, frenetic, to our protagonist, and so it is presented as such by the director. If a character is more in control, a balanced, static composition might imply this indirectly. Or if the character is out of control but we get a static frame then we get a disconnect between character and audience, which has a distanciating effect that can be comic, tragic, or otherwise. When used correctly, camera movement can be as powerful (and more subtle) than the point of view shot, which can also be further colored by camera movement.

The POV shots you discuss illustrate a particular tendency of No Country for Old Men quite nicely. The film is primarily subjective and we have one central, sympathetic protagonist for the majority of its run time. In the shots you discuss, we are aligned with Llewelyn's subjectivity and narrative goals and this engenders sympathy and emotional investment. Similar techniques in other scenes accomplish the same thing. So the first 2/3rds of No Country for Old Men are very subjective and encourage the audience to align closely with Llewelyn.

When (SPOILER) our hero dies offscreen, we again see how well the Coens' use of form colors the film's story. The moral of the film (or at least its worldview) is one of nihilism and brutal objectivity, rendered explicitly in the cold math of Anton Chigur's coin toss. This aesthetic wins in the end, where the film takes on a wider range of narration, a more objective shooting style, etc. That we don't see Llewelyn's death is an impressive trick; a lesser director would either show it through a subjective presentation for maximum emotional response, or try to find a happy medium between nihilism and emotional involvement by showing it from an objective viewpoint. The Coens are too smart, for this, though, and they choose the most brutal presentation of the scene possible: none at all. Thus the first 2/3rds of the film are highly subjective and its last 1/3rd infuriatingly objective. That the Coens made an intentionally infuriating and subversive film and still won the Oscar speaks not only to their uncompromising vision but also to their precise talent as storytellers and filmmakers.

[J.R. Hud]

Excellent post hockeyfan.

[Joe Carney]

Wish I knew more people like Hockeyfan. Not too many with the ability to visually disect a film (without the idealogical baggage) like that out here in VA.

[karapetkov]

Thanks to all posters.

It's cool when somebody adds things to the knowledge-base.

Everybody knows something(s) that the others don't.

Cool.

[Tom]

Yeah. I like how he used the actual frames from the movie. If this had just been text, it would not have been as effective at all.

[Bill Anderson]

HockeyFan, you should consider reading the book No Country For Old Men, it's not much better than the film but it will give you a better foundation from which to discern between film director's "tricks", and literary device.
In the novel, Llewllyn's death is conveyed through an unreliable third party narrative. This provides a stark contrast to the direct and detailed melodrama of Llewellyn's journey up to that point. There is no Llewellyn death scene in the novel, per se, just a tired old account of a tired old event, after the fact. Granted, the Coens could have shown, for dramatic purposes, Llewellyn's death, but they followed the author's lead instead, and this doesn't make them geniuses. Besides, how do we know that the Coens didn't leave this scene on the "cutting-room floor"?
And, similarly, how should we know if they didn't follow the book's description of Moss's wife's brutal murder (It's in the book, not the movie) and left it out of the final cut for whatever reason?

It took the formidable skills of Cormac McCarthy to take this hackneyed story to the level it ultimately achieved. Even then the story gets off to a very shaky start when McCarthy (and the Coens) fail to come up with a compelling reason to have Llewellyn re-visit the massacre scene, in order to set events in motion; although, the author tried to fudge the lack of motivation by expressing Llewellins own doubts about his decision to put all at risk: "I'm fixin to do somethin dummern hell...". You can say that again, Cormac, but it won't help.

We could go on for ever about this piece of pulp and all its good ol' boy philosophies- many sounded through the (too coarse) filter called Sheriff Bell- and we could also reason that No Country For Old Men's success, its place in the charts, like the number of Big Macs sold, is evidence enough of its genius. "Subjective" "objective" "hero" "nihilism" "brutal objectivity" "sympathetic protagonist" (what is Moss sympathetic to?) POV shot this and POV shot that, is meaningless in the face of this vacuous tale of hairdos and cumbersome pneumatic devices.

[HockeyFan12]

Bill,

I haven't read the book, although I have been told what some of the key difference between it and the film are. I think you're wrong to strip the Coens all credit for their approach toward Llewellyn's death. Certainly they tried to find a functional equivalent to what McCarthy did in his text and it seems they succeeded quite well. Consider the other approaches they might have taken. None would have worked as well. It doesn't matter if a death scene is the cutting room floor or not (I'll bet it isn't), what matters is that at some point the Coens made the choice not to show the viewer Moss's death and it's an extremely effective presentation.

