“From a distant gaze …” (1964) directed by Jean Ravel, picture Pierre Lhomme & Chris Marker, words by Louis Aragon, narrated by Jean Negroni, music by Michel Legrand. Describe a few things that intrigue you – it might be shot construction, camera work, editing, overall structure, thematic concerns etc. Describe the camera work and why you think it has been shot that way.
Some things that intrigue me:
This is quite an unusual film. The structure is irregular and shifting and difficult to comprehend. It’s also frequented by that shot of the man talking to the woman in the busy street. The film ends by returning to this shot and the woman joining the crowd of passers-by and walking away from the man; the conversation ending.
The film’s content is essentially masses of people. The irony is that this is a film that has been made for an audience. A mass of people just like the masses in the street which make up the content of the film. Thematically, I think it’s supposed to be some sort of ‘outer-body experience’ for the audience. But the camera doesn’t seem to have an objective, all-seeing eye. Its vision is quite narrow. Quite subjective. In fact, the camera work seems to train the viewer to stop looking for a character to follow; to stop looking for whose story this is. There are only masses of bodies – sometimes isolated and evaluated but never given the protagonist role – through which the camera relentlessly searches. It could be argued that the camera is some sort of character, since it seems to possess a certain amount of agency and subjectivity – traits of a protagonist. I don’t know. Maybe I’m looking at it too analytically.
Camerawork and why it has been shot that way:
The camerawork starts out emphasising movement. It does this by using relatively close-up shots which amplify the movement of the occupants of the frame as well as movement of the frame (camera) itself. Cars serve as abstract shapes / fleeting visual obstructions. People are fragmented: legs, torsos, heads. Things move from out of focus into focus. The camera is alive and changing. Or it seems to be unable to make up its mind on what to follow. For example, at one point, the camera shifts from observing a group of people we think to be the focus to follow a person who walks past the group of people. In this sense, the film kind of becomes one rush of hypnotising movement. Elements so relentlessly moving and changing, yet we still expect some decision and slow at some point. But this takes so long to happen that, for a while, we just let ourselves stare and become dizzy. It’s almost as if we are watching fragments of things. It doesn’t allow space or time for much context, just the fragments. Rapid cuts from one thing to another, and high-pitched, fast-rhythm music accentuate this dizziness.
Eventually, we enter a part of the film where things slow. Movement within the image and movement of the image reduces. We start to see people just standing still. There is more focus on capturing facial expressions and smaller body gestures. This slow stage continues for a while. The structure becomes messier from here with jarring returns to fast-paced style and back again. In particular, the shot of the man talking to the woman in the crowd of passers-by is recurrent and erratically interrupts the slow-paced moments.
I’m not sure why the camerawork is like this. Perhaps for the dizzying, hypnotising effect that I was describing above. Perhaps to attempt to give the audience an outer-body experience of watching themselves in a crowd. Perhaps to reject the rule of having a character to follow / to train the audience to not look for a character in watching the film. Perhaps the man and woman were the key characters. Perhaps the camera was the key protagonist. It’s all very abstract and contemplative and engenders emotions. It’s a film that plays with you. Particularly the camerawork. It plays with how you see things and how you watch the film. It plays with your preconceived notions of watching a film. That’s my reading of this film at least.