{"id":33406,"date":"2016-03-01T09:00:40","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T15:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/?p=33406"},"modified":"2016-09-02T17:24:10","modified_gmt":"2016-09-02T22:24:10","slug":"off-center-2-this-one-in-the-corner-pocket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/off-center-2-this-one-in-the-corner-pocket\/","title":{"rendered":"Off-center 2: This one in the corner pocket"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ministry<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Ministry<\/a><\/p>\n

DB here, again:<\/p>\n

We got a keen response to my entry on widescreen composition<\/a> in Mad Max: Fury Road.<\/em> Thanks! So\u00a0it seemed worthwhile to look at composition in the older format of 4:3, good old 1.33:1–or rather, in sound cinema, 1.37: 1.<\/p>\n

The problem for filmmakers in CinemaScope and other very wide processes\u00a0is handling\u00a0human bodies in conversations and other encounters (such as stomping somebody’s butt in an an action scene). You can\u00a0more or less center the figures, and have all that extra space wasted. Or you can find ways to spread them out across the frame, which can lead to problems of guiding the viewer’s eye to the main points. If humans were lizards or Chevy Impalas<\/a>, our bodies would fit the frame nicely, but as mostly vertical creatures, we aren’t well suited for the wide format. I suppose that’s why a lot of painted and photographed portraits are vertical.<\/p>\n

By contrast, the squarer 4:3 frame is pretty well-suited to the human body. Since feet and legs aren’t usually as expressive as the upper part of the body, you can exclude the lower reaches and fit the rest of the torso snugly into the rectangle. That way you can get a lot of mileage out of faces, hands and arms. The classic filmmakers, I think, found ingenious ways to quietly and gracefully fill the frame while letting the actors act with body parts.<\/p>\n

Since I’m watching (and rewatching) a fair number of Forties films these days, I’ll draw most of my examples from them. after a brief glance backward. I hope to suggest some creative choices that filmmakers might consider today, even though nearly everybody works in ratios wider than 4:3. I’ll also remind us that although\u00a0the central area of the frame remains crucial, shifts\u00a0away from it and back to it can yield a powerful pictorial dynamism.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Movies on the margins<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Safe<\/a><\/p>\n

Early years of silent cinema often featured bright, edge-to-edge imagery, and occasionally filmmakers put important story elements on the sides or in the corners. Louis Feuillade wasn’t hesitant about yanking our attention to an upper corner when a bell summons Moche in Fant\u00f4mas<\/em> (1913). A famous scene in\u00a0Musketeers of Pig Alley<\/em> (1912) shows Griffith trying something trickier. He divides our attention by having the Snapper Kid’s puff of cigarette smoke burst\u00a0into the frame just as the rival gangster is doping the Little Lady’s drink. She doesn’t notice either event, as she’s distracted by the picture the thug has shown her, but there’s a chance we miss the doping because of the abrupt entry of the smoke.<\/p>\n

\"Fantomas<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0\"Musketeers<\/p>\n

In Keaton’s maniacally geometrical Neighbors<\/em> (1920), the backyard scenes make bold (and hilarious) use of the upper zones. Buster and the woman he loves try\u00a0to communicate three floors up. Early on we see him leaning on the fence pining for her, while she stands on the balcony in\u00a0the upper right. Later, he’ll escape from her house on a clothesline stretched across the yard. At the climax, he stacks up\u00a0two friends to carry him up to her window.<\/p>\n

\"screenshot_50<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Neighbots<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Neighbors<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Neighbors<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Neighbors<\/p>\n

Thankfully, the \u00a0Keaton set from\u00a0Masters of Cinema<\/a> preserves some of the full original frames, complete with the curved corners seen up top. It’s also important to appreciate that in those days there was no reflex viewing, and so the DP couldn’t see exactly what the lens\u00a0was getting. Framing these complex compositions required delicate judgment and plenty of experience.<\/p>\n

Later filmmakers mostly stayed away from corners and edges. You couldn’t be sure\u00a0that things put there would register on different image platforms. When films were destined chiefly for theatres, you couldn’t be absolutely sure that local screens would be masked correctly. Many projectors had a hot spot as well, rendering off-center items less bright. And any film transferred to 16mm (a strong market from the 1920s on) might\u00a0be cropped somewhat. Accordingly, one trend in 1920s and 1930s cinematography was to darken the sides and edges a bit, acknowledging that the brighter central zone was more worth concentrating on.<\/p>\n

That tactic came in handy with the emergence of television, which established a “safe area” within the film frame for video transmission. TV cropped films quite considerably; cinematographers were advised in 1950 that<\/p>\n

All main action should be held within about two-thirds of the picture. This prevents cut-off and tube edge distortion in television home receivers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Older readers will remember how small and bulging those early CRT screens were.<\/p>\n

