L'intervalle
- 1. + Cinema cent ans de jeunesse 2014/15 Mark Reid BFI L’Intervalle or spaces, spacing, gaps
- 2. + The 4 types of space Intimate Personal Social Public
- 3. + A Typology of Spacing in Cinema Ruptures and Separations Spaces maintained by desire Metaphysical and metaphorical Different cultures: east Asian spacing ‘Them and us’: spaces between viewer and story Two-shots
- 4. + Separations Between Us, Christensen/ Mork, UK, 2004 Girl with a Suitcase, Italy, Zurlani, 1961 The Kid, Chaplin, US, 1921 Bridges of Madison County, Eastwood L’Argent de Poche, Truffaut, France, 1976 Two Cars, One Night, Waititi, NZ, 2003 Kikujiro, Kitano, Japan, 1999
- 5. + Attraction, Desire, Space Shara, Kawase, Japan, 2003 Girl with a Suitcase ♯1, Zurlani, Italy, 1961 Greed, von Stroheim, US, 1924 Short Film About Love, Kieslowski The Awful Truth, McCarey, US, 1937 Through the Olive Trees, Kiarostami, Iran, 1994 Kikujiro, Kitano, Japan, 1999
- 6. + Metaphysical, Critical, and Metaphorical Barry Lyndon , Kubrick, UK-US, 1975 Three Times, Hou-Hsiao Hsien, Taiwan, 2005 L’Atalante, Vigo, France, 1934 Utamaro, Mizoguchi, Japan, 1946
- 7. + Two-shots Little Shop of Horrors, Oz, US, 1986 Woman Next Door, Truffaut, France, 1981 Miss Oyu, Mizoguchi, Japan, 1951 L’Avventura, Antonioni, Italy, 1960 Moonrise Kingdom, Anderson, US
- 8. + Them and Us Gravity, Cuaron, 2014 Stalker, Tarkovsky, Russia, 1980 Spirit of the Beehive, Erice, Spain, 1973 Summer with Monika, Bergman, Sweden, 1953
- 9. + (East) Asian Spaces Three Times, Hou H Hsien, Taiwan, 2005 Examining Mizoguchi’s Staging Kikujiro, Kitano, Japan, 1999 Miss Oyu, Mizoguchi, Japan, 1951
- 10. + Exercise 1 Set up two characters both facing the camera, but 7 metres apart. Make a long focal length shot in which the closer face fills the frame. Take two more shots in both of which the first character’s face is the same size in the frame as the first shot, but adjust the focal length in each, to mid-focus, and then wide angle. The purpose is to show how varying the depth of field creates different spacing effects
- 11. + Three sample shots for Exercise 1: same distance between subjects, but focal lengths are telephoto, mid focus, and wide angle
- 12. + (Optional, or alternative) Exercise 1 Take four shots, or stills, of the four kinds of Physical Space: Intimate, Private, Public, Social. These can be found, shot as ‘Lumiere Minute’ style pieces, or created dramatically.
- 13. + Exercise 2 Take a full length shot of a character, facing the camera, who is looking at something or someone off-screen, behind the camera. The character progressively moves forward to the object they are looking at. Film it twice, once with a wide angle, and again in telephoto. Don’t use the auto-focus. Either manually pull focus, or se an arbitrary focus point that the character will move through.
- 14. + Exercise 3 Film the same situation in two or three different ways: in long take (static and/ or moving) and in an edited sequence. Person A gives something to Person B – a thing which creates tension or a separation. Exactly the same situation each time, though the actors can change. As little dialogue as possible. 1-2 minutes long
- 15. + (Optional, alternative) Exercise 3 Take the scene from Miss Oyu, featuring the man and woman arguing. Play without subtitles, and ask students to script the exchange. Have them block out a version of the scene between two of them, in a familiar space – in school. Shoot the scene using the same blocking and camera moves as Mizoguchi, but with the new dialogue.
- 16. + Film Essai A character wants to join in an event or scenario, in which two or three other characters are already engaged. Eventually, the character pulls away, and moves away (‘reculs’), and the camera with them, but maybe keeping some connection with the scene (‘éloigné’, or ‘elastically’). And then they encounter another, previously unseen character. 6-7 minutes long
Editor's Notes
- #5: Ideas for exercises or interactive activities that explore this concept. Note of editing – parallel editing reinforces the separation
- #6: Look at how eye contact creates an ‘elastic’ relation between characters, or creates a force-field that can’t be reduced or intruded upon. How much do we, as audience, want the space to be maintained, or reduced?
- #7: Identify as many ‘gaps’ or ‘spaces’ as you can, established in each scene: class, gender, age; other non-human scenic elements used as avatars of human spaces
- #10: Is it reasonable to talk about culturally specific ways of managing space? Are Western cultures more touchy-feely? Are Asian cultures more restrained, formal, managed, reserved? Is the shooting plane actually a mirror of these differences? So, the camera doesn’t interpolate itself into the billiard scene, but stays ‘this side’ of the table. Scorsese for example plants his camera right in the middle of similar scenes (Mean Streets, for exmple)