I Must Be Dreaming

Last semester I took a Surrealism in film course and one of the early films we watched was Jean Cocteau’s The Blood Of A Poet (1930). Although it was somewhat difficult to watch, I loved the film and anyone interested in the Surrealist movement or early films with impressive visual effects should really see it. Twenty years and five films later, Cocteau made Orpheus (1950), his interpretation of the Greek myth and the second film in his Orphic Trilogy. I was once again blown away by Cocteau’s visual style and his ground-breaking (or at least what appear to be ground-breaking) camera techniques and visual effects. Orpheus, unlike The Blood Of A Poet, was easy to follow. However, Cocteau doesn’t provide us with a lot of answers, opening the film with voice over stating, “Where does our story take place… and when? A legend is entitled to be beyond place and time. Interpret it as you wish.”

One of the most interesting things about this film, for me, was how Cocteau found a way to incorporate stunning special effects into a film that overall appears very realistic. Orpheus begins in what I would guess is Paris at a small café where various poets and artists relax. With its everyday subject matter and purely diagetic sound, the style could be mistaken for Italian Neo-Realism. It looks no less real than a documentary. However, as soon as Orpheus enters into the car with the princess (Death) and Heurtebise, we realize that this world, or whatever world we are now entering, is skewed. When the princess orders Heurtebise to “take the usual route”, the scenery outside the car suddenly changes. It dissolves into what appears to be a negative image of what we previously saw. The men who ran over Jacques Cegeste return and now carry him into a mansion, looking like futuristic police officers. The princess asks Orpheus, “Are you sleepwalking?” to which he responds, “I must be.” This appears to be almost directly influenced by surrealism and tells us that what we are viewing should not necessarily be taken literally.









Cocteau’s use of mirrors for trick photography was incredible to me. He often places mirrors in particular spots and later takes the mirror out so he can achieve a desired effect