By 1960, when it was evident that most films would eventually appear\u00a0on TV, DP’s and engineers established the “safe areas” for both titles and story action. (See diagram surmounting this section.) Within the camera’s aperture area, which wouldn’t be fully shown on screen, the safe action area\u00a0determined\u00a0what would be seen in 35mm projection. “All significant action should take place within this portion of the frame,” says the American Cinematographer Manual<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Studio contracts\u00a0required that TV screenings had to retain all credit titles, without chopping off anything. This is why credit sequences of widescreen films appear in widescreen even in cropped prints. So the\u00a0safe title area was marked as\u00a0what would be seen on a standard home TV monitor. If you do the math, the safe title area is indeed 67.7 % of the safe action area.<\/p>\n

These framing constraints, etched on camera viewfinders, would certainly inhibit filmmakers from framing on the edges or the corners of the film shot. And when we see video versions of films from the 1.37 era\u00a0(and frames like mine coming up) we have to recall that there was a bit more all around the edges than we have now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All-over framing, and acting<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yet before TV, filmmakers in the 40s did exploit off-center zones in various ways. Often the tactic involved actors’ hands–crucial performance tools that become compositional factors. In His Girl Friday<\/em> (1940), Walter Burns commands his frame centrally, yet when he makes his imperious gesture (“Get out!”) Hawks and DP Joseph Walker (genius<\/a>)\u00a0have left just enough room for the left arm to strike\u00a0a new diagonal.<\/p>\n

\"HGF<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"HGF2<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"HGF<\/a><\/p>\n

The framing of a long take in The Walls of Jericho<\/em> (1948) lets Kirk Douglas steal a scene from\u00a0Linda Darnell. As she pumps him for information, his hand sneaks out of frame to snatch bits of food from the buffet.<\/p>\n

\"Walls<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"WAlls<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Walls<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Walls<\/a><\/p>\n

As the camera backs up, John Stahl and Arthur Miller (another genius) give\u00a0us a chance to watch Kirk’s\u00a0fingers hovering over\u00a0the buffet. When\u00a0Linda\u00a0stops him with a frown, he shrugs, so to speak, with his hands. (A nice little piece of hand jive<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\"Walls<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Walls<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"WALLS<\/a><\/p>\n

The urge\u00a0to work off-center is still more evident in films that exploit vigorous\u00a0depth staging and deep-focus cinematography. Dynamic depth was a hallmark of 1940s American studio cinematography. If you’re going to have a strong foreground, you will probably put that element off to one side and balance it with something further back. This tendency is likely to\u00a0empty out the geometrical center of the shot, especially if only two characters are involved. In addition, 1940s depth techniques often relied on high or low angles, and these\u00a0framings\u00a0are likely to make corner areas more significant. Here are examples from My Foolish Heart<\/em> (1950): a big-head foreground typical of the period, and a slightly high angle that yields a diagonal composition.<\/p>\n

\"MY<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"My<\/a><\/p>\n

Things can get pretty baroque. For Another Part of the Forest<\/em> (1948), a prequel to The Little Foxes<\/em> (1941), Michael Gordon carried Wyler’s depth style somewhat further. The Hubbard mansion\u00a0has a huge\u00a0terrace and a big\u00a0parlor. Using the very top and very bottom of the frame, a sort of Advent-calendar framing allows Gordon to chart\u00a0Ben’s hostile takeover of the household, replacing the patriarch Marcus at the climax. The fearsome Regina appears in the upper right window of the first frame, the lower doorway of the second.<\/p>\n

\"Another<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Another<\/a><\/p>\n

In group scenes, several Forties\u00a0directors like to crowd in faces, arms, and hands, all spread out in depth. I’ve analyzed this tendency<\/a> in Panic in the Streets<\/em> (1950), but we see it in Another Part of the Forest<\/em> too. Again, character movement can reveal peripheral elements of the drama.<\/p>\n

At the dinner, Birdie innocently thanks Ben for trying to help her family with their money problems and bolts from the room, going out behind Ben’s back. The reframing brings in at the left margin a minor character, a musician hired to entertain for the evening. But in a later phase of the scene he will–still in the distance–protest Marcus’s cruelty, so this shot primes him for his future role.<\/p>\n

\"Another<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Another<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Another<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Another<\/a><\/p>\n

At one high point, the center area is emptied out boldly and the corners get a real workout. On the staircase, the callow son Oscar\u00a0begs Marcus for money to enable him to run off with his girlfriend. (As in Little Foxes<\/em>, the family staircase is very important–as it is in Lillian Hellman’s original plays.) Ben watches\u00a0warily from\u00a0the bottom frame edge. Nobody occupies the geomentrical center.<\/p>\n

\"Another<\/a><\/p>\n

Later, on the same staircase, Ben steps up to confront his father while Regina approaches. It’s an odd confrontation, though, because Ben is perched in the left\u00a0corner, mostly turned from us and handily edge-lit. Marcus turns, jammed into the upper right. Goaded by Ben’s taunts, he slaps Ben hard. Here’s the brief extract.<\/p>\n