Literary form isn't directly transferrable to film form, and I'm not about to strip Kubrick of all credit because he did literary adaptations nor do I find Vertigo less impressive because it was based on a book. Certainly McCarthy deserves credit, too, but the shot choices are the Coens'. Even if they're only great translators from one medium to another, they're still great.

Clearly you don't like the story and you point out some valid flaws. That's fine. I like pulpy stories. I like the haircut. Difference of opinion.

And you're completely right that objectivity, subjectivity, audience sympathy, shot choice, etc. are total non-issues if the audience doesn't like the story. So if the story didn't work for you, you're free to ignore everything about how it was told. What you fail to pick up on is that most of us do like the story and do care about the storytelling. And we're allowed to.

And if you try to blame the story on the Coens, well... You can't.

[Bill Anderson]

HockeyFan, there was nothing snide meant by this. Eletist! yikes, that's a new one. But really, read your post again.

I certainly see the Coens as quite brilliant filmmakers but this was far from their finest hour- far from McCarthy's too. Literary form can readily shape or influence film form, even if it isn't , as you say, directly transferrable. You're being a bit evasive when you wave Kubrick's (and Hitchcock's) adaptation skills about as if they had a relevance to what I perceived in the Coen brothers' fairly stayed and somewhat preordained handling of No Country. And these are seasoned filmmakers we're talking about here -not film school students- and they had all better be very capable of literary adaptation, and so on. And please consider: McCarthy is (unlike Annie Proulx, for example) much too aware of the film market's potential, and is often seduced into pandering to them when he writes. He too often writes screenplays that are flimsily masked in the style of literature. If there was ever a story that was deliberately suited for film adaptation, No Country For Old Men is it.

What is left on "the cutting room floor" can be influenced by many factors outside the filmmaker's "genius", and the idea was included as an extreme, if unlikely, reflection on these unpredictable variables.

Yes, people are allowed to love and praise any film they want, but there will be times when those praises are taken to task; whether the praise is from a professional critic or otherwise. I'll concede that you're in weighty company in praising this simple movie, but that doesn't make it any more palatable for the rest of us, especially (and this is not aimed at you) when the philosophical gassing kicks in.

I like pulp too, because pulp generally knows what it is from the opening sentence/scene- Tarantino is particularly insightful in this regard- but when a message claiming to be for or about humanity turns out to be nothing more than pulp, then that's a different story.

[supernovafilms]

Maybe people should discuss how red can be utilized to advantage in terms of POV?

[J.R. Hud]

After my first sit down with NCFOM, I felt like the rug was yanked out from me. It took about a week for me to accept what I saw and experienced. I am a huge fan now, a wonderful film in visual terms, pacing, acting. I've accepted the ending (well..) as such.

And I loved the haircut.

I posted another arty on Tombstone and the OK CORRAL Shootout.

http://www.cineobscure.com/visual-language-tombstones-ok-corral/

[davide]

Maybe people should discuss how red can be utilized to advantage in terms of POV?

I'm not really sure how shooting with a Red camera would be any different from shooting with another camera in this regard. Deciding POV and shooting angle is an artistic decision that doesn't necessarily have much to do with the camera. The Red camera is certainly smaller than some film cameras so maybe you'd be able to get it into tighter quarters to get shots you couldn't with others. But there are (and have been for some time) smaller cams than the Red.

[supernovafilms]

Well its not just size... but yes that is one factor. I'm thinking there's not many cameras in this size range that can pull this kind of quality but i'm certainly open to hearing about others. It's also form and to a certain extent the way the camera can be manipulated the way Jim designed it aka modularity. I'm just interested in ways people are going to take advantage of these features to express point of view in distinct ways. I can't see any camera on the market that has these kind of features. There's some lightweight 35mm that are no doubt cool and i don't pretend to be an expert, but it seems to me, with pov, versatility would be seen as a cool thing, especially when combined with such quality and then there's the adaptability aspect and modularity aspect i just thought someone may have thought of a very unique kind of way of using all this and had situated it so that it could be used in a distinct pov style...

[J.R. Hud]

Size aside; I think lens options serve the POV well.

