Two movie questions (since one student said she could not read my file, I'm uploading this to my blog)

Dear Professor,
 
  I have a question about master shot or establishing shot. In the fourth picture of To Have and Have Not, you mentioned that the shot where Harry is affirming his commitment to Slim is a master shot. However, that is a medium shot instead of a long shot, then how would we be able to identify master shot if not by the length of the shot?
 

This is a good question. It also involves issues of vocabulary in general. Obviously all film terms are relative, at least to a degree. For example, a close-up of an ant would have a different scale to a close-up of the human face. It also involves issues of editing too. Because no one can be certain, especially in the post-studio system (c. 1960+), what is the work of the editor or the director. Did the editor choose that shot or was that the only shot he had to choose from (since the director did not shoot another take)?
    A long shot is relative. Obviously a foot away from an ant would be considered a long shot in a movie dedicated to ants! To a degree it's a matter of judgment.
    An establishing shot is defined by what will appear in the frame for the duration of the shot. It has nothing to do with scale. If, for example, Hawks had but to a long shot AFTER we saw the group together, in order to reveal other people in the group, that would not have been an establishing shot. I call it an establishing shot because it establishes, completely, the scene's location and actors as they will appear for the duration of the scene. There is nothing that will be revealed later. Hence we must consider that an establishing shot, and also a master shot. I am almost certain Hawks shot nothing beyond that shot (another take with a larger view). I can't be 100% sure, but I doubt if Hawks had any reason, in that particular instance, to shoot beyond the group. Later shots would tend to get closer to the character, usually motivated by a line of dialogue, a reaction shot, the name of another character (part of dialogue, of course), etc. One can't use these terms mathematically. But an establishing shot should establish the maximum view of a scene as it will appear during that scene. And that would also be the master shot, though not all establishing shots are master shots. For example, a simple establishing shot of the exterior of a house, in order to tell the viewer the house is located in a little village, would be an establishing shot but not a master shot since there's no later cuts in the shot. If however there was a fight scene or talking scene in that establishing shot, then it would also be a master shot. The entire action would be filmed in that master shot; then other takes would show the same action in close-ups and medium shots and different angles. The editor would then manipulate all these takes for the best dramatic impact.
    So if you do want a general principle to call a shot a master shot, check to see if there's a bigger scale of a shot later in the sequence. If not, one must assume that's the master shot. If, however (for example) Hawks had later cut to people standing on a stairway above the group, talking about the group, then the shot in the film could not be called a master shot. .
    Like I said, this touches on issues of editing too, and what to credit the editor for doing. No one can be sure except the people who made the film! Even professional editors admit this. How can one award an Oscar to an editor when no one knows which sequence was in the original screenplay, which sequence was "wrapped" by the director, who requires the editor not to change a single shot, and which the editor arranged for maximum impact. We don't know. Thelma Schoonmaker gave all the credit to director Martin Scorsese when she accepted her Oscar for Raging Bull! She was quite frank about this, not merely a rhetorical gesture to be humble. "Actually, Marty basically edited that film. All the ideas were his. I don't deserve the Oscar, Marty does" (or something to that effect).
    The old Hollywood system was definitely different. Directors usually were taken off the film as soon as production ended and usually had no control over post-production (music, editing, sound effects, etc.). John Ford made sure no one could "ruin" his film by inserting sentimental close-ups in it (he didn't like those sentimental close-ups) by NOT FILMING them, even though he was required to shoot those alternate takes to insure "coverage." Or, in the case of The Paradine Case, by Hitchcock, a sensitive viewer can see where the editor cut up Hitchcock's long takes into individual shots, actually ruining the effect Hitchcock wanted. In one case I disagree with Hitch. He complained about Miklos Rozsa's great score for Spellbound, especially remarking the scene where Ingrid Bergman first sees (and instantly falls in love with) Gregory Peck at the dining table. Rozsa uses a beautiful underscore for that moment, which Hitchcock said he disliked in his famous book-length interview with French director (and admirer) Francois Truffaut. So you see there's always differences of opinion. Hitch hated the entire score, too, apparently. Maybe he was jealous because the only Oscar the film won was for Miklos Rozsa's great score!
    Anyway, if I teach anything in my film class it's that there are no simple ideas in film, which is why I don't teach "great" films. To me a film is a film. People will decide 100 years from now what's a great film. All we can do is point out strengths and weaknesses based on established criteria of script writing, camera movement, editing, acting, music, etc.
     As for terms (terminology) they're there for a purpose, to discuss a film as precisely as possible. I know of no other way to refer to that shot in To Have and Have Not except as a master shot, since there are no shots of larger scale in the sequence, and by using the term "master shot," a reader unfamiliar with the film will presumably know what I mean.

