Art of the Chase: BODY DOUBLE and Cutting Without Losing Anything
Art of the Chase: BODY DOUBLE and Cutting Without Losing Anything
Brian De Palma's Body Double 'man follows woman' scene packs a lot of information and cuts (19, to be exact) into 47 seconds, while always keeping clear what's happening.
Watch the short scene, then check out the shot-by-shot breakdown below.
shot #01 - we're behind Jake, see where he is in relation to the beach and tents, and see what he sees: Gloria walking towards the left of a row of beach tents
#02 - cut to Jake, his eyes shift camera left, leading us into his POV in the next shot.
#03 - similar to shot #01 but slightly closer to beach / Jake not in frame, so we know we're in Jake's POV. We / he sees a man run towards the opposite side of the beach tents to Gloria
#04 - Jake's eyes dart right, away from the man; he heads out of frame that direction
#05 - cut to 'ground level' shot behind Gloria, which vantage point gives the feeling of Jake and/or thug stalking her:
#06 - cut to another solo shot of Gloria, now from the front; this shot has two movements within it, a tilt up to show Jake far behind, clearly pursuing her, then a pan down with Jake which then waits until he walks, ending in what his movement has turned into a mid-shot.
#07 - cut to mid-shot of Gloria, from behind again
#08 - back to Jake in the same front-on mid as the end of Shot #06; he’s still intently looking and following.
When Jake's eyes dart camera left again, cut to:
#09 - Jake's POV - a move established from the second shot in the sequence.
Jake’s POV now eye-level and moving, which gives us (as it would him) unclear glimpses down rows of beach tents, between closeups of tent patterns filling the screen / obscuring his view.
#10 thru #14 repeats shots in rapid succession, mimicking Jake looking frantically back & forth.
At the end of shot #14 Jake yells, prompting the cut to
#15 - The mid shot from behind Gloria repeats, now *slightly* closer in a MCU; as she turns around the camera (and we understand the camera = Jake) stops moving: pursuit over, he has caught up!
#16 through #19 give us the punch line Cuts back & forth between MCUs of Jake & Gloria as he informs her 'someone is following you!' expecting to be thanked.
She replies 'I know' because as we've just seen he is stalking her . . . though that's of course not who he meant.
The scene being suddenly flipped on its head works for several reasons, high among them because by giving us Jake’s point-of-view including a ‘stereotypical’ shot of a stalker watching his prey, we the audience completely accept Gloria would feel followed, even as we understand that Jake thought he was helping, and the glimpses Jake had of another man are so quick and obscured that even as he’s not positive what they mean or if he saw what he thinks he does, neither are we.
To make such a short sequence ‘confusing’ and subjective, while clearly showing what’s happening and where characters are in relationship to each other, is masterful filmmaking.