Framing a Threesome: DESERT FURY

I (Mel) talked elsewhere about the meaning of Johnny, Eddie, and Paula drinking coffee in this scene, but I’ll sum the backstory you need to understand the framing:

Johnny and Eddie have been together — as criminals, friends, and lovers — for years.

Then Paula came into the picture, Eddie asked her to marry him, and Johnny is real mad about it. They couch their anger in quasi-civility in this scene.

At first glance the static shots covering one or two characters may look like ‘coverage’ — but it’s not that simple.

The opening shot sets up the geography, and has Johnny establishing his domestic claim on Eddie by making and serving coffee, as well as standing over the other two.

Once Johnny sits, the shots quite clearly show he and Eddie in a shot-reverse-shot twosome. These shots ignore Paula entirely, even though she’s sitting so close to Eddie she might land in his lap if she coughed.

We’ve also got singles of Paula and Johnny shooting dagger eyes at each other; Eddie is completely out of the picture despite being the object of their passion.

Eddie, meanwhile, is never alone in frame, always sharing with one or the other of them.

Only one shot at the table shows all of them together, and it frames Eddie tightly between Paul and Eddie, literally trapped as they play tug-of-war with his future.

The final shot returns to the same setup as the opener as Johnny storms out; yes, there’s great economy of filmmaking, but it also shows the status hasn’t changed since the start of breakfast.

Eddie holds firm, Paula remains by his side, Johnny is the odd man out despite trying to leverage his and Eddie’s impassioned history.

A great scene where simple, mostly-static shots tell the story as thoroughly as the characters’ fighting words.