Dear Professor,
 
  I'm confused about how to identify open and closed frame. In films like Stagecoach and Some Like It Hot, characters are free to move within the country, but they are limited in a band or a stagecoach. Then would the two films be open or closed frame?
 
  And in the textbook, it mentioned that some directors are consistent in making close framed movies, such as Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick. However, according to my judgement, I would consider Lolita an open frame film. So is Lolita an open or closed frame film?
 

Personally I'm not too fond of that distinction, at least if it's applied too rigidly. To be fair to your textbook writer, Richard Barsam, he does point out that these are general principles: "As with all such distinctions in film analysis, these differences between open and closed frames, aren't absolute; they are a matter of degree and emphasis" (p. 120).
    But I think the examples he gives on page 118 (Cast Away, North by Northwest) aren't clear. I think the writer is confusing content and form in these examples: it's the content, in other words, that makes us view the space differently; the way a romance film would make us view low-key lighting differently from a murder mystery, using the same low key lighting.  (I'm not talking about cast shadows, such as across the face, but general low-key lighting, which could be "read" romantically or suspensefully, depending on context.)
    Barsam writes, "Thornhill faces diminishing options for esacpe (and thus Hitchcock has transformed an open landscape into a closed frame)." I would argue the reverse: it's because we know of Thornhill's situation that we read the space differently. If Thornhill were about to meet his lover for a Valentine's Day dinner we would read that framing differently. I think Barsam is reading too much into Hitchcock's framing in this sequence. rather than include other elements of the film.
    His chart on the next page (119) is more useful, but even there he runs into problems. Note he pretends to discuss framing but his emphasis is mainly on story, character, theme, lighting, etc. Note especially the inconsistency in the 2d row: in the column for OPEN frames he writes: "Characters may move freely in and out of the frame. They are free to go to another place in the movie's world and return."   
    This is vague language. Does he mean the character in North by Northwest (Roger Thornhill) is not free to move around, especially when he moves around all over America in this great comedy thriller?
    Besides, observe in the second column (closed framing) he does not refer to framing at all: "Characters are controlled by outside forces and do not have the freedom to come and go as they wish. They have no control over the logic that drives the movie's action."
    This is no longer a frame analysis but a character analysis, with nothing to do with framing. Moroever it certainly doesn't apply to North by Northwest, the film discussed on the previous page as an example of closed framing, at least in the famous crop dusting sequence (Thornhill is chased by a crop-dusting plane).
    There are obviously films mainly based on closed framing (Barry Lyndon by Kubrick). Dr. Strangelove is obviously based mainly on closed framing (few people leave or enter a room, for example). Lolita is also based mainly on closed frames (the bedroom, the bathrom, Quilty's house, even the car and the movie theatre).
    I think a more useful distinction is the one used by Andre Bazin: the distinction between treating the screen as a window or a frame, also related to realism (window) and formalism (frame). Some directors have an open sense of space (Renoir): people come and go freely; the camera is always moving to discover new spaces. (In Hitchcock's great film, Rope, the camera is always moving but we feel a sense of entrapment in a closed space. But in Realist movies, the camera seems to follow reality rather than enclose reality. But, again, can this be divorced from issues of content? If the characters in Rope were in a Romance genre would we "read" the camera movement differently?)
    Like all issues in movies, technical terms are necessary but misleading too. And, often, scholars and critics think they refer to form when they are really referring to content. To a large degree it's the content that makes us see the means (form) in one way rather than another.
    Take a melody. People used to call Bach's melodies religious, like that quality was infused in the tune. But now we know that those tunes were once secular, even profane. In other words, when we sing the tune to a profane text (say, sex) we hear the tune in a different way than when we hear the same tune attached to a text from the Bible!
    Many national anthems have mixed pedigrees too! That is, we think the tune dignified because we sing of our nation's heroism, but research shows the tune was once sung to a bawdy theme or text, in which case the tune (form) evoked different emotions!
    We see this in key changes too. Scholars used to argue that certain musical keys were sad, others happy. But we know there are certain joyful melodies in a minor key, and vice versa!
    Some X'mas carols seem reverential (holy) because they sing of Jesus, but we know that some of those tunes were once sung to nonreligious texts.
    We see this issue in all elements of cinema. The clichE (clee-SHAY, with accent over final e) is that a high-angle shot means weakness and a low-angle shot means strength, but there's a high-angle shot in North by Northwest where the character (incidentally, the same actor who played Humbert Humbert in Lolita!) threatens to kill someone. Actually your textbook I think discusses this shot, but with a different analysis from mine. Barsam argues that the shot anticipates the (potential) death of a person (since it's planned to throw her out of an airplane: a high place). But I'm fairly certain the point of the shot is to show the powerlessness of the person making the threat even as he's making it! It's like showing how "little" he is (hence, high-angle shot) even as he's trying to talk "big." (The man, Vandamm, has just discovered the woman was cheating on him; hence he feels small within himself even while he talks big.) In any case, both of us are analyzing the form in terms of content! But Barsam is being much more literal than I.
    In sum, as general principles open and closed framing are useful principles; but like every other principle of cinema, they cannot be divorced from other elements (acting, script, underscore, lighting, theme, character, etc.).
    Footsteps in a low-key shot can be romantic or menacing, depending on the genre, script, characters, theme, underscore, editing (what went before).