Like my examples in No Country, Brolin's character looks through binoculars, then cut to the POV that closes in on what was a very long shot. Still a long shot, but much closer visually speaking.

[J.R. Hud]

A simple yet effective scene.

I had fun with this one, one of my all time favorite films. Hope you enjoy it.

http://www.cineobscure.com/visual-language-raiders-of-the-lost-ark/

[J.R. Hud]

New arty on my blog for you filmmaker junkie types.

I chose a small one this time but think I stumbled across a nice point.

Break your script down visually first, then worry about dialogue ! This scene is a prime example of turning off the volume and getting exactly what is going on.

Hope you enjoy it !

http://www.cineobscure.com/visual-language-braveheart/

[Tom]

Hey nice one on Braveheart. You really pay attention and get into the details of this stuff. Braveheart is one of my top ten films for sure. It made a big impact on me as a young man, and the photography is a tour de force.

I bow to Toll.

[J.R. Hud]

Thanks for looking Tom

I updated the article to address a key issue on a line crossing in the scene.

I am not an expert, but always striving to learn and understand even if someone else points out an error or enlightens me !

Thank you for looking !

John !

[BASSAM MSSALATIE]

Thanks for this great thread .very rich.

[supernovafilms]

Thanks for looking Tom

I updated the article to address a key issue on a line crossing in the scene.

I am not an expert, but always striving to learn and understand even if someone else points out an error or enlightens me !

Thank you for looking !

John !

That's not technically a line jump because the the eye line establishes a new line. the jump occurs when say, for example, two people are looking at each other and you cross over but the eyeline establishes a new line. See most dinner table scenes for this.

[Glazarus]

A good way to get a new angle of the POV is to play fps games. The game I really think took the POV to a level beyond movies is "Half Life 2". For those that haven't played the game; the story takes place in a world controlled by an alien race called "the combines" (due to them not having a true form of them own, just a combination of other spieces). The world is a "1984" kinda place with big screens that spew out propaganda from a human that think we should turn over to the alien race, not rejecting them. A resistance has (of course) been growing in the dark and it all explodes when you, a scientist that has been layed in stasis by a mysterious man called "G-man", wakes up on a train on route to "city-17" (somewhere in europe).

Now, there are no cutscenes that tell the story and there's no outside camera. The entire story is told through the eyes of the main character (Gordon Freeman). He also never speak and there's little hints that we, the players are a part of the story in a kind of meta-way.
The thing that makes this intersting is that the story, backstory, character backgrounds and all aren't spewed out as a textbook before the drama begins. The drama begins directly and everyone around you really think you already know what they know. So to fully understand everything you must really pay close attention to background details.

I think it's a perfect example of how to present a story through the eyes of a character. Everyone interested in POV cinematography should play at least one FPS game, because it's a great inspiration.

[mail4joeg]

Still not getting why the end of No Country for Old Men was so brilliant?

I found it annoying and signifying nothing.

Am I that wrong on this?

[J.R. Hud]

That's not technically a line jump because the the eye line establishes a new line. the jump occurs when say, for example, two people are looking at each other and you cross over but the eyeline establishes a new line. See most dinner table scenes for this.

I'm willing to explore this in more detail. :tongue: :weight_lift:

In a dinner conversation, we are very much aware of everyones placement seated at the table. In this scene, we do get a glimpse in the 3rd frame of the young prince's lover, but not what may be considered a master or establishing shot, right ? The 3rd frame is very soft in the background.

I'm not sure it works for me, the eyeline rule, on this one. It does... but read on.

We're actually getting our first good glimpse of the lover from the line off Longshanks; see the resulting frame when the KING turns around.

-

Yes, an eyeline can establish a new line, but in this instance, it seems exagerrated. But it does work and serves the purpsoe as it is almost shocking (revealing) to see who he is looking at, and the choice of angle accentuates this and the frame seems to be shot (whether via zoomed in) beyond Longshanks position. So, in essence, the camera does cross over and beyond the established bride and groom.

My head hurts now.

[supernovafilms]

Do a floor plan on that scene. I don't think it's a line jump. Let me know what you come up with. An eye line is enough to establish a crossing as far as i am concerned. In this case the line jump occurs after we see the gay lover. In that shot no line is crossed, only the proceeding shot but by then a new eyeline is established. Do a floor plan with the cameras and you'll see what i mean.. Maybe i got it wrong ? I think a lot of your stuff is excellent by the way...