Five Shots: BETTY BLUE and Dramatic Blocking
Betty Blue has so many spectacular shots, we couldn’t narrow it down. We’ve picked Five [types of] Shots using colour, Five Ways To Create Frames Within Frames, and this entry is about the drama.
Waiting in the Supermarket Parking Lot
I dare say few of us look so regal as Betty (Béatrice Dalle), waiting for Zorg to finish buying groceries.
Even if we do, it takes love and skill to shoot us from both a god’s-eye angle, and one where we take up much of the frame, imposing like some sort of waiting mermaid.
Walking Into the Sunset
Speaking of That Red Dress! Here the shot cedes the dress’s bright colour to the sunset Betty is marching into.
It simply holds and lets us observe the contrast between the natural, and the force of nature that is Betty.
Descending a Stairwell
As Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade) descends the stairs, the low angle, red paint, and dramatic lighting all make it feel as though he’s headed into purgatory, even before he lights a cigarette.
The Cluttered Kitchen
When Betty is mad at Zorg, the scene starts with them not only framed in different rooms, but through their respective doorways, so they’re completely ‘walled off’ from each other.
Betty storms into the kitchen to get something to eat, and first stands as far from Zorg (who’s pointedly smoking and ignoring her) as possible, then opens and slams the refrigerator door.
It’s all run in the widest shot the room will allow, to best show not only their body language and the clutter between them, but how they’re distancing themselves; cutting to mediums or closeups wouldn’t give quite so much Drama!
The Looming Church
Betty Blue lights many, many, many scenes in blue or against blue skies, and uses Zorg’s car or jacket as a pop of yellow against them.
This scene reverses that, lighting up the entire church as yellow, angling the camera so the yellow takes up as much of the shot and sky as possible, and then just putting a tiny bit of blue with the railing and Zorg’s jeans as contrasting colour.