Sally: So you won't leave your wife?
Ed: I'm afraid not.
Sally: Goodbye, then. [closes door; cut to moonlit street, where she tearfully walks to the bus station down the block. Footsteps follow her. She turns around. It's Ed.]
Ed: It's no good, Sally. I can't live without you. [They kiss. Romantic music swells.]

END OF FILM

Here we see that, despite the low-key lighting, and the sounds of footsteps following a woman down the street,  no one would interpret this sequence as scary! That's because the genre is Romance; the characters are not murderers; the dialogue in the scene that went before has nothing to do with murder; and (if there is an underscore) the music would "cue" the viewer to romantic sadness rather than suspense, before the music swells romantically when the man decides to choose girlfriend over wife. This is what Hitchcock means by "orchestration of all the elements."
    Regarding Lolita, I would call it a closed-framed film for several reasons:
    First, the decor tends to dominate the characters. After all, Charlotte is dominated by pictures and the ashes of her husband. Humbert is dominated by Lolita presence in the house and by her bedroom, as well as the picture of her. He's dominated by his relationship to Lolita's mother (Charlotte) also, in an unsatisfactory way. Actually both relationships are unsatisfactory.
    The movie is also fatalistic, showing the end in the beginning (hence the use of the flashback at the beginning). This is a device of film noir too. Voice-overs also usually suggest determinism (since the action has already happened: it cannot be changed); and, if the film ends unhappily, that is tragic fatalism.
    Many shots are composed or lit to suggest entrapment: when Quilty enters Humbert's apartment in the dark, and then Humbert enters. The shot of the threesome at the movie, holding hands, with its tight framing. The paradoxical shot of the couple (Humbert and Lolita) in the car as Humbert notices someone tailing (following) him.
    There's also the constant presence of Quilty, always right behind Humbert, as if he's not free to escape him. There are the phone calls from Quilty.
    Above all, there's no sense of a "world" outside the enclosed world of the tormented people. Just as in Strangelove. The only other people we see look like manikins anyway (Lolita's husband); or there are the extras (hotel clerk, etc.). This is another criterion
    Compare Some Like It Hot. Despite its manic content, its bizarre cross-gender play, the gangsters, etc. one feels a world that is also "normal." There is nothing similar to the beach scene in a Kubrick film (where Tony Curtis trips Marilyn Monroe as she chases after the ball). There's the band sequences.
    In Lolita when we see the teenage dance, even then the scene doesn't look open, but closed, with Humbert peeping at Lolita, with the characters in prearranged relationships, mechanically eating or drinking, etc.
    But here content and form cannot be separated. There's no such thing as abstract form, as the musical examples I gave above show. Otherwise, many tunes from Bach's St. Matthew Passion would necessarily evoke religious ideas; but we know this is not the case, since some of the tunes were clearly profane, such as the great tune that Bach borrowed from Hans Hassler, who used it to a profane text. (Rock star Paul Simon used the same tune for his pop song, "American Tune," which is probably on youtube.)