Thursday, February 9, 2012
On Track
The Last Laugh and The Rules of the Game come from different traditions and styles. One is a classic of German Expressionism, the other of Poetic Realism. The first is silent (with only ONE intertitle!), the other makes use of sound. Yet both utilize virtuoso camera movement. The Last Laugh, for example, follows the doorman on his walk of shame as he passes the laughing faces of his neighbors. The Rules of the Game uses a tracking shot in which the camera moves across the back of a room as we see various characters flirt, escape and wallow in despair and eventually search for a private room. Is there any common theme or purpose to the use of tracking shots in these films? Or is there meaning in part defined by the movie and style? What can we learn about the use and function of camera movement from these films?
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I believe that at times both films use camera movement for a similar effect. When the camera follows the doorman on his walk of shame it helps to put the viewer in his perspective. Moving with the person of focus helps to distinguish that person from the others, and in this scene, almost makes the viewer feel as though they are waking with the doorman. A similar effect is achieved in the hunt scene of The Rules of the Game; the camera follows the beaters as they walk through the woods. It is steady and slides through the trees effortlessly. This helps to show the focus of the beaters and their relatively calm disposition. When the camera follows the fleeing animals it makes fast tracking shots. These help to give the audience the sense of panic , and relate to the animals.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with Adam about the purpose of the tracking shots in The Last Laugh, I disagree about how The Rules of the Game utilizes them. In The Last Laugh, tracking shots are all about evoking emotion. Take the absurdly long one at the end of the film, which introduces the audience to the bathroom attendant's new station. We go by table upon table of wealthy diners, and every single one of them is discussing the bathroom attendant's newfound wealth and fame. When we finally find him, he's revealed by the removal of a massive cake from the frame. Now, there's nothing realistic about this shot; everything in it is heightened and distorted, with one purpose: to create the feeling of incalculable luxury. The tracking shots in The Rules of the Game, on the other hand, serve more to capture than to evoke. That is, the reason for camera movement in The Rules of the Game is so that the audience doesn't miss an essential plot point just because it's happening nearly concurrently with a different one. The shot of the back of the room that Dr. I mentioned above is a prime example of this. The unbroken tracking shot isn't saying, "Look, now we're sad," but rather showing the stages in a progression of events without interruption. The lack of any cuts in this case serves mostly to show interconnected actions intelligibly not only in time, but also in space.
ReplyDeleteIn the last laugh, the camera is used to emphasize building emotions as well as overwhelming size. In the rules of the game, the camera is used to show all of the different side plots going on throughout the movie. It does not seem to emphasize one specific situation but shows all of them equally and of equal significance.
ReplyDeleteOn the doormans walk of shame, as he continues down the path it shows all of the woman coming out of their windows, one by one. The number builds as he walks until it almost overpowers him and the calidescope image of ugly woman’s faces take over the screen. The buildings are also always big in the movie including the main character himself.
In the rules of the game scene of many affairs, the camera moves with the characters not for build up or emphasize of one single thing but of the multitude of different love situations unfolding, some good, some out of control. The camera flows with one subplot that eventually reveals a separate one in the corner of the screen. It then latches on to that next one and keeps doing that for quite a while. It tells multiple stories at one time which makes it both crazy but interesting. It becomes a lot to handle for the viewer.
It seems as if there is nothing directly similar in both of those films in regards to camera movement other than the fact that they use camera movement to portray very important themes in the movie.