Greatest Hits (Demo Reel for those who do not have a real reel, just a file folder)
The moving camera in The Conversation
The Conversation excellently balances themes of paranoia and privacy with the political climate of Watergate. Coppola uses a moving camera to establish a watchful eye over his characters. In the opening scene, a long zoom takes an extreme wide shot of a busy outdoor court into a medium shot, in the process eliminating the notion of privacy. In a later scene inside of Harry Caul’s apartment, Harry seems to be attempting to avoid the camera’s gaze as he makes a phone call, but the camera moves and follows him. A third (and perhaps the most damning instance) is the final shot of the film. As Harry Caul sits in his torn apartment, the camera pans repeatedly from the right to the left from a high angle, imitating a security camera. Harry has torn his apartment apart trying to find the bug, but he still cannot escape the camera’s eye. Privacy is impossible.
Space and composition in Il Conformista
Bertolucci and his crew use sets and the mise en scene to suggest the character of Marcello Clerici’s search for an identity and a place in society. One instance of space denoting class occurs early in the film when Clerici is having dinner with his fiancé and her mother. As they eat dinner at the table with full cutlery sets, Bertolucci cuts briefly to a shot of their servant standing in the kitchen, eating the same spaghetti out of the serving bowl. She has no place to sit or proper utensils to use. She is on the left side of the frame and in focus, while Clerici and the others are on the right side of the frame, out of focus. This suggests that while their worlds intertwine and mingle, they live very different lives. This scene, though very brief, is indicative of Mary Wood’s assertion that space in Italian cinema is “never neutral…and always expressive of power relations” and the instability of class ideologies (Wood 201).
Pierrot le Fou as visual essay
While Godard’s Pierrot le Fou retains a formal narrative structure, it also manages to be more amorphous in nature. In many ways the film serves as a visual essay – the characters are just as likely to speak to each other in drawn out literary passages, as they are to speak to each other in dialogue. For example, the film opens with a quotation from a book on the painter Velázquez accompanied first by images of two people playing tennis then by those of Ferdinand in an open-air book market. While the scene in the market is self-explanatory, the shots of the tennis players are more implicit in nature. The characters do not recur, and the purpose of the shot is open to debate. Perhaps it is to show that the film will depict two close friends in conflict: in this case Ferdinand and Marianne, two destructive lovers. The narration, which tells of a change in Velázquez’s painting style when he turns 50, could foretell of the dramatic change in Ferdinand’s life that awaits him. The result is a film much more explicit in its portrayal of the director’s personal politics and attitudes. This approach is much more free form in nature than classical Hollywood filmmaking.
The Wolves (Act I and II)
Album centerpiece “The Wolves (Act I and II)”, closes out the first side of the album. After spending the first half of the song telling his lover that she will not forget him, Vernon devotes the last three minutes to one line “What might’ve been lost – don’t bother me.” Through repetition, and a little bit of Autotune (which foreshadows his stellar use of the technology on “Woods” off his Blood Bank EP) – Vernon stretches an infinite number of emotions out of one line.
As the line is repeated, and the emotional center peaks, chaotic drumming fades into the background. The cacophony is mixed low, but its there, bubbling under the surface. Like Vernon’s mental stability, it never cracks, it never explodes, it never escapes. And when the chaos dies down, Vernon’s voice returns, more fragile than ever – nearly stuttering, struggling to form sentences. After one final “Someday my pain,” his voice disappears into the ambience of the room, and the next sound you hear is the needle on your player.
As the line is repeated, and the emotional center peaks, chaotic drumming fades into the background. The cacophony is mixed low, but its there, bubbling under the surface. Like Vernon’s mental stability, it never cracks, it never explodes, it never escapes. And when the chaos dies down, Vernon’s voice returns, more fragile than ever – nearly stuttering, struggling to form sentences. After one final “Someday my pain,” his voice disappears into the ambience of the room, and the next sound you hear is the needle on your player.
Performer, listener and player piano
The player piano removes the limitations put on a composition by the performer’s physical abilities. A performer may only be able to reach a handful of keys at any given time on the piano, and may not be able to perform at rapid tempos for a prolonged period of time or for the duration of the piece. Study 3a is emblematic of the incredible speed and multiple rhythms capable with the player piano. These elements would be almost impossible to reproduce, even with several human performers. The piece is even difficult for the listener to digest – the studies frequently have so many lines of activity that the listener may not be able to follow all of them (Griffiths 72). The complexity (and brevity) of the pieces is reflected by the fact that it could take more than a year to compose a five-minute piece (71).
The incredible complexity of the piano Studies almost invites the passivity of the listener. There is so much happening in the music itself that there is no need for the listener to bring anything new to the piece. Because the piece can only be reproduced through the use of a player piano (in effect, technology assumes the duties of the performer in the Studies), every performance is mechanically similar. For many composers this is ideal – closed form compositions allow for direct contact with the composer’s intentions. There is no room or desire for the musical expressivity of the performer.
The incredible complexity of the piano Studies almost invites the passivity of the listener. There is so much happening in the music itself that there is no need for the listener to bring anything new to the piece. Because the piece can only be reproduced through the use of a player piano (in effect, technology assumes the duties of the performer in the Studies), every performance is mechanically similar. For many composers this is ideal – closed form compositions allow for direct contact with the composer’s intentions. There is no room or desire for the musical expressivity of the performer.
