Week 73: Socials Roundup
Week 73: Socials Roundup
Posts from 27 May - 02 June 2024
Happy Pride! Our Week 73 posts are full of queer (and in one case, queer-coded) women, including Desert Hearts (1985); Legends of Tomorrow (2016-2022); Under the Bridge (2024); Caged (1950); and Broad City (2014-2019).
Caged
This scene from Caged is about a terrified Marie (Eleanor Parker) trying to adjust to her new circumstances.
As Marie pauses getting ready for bed, the camera cuts to the prisoner she's looking at, who gives her a cheeky salute before the camera cuts back to Marie.
It'd be easy to 'cover' the lights going off at 0:17 by simply cutting back to the dimmed version of Marie. Instead Caged makes a 'live' lighting change, involving a much longer, more complicated setup, but a much more dramatic and effective shift.
Under the Bridge
This gorgeous shot from Under the Bridge 1.01 "Looking Glass" fittingly uses a reflection to show Cam (Lily Gladstone) over the footage of the missing girl she's searching for.
Cam's face is bisected by telephone wires, showing her inner conflict, while her doubting colleagues are reflected literally looking over her shoulder.
Behind the TV and out of focus are various office paraphernalia; posters, paperwork, pots of coffee, which serve as colour-counterpoint to the black-and-white CCTV footage.
Broad City
Broad City 2.03 "Wisdom Teeth" montages Ilana making firecracker s'more milkshakes, mix-&-matching types of shots with seeming abandon
zooms! dollys! frame ramping! (shots not consistently slo-mo / double-speed but parts slowed down / sped up)! POV! (everything from Ilana's hand to the s'mores themselves)!
It works because 1. it goes in chronological order 2. it playfully evokes the feel of being stoned. You're hungry, you're imagining yourself spinning in a microwave, you get your face right up next to that butter knife to better see how nutella interacts with graham cracker, you feel time warp around you . . .
Now excuse me I have some cooking to do.
Desert Hearts
What is more immediate, foolhardy, romantic, symbolic, and timeless than 'goodbye' as a train leaves the station?
I (Mel) love every single thing about this scene from Desert Hearts, encapsulated in this frame.
the city/country contrast of Vivian/Cay shown not just in their clothes but the train/trees on either side of frame
the way the train and its leading lines go back towards the horizon and disappear into a haze of infinite possibility
the way the blue-grey of Vivian's suit and sky and gravel, the yellow of the pylon+chain and road line, the red of Cay's shirt, all pick out the colours of the train car
that we see Vivian's hand making her offer clear, and Cay's face which will make her decision clear, their choices requiring emotion and also action
It all works together for one of the best endings in cinema . . . though from just looking at the frame, you may not guess the train is actually moving L-R, as Cay accepts Vivian's hand not as a promise of forever, but for "just another 40 minutes" to the next station.
Legends of Tomorrow
A time-honoured way for sci-fi shows to save budget and time is to lampshade its CGI being rough and minimal.
Legends of Tomorrow "No Country for Old Dads" puts psychic megavillain Grodd
on video call
with 'tech specs' overlay
far in the background so out-of-focus
on a handheld device, so once Grodd leaps into focus the video is shaken around before fritzing out
Voila! A story explanation for making a massive gorilla attack short and shaky (and more than a bit funny).