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  • Hi my name is Tony and[br]this is Every Frame a Painting.

  • When I say a film is poetic,[br]what pops into your head?

  • Do you think it's slow?[br]Pretentious? Plotless?

  • "Is she gonna wake up and do something?"

  • These are the clichés.[br]-"No."

  • But to me, poetry in cinema is when[br]I can ignore the plot

  • and just appreciate the picture and[br]the sound doing something unique.

  • Scorsese: "The films that I constantly[br]revisited or saw repeatedly...

  • ...held up longer for me over the years[br]not because of plot...

  • ...but because of character...

  • and a very different approach to story."

  • "The Wrong Man, for example. I talked[br]about the paranoid camera moves

  • the feelings of threat, the fear,[br]the anxiety, the paranoia

  • it’s all done through the camera[br]and the person’s face."

  • -"It is the same."

  • Lynne Ramsay’s work[br]has this same quality.

  • Everything is conveyed through the[br]camera, the person’s face & the details

  • "Some things I shoot are very controlled[br]I know exactly why I want them...

  • ...I will spend ages to get that exactly[br]right and it’s because for me...

  • ...the details in that are saying[br]everything about the scene."

  • But what can we learn from a detail?

  • Here’s an example. In this scene, a son[br]taunts his mother by misbehaving

  • just before his father

  • -"Hey guys."

  • -"Hey dad, how was work?[br]Take any cool pictures?"

  • Notice that the father is placed[br]just on the edge of the frame,

  • because while he’s around,[br]he doesn’t really pay attention.

  • Later on,[br]when he tries to ignore her fears

  • -"He’s a sweet little boy.[br]That’s what boys do."

  • We still don't see his face.[br]Instead, we get this shot.

  • What does this detail tell us? Literally[br]they haven’t cleaned up the mess

  • and it's gotten worse.[br]But what about metaphorically?

  • What does this say about[br]them and their son?

  • What’s interesting about[br]Lynne Ramsay’s work

  • is that the entire story is implied[br]through these detail shots.

  • And she doesn’t get this effect[br]by putting lots of stuff in the frame

  • but by taking things out, so that[br]you focus on one detail at a time.

  • "I think that Robert Bresson had a[br]really good quote about that...

  • It was something like...

  • 'When the image is doing everything,[br]don’t have any sound.'

  • And when the sound’s doing everything,[br]don’t have any image."

  • I mean, don’t do something[br]too fancy with image."

  • This is one thing film is great at:[br]evoking a state of mind

  • purely through image and sound.

  • When you work like this[br]everything depends

  • on the framing, the person’s face,[br]and the repetition of details.

  • So let's go one by one.[br]First, the framing.

  • Ramsay often frames so that important[br]information is cut off from the viewer.

  • Notice here,[br]we never see the woman’s eyes.

  • Meanwhile here, we have a character[br]who’s literally cut in half by a door.

  • In all of these shots,[br]you can guess what someone is feeling

  • but the frame doesn’t let you[br]see them in full.

  • "There's no place like home.[br]No place like home."

  • So as an audience, youre never told[br]what to feel about these people.

  • There’s something mysterious about them.

  • Which brings us to #2: faces.

  • I don’t know why, but some people just[br]look right when you put them onscreen.

  • Even when they aren’t professionals.

  • In most of her work, Ramsay mixes[br]professional and non-professional actors

  • until the two are indistinguishable.

  • "The best actors for me are the people[br]who are like non-professional actors...

  • ...You can’t tell where the film[br]ends or begins...

  • ...As if they were the same offscreen.[br]They just feel real."

  • And she picks people who can convey[br]what’s going on inside their head

  • without any dialogue.

  • "He's the double of my Ryan, innit he?[br]The same eyes."

  • And #3, there’s[br]the repetition of certain details.

  • When youre watching one of these films,[br]pay attention how & when images repeat

  • For instance, notice how mother and son[br]imitate each other’s body language.

  • And in the next shot, they do the[br]exact same thing, ten years later.

  • At one point, the son[br]does this with his fingernails

  • While later in the film, his mother[br]does the same thing with eggshells.

  • A more conventional film might[br]explain the meaning of this

  • but here, all we get is one image.[br]And then another.

  • And we have to work out[br]the connection for ourselves.

  • So let’s consider all this over[br]the course of a single short film.

  • This is Gasman, made in 1997.

  • I’m not going to tell you the[br]big plot point. I’m just going to show

  • some details from before and after.[br]See if you can guess what’s happening.

  • "Gonna lift me up, daddy?"

  • At the beginning of the film, Lynne and[br]her father meet a girl on the tracks.

  • A girl she doesn't know.

  • Before the event, they bond over[br]her dress and hold hands.

  • Notice this shot chops off their heads.

  • After the event, we see them[br]holding hands again, but this time...

  • -"What’s the matter?"[br]-"She’s hurting me."

  • To appease them, Lynne’s father[br]picks them up and does this.

  • Which mirrors the beginning of the film,[br]when he did the same with just Lynne.

  • At the end, the other girl[br]rejoins her mother.

  • And were left on the tracks,[br]watching the back of Lynne’s head.

  • Can you infer what’s going on?

  • What if I showed you this?

  • Get it now?

  • A film like this is basically a before[br]and after portrait of one kid’s mind

  • presented through parallel images[br]and situations.

  • In other words, it’s indirect.[br]Poetic filmmaking.

  • It might not hit you while you watch it[br]but it can linger long afterwards.

  • -"So then what you're saying,[br]it's the eye that's going to captivate-"

  • -"The vision, the vision that he puts[br]on the film, which I… the vision...

  • meaning the actual picture in the frame[br]and what he puts in the film."

  • -"Which is, I imagine,[br]the way a painter would...

  • ...in terms of his aesthetic."[br]-"Exactly."

  • -"Ow!"

  • -"For God's sake,[br]look at the state of my curtain."

  • -"Because it opens up every possibility[br]for sound, for sight, for form."

  • Exactly.[br]There aren’t many films like this

  • and they teach us a very[br]different way of making movies.

  • Instead of going big, they go small.

  • They focus on details.

  • They show us less instead of more.

  • And through simplicity,[br]they find poetry.

  • And if anybody ever asks you[br]what poetry means

  • I don’t know, make something up.

  • Subtitles by the Amara.org community

Hi my name is Tony and[br]this is Every Frame a Painting.

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