4'33"
4’33” is a prime example of an open form composition, in stark contrast to the static, closed form player piano Studies by Nancarrow. What makes 4’33” an open form piece is its mutability from performance to performance. This is absent from the player piano Studies, where each renewed performance is identical. Each performance of an open form piece would vary greatly in interpretive nuance, structure and form (Kleinsasser). Live performance, therefore, is necessary for open form compositions. Any single recording of a piece would fail to capture the full breadth and possibility of the work. For instance, the BBC performance is by a full orchestra, and the audible sounds include sniffles and coughs from the audience. The David Tudor piano version is markedly different. For solo piano the piece features no audience and the only audible sounds are the ticking of the stopwatch keeping the time of the movements, the rustling of the pages of the program, and the movements of the performer. Appropriately, the televised version displays a message inviting the audience to mute their television sets and enjoy the ambience of their own living rooms. This ensures that every listener will receive a different experience from 4’33”.
Subjective realism in if....
An example of the crusaders’ youthful rebellion occurs when Mick and Johnny take a trip into town. After stealing a motorcycle from a dealership, the two go to a café where they meet the beautiful waitress, credited as “The Girl.” After turning down Mick’s initial advances, the Girl declares, “I’m like a tiger,” and engages Mick in a sort of dance or mating ritual. The two wrestle to the floor, and Anderson utilizes a jump cut to show them still wrestling, but now naked. This instance is one of the more certain uses of subjective realism – it is more Mick’s desire than actuality in the film. The playful rebellion of this sequence (with its focus on sexuality and non-violent crime) appeals to the defiant qualities of youth culture the boys had already expressed, but elevates them further. This defiance turns violent and murderous in the final scene with the help of subjective realism.
The title if....
The film was shot at Cheltenham College, Lindsay Anderson’s alma mater. Fearing that the critical portrayal of the British schooling system would forbid them from securing the location, Anderson and Sherwin delivered a dummy script to the headmaster at Cheltenham and re-titled it if…. after Rudyard Kipling’s poem on youth and maturity (Lambert 165). The new title stuck, not only as an ironic or sarcastic tribute to the values instilled in public schooling, but also as a plea to the desires and possibilities found within the subjective sequences of the film.
Color and homosexuality in if....
Following several more introductory scenes detailing life back at College House, there is a scene in black and white in which Mrs. Kemp (a professor’s wife) shows the new undermaster to his quarters. The use of black and white stems from the inability to properly light the scenes inside the chapel in full color. To complement the scenes in the chapel, Anderson decided to shoot additional scenes in black and white when it suited him. Though the decision to shoot monochrome was initially economical, it had stylistic implications. The breaks in color continuity give several sequences a dream-like quality, which adds to the subjective realism during the second half. The differences in color also provide another contrast for the film that already sets youth against age and individual against authority, that of “two worlds co-existing in the name of education” (Johnson 49). The first scene in black and white to appear in the film is the scene between Mrs. Kemp and the undermaster, emphasizing that the world of adults is dissimilar from the world of the youth. Lindsay Anderson felt that scenes like this, in addition to the chapel scenes, wouldn’t have been able to convey the same “bleak uniformity” had they been shot in color (Lambert 168). Anderson’s use of color and monochrome exhibit his ability to adapt a technical problem into one of the most distinct stylistic features of the film.
Later in the film, Anderson uses softly lit black and white for a romantic scene between Wallace (one of Mick’s friends) and the younger Bobby Phillips in the gymnasium. In this case, the black and white isn’t being used to represent bleakness, but instead is meant to be comforting. The use of slow motion, music and intercutting glances between Wallace and Phillips contribute to developing a sense of affection between them. From the very first appearance of Phillips, the attractive junior, he is seen as an object of homosexual desire. Boys tell him they want to stroke him, and even the whips exhibit jealousy with regards to who gets Phillips to scum for them. His relationship with Wallace grows as the two are shown meeting clandestinely at night to talk and later as they share a bed. Lindsay Anderson was homosexual, but he struggled with accepting it throughout his life, “It seems then that I am homosexual. Oh God. It really is rather awful and I suppose I shall never get rid of it” (Lambert 25). These feelings resulted because Anderson resided in a British society that regarded homosexuals as criminals and sinners (123). if…. allowed Anderson the opportunity to exorcise these demons while at the same time highlighting that the same society condemning homosexuality was also predicated on institutions which by nature encouraged affections among and between men and boys.
Later in the film, Anderson uses softly lit black and white for a romantic scene between Wallace (one of Mick’s friends) and the younger Bobby Phillips in the gymnasium. In this case, the black and white isn’t being used to represent bleakness, but instead is meant to be comforting. The use of slow motion, music and intercutting glances between Wallace and Phillips contribute to developing a sense of affection between them. From the very first appearance of Phillips, the attractive junior, he is seen as an object of homosexual desire. Boys tell him they want to stroke him, and even the whips exhibit jealousy with regards to who gets Phillips to scum for them. His relationship with Wallace grows as the two are shown meeting clandestinely at night to talk and later as they share a bed. Lindsay Anderson was homosexual, but he struggled with accepting it throughout his life, “It seems then that I am homosexual. Oh God. It really is rather awful and I suppose I shall never get rid of it” (Lambert 25). These feelings resulted because Anderson resided in a British society that regarded homosexuals as criminals and sinners (123). if…. allowed Anderson the opportunity to exorcise these demons while at the same time highlighting that the same society condemning homosexuality was also predicated on institutions which by nature encouraged affections among and between men and boys.