Week 85: Socials Roundup
Posts from 19 Aug - 25 Aug 2024
Week 85 posts include shots from Cop Land (1997); Person of Interest (2011-2016); Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1996 - not a typo); Desert Fury (1947); Brighton Rock (1948).
Brighton Rock
We're doing a miniseries on Brighton Rock soon. For now, enjoy this:
1. scene transition, with Hermione Baddeley's boisterous laugh turning into a trilling phone ring
2. beautiful framing with lines and shadows and smoke galore, and the focus following a mobster down stairs to the phone which waits in the foreground
3. juxtaposition between mobster and innocent on the phone call - him sweaty in a dingy crowded room, her in a bright white room with her waitress hat as a sort of halo
Person of Interest
These similar-yet-different framings from Person of Interest sum up Collier (Leslie Odom, Jr.) and Greer (John Nolan).
Though the show depicts both of them as causing harm, Collier sees himself as fighting for 'we the people,' driven by philosophical precepts to give humans more privacy and freedom.
Greer has no such ideals or illusions in his goal to subjugate everyone to omnipresent surveillance and eventually a god-like panopticon. The concept of a panopticon was designed to imprison, as the bars behind Greer suggest. Those bars behind Greer echo the flag stripes behind Collier, suggesting no matter the origin of your ideals, you can still work towards ignoble ends.
Desert Fury
Plenty of classic Hollywood pictures end with their characters walking towards a horizon - sometimes that horizon is a painted backdrop seamlessly integrated with the set!
One of our favourites is The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.
Desert Fury (1947) has a similar setup.
Please hit us up with other examples of this shot!
Cop Land
Cop Land shows Sheriff Freddy Heflin (Sylvester Stallone) divided from the 'tough guys' who run the town.
Freddy's outside, they're inside; he’s divided from them by both the window pane and the metal bar; he's in soft focus and partially obscured while they’re clear and take up more of the frame; and finally, the reflection and way Freddy’s gazing while some observe him and others ignore him lets us see exactly how aware he is of his outsider status.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Second of four 'spies turned lovers turned fighters turned . . .' stories, the 1996 Mr. & Mrs. Smith with Scott Bakula (!) and Maria Bello (!!) has been mostly memory-holed.
While it lasted (for all of nine aired episodes; this being 1.03 yet titled "The Second Episode" should tell you everything about how the network handled things) the show made the most of its budget to depict international globe-trotting secret agents. What they spent on cruise ship sets and minor explosions they had to save elsewhere; enter this clip, Exhibit A for "make a fight scene both fun and cheap!"
Other than the one shot of Mrs. Smith starting down the stairs (which is taken from a setup from an earlier shot, and ‘breaks up’ the soldier’s walk), it's essentially two shots: a panning shot which follows the soldier into the portaloo then holds, and a high/angled static shot which can see the door.
Having Mr. Smith first bang the door closed, then chivalrously hold it open for Mrs. Smith, is a funny note, but it also means after showing Mrs. Smith deliver one punch, they can switch back to the first angle and the humour (and $$$ saving) is all in what we don't see while the portaloo rattles around.
After a little grunting and banging, Mrs. Smith emerges, and the two Smiths stroll off-screen.
Easy as.