Two Uses for Rack Focus: NOW, VOYAGER

A rack focus is often used to draw our attention to a person or item — for example in a mystery, the focus might rack from a detective to the suspect, or from the suspect to the murder weapon.

Today we look at two very different uses of a rack focus in Now, Voyager, and what they say about the characters within the scenes.

A Delightful Surprise

When Charlotte (Bette Davis) premieres her new dress, the camera shows it off to us before cutting to Jerry (Paul Henreid) sitting at the bar; first the focus is on Jerry’s face in the mirror, then comes the rack!

The shot of Jerry cuts in with the focus in the mirror, where we can see him ‘front on’ drinking and waiting. As he notices Charlotte, turning his face towards her (and thus towards the camera/audio), the camera racks along with his movements.

Almost immediately Jerry jumps up, the motion carrying into the next 2-shot as Jerry joins Charlotte. Used in such a short shot, between two longer shots, the quick rack focus gives us Jerry’s feeling of surprise and delight.

The movie’s next use of rack focus is different in every way.

A Tense Tic

Several times before this scene, Now, Voyager called attention to the nervous hand motions of both Charlotte and her mother, Mrs. Henry Windle Vale (Dame Gladys Cooper).

The focus is first on Charlotte rushing about to get ready, then as she ducks behind a wall to get changed, the focus, slow and considered, pulls to Mrs. Henry Windle Vale.

After drawing our attention the shot lingers until Charlotte reemerges; for a full 23 seconds!

Mrs. Henry Windle Vale’s hand tapping is much more important to the meaning of the scene than Jerry spotting Charlotte, and her emotional state is more than Jerry’s moment of delight. The rack and then linger makes the hands undeniable; it’s a stylised, insistent shot.

So what is it insisting we notice? Without Mrs. Henry Windle Vale’s face in frame, we can’t help but be drawn to the motion of her impatient, bejewelled hand. It probably tells us more than her face, which she attempts to keep passive as stone.

It also sets us up to notice her hand in the following shots, first in the mirror, then when Charlotte turns and walks to face her mother.

Because the shots prior have focused us — forced us to focus on! — the hand, it’s top of mind how Mrs. Henry Windle Vale will absolutely not let go of her grip on Charlotte’s life. Thus we’re keenly aware of when Charlotte sees her mother’s tapping hand, and how to ‘read’ the acknowledgement in Charlotte’s eyes and downcast head.

The hand in conjunction with Mrs. Henry Windle Vale’s body also creates a frame-within-a-frame, drawing attention to of the ‘blank space’ Charlotte disappears into, while the tapping tells us this is happening in real time and not some sort of trick.

This highlights Charlotte’s quick change from white dressing gown to ‘scandalous’ black evening dress, a fun bit of staging which also signifies her insistence on dressing herself in stark opposition to her mother, who is in heavily embroidered white and copious jewellery.

Takeaways

Rack focuses often draw the attention, but how, to what, and why, are infinitely varied. They may be so quick the audience hardly notices them, only feels them. Or they may be slow and insistent, impossible to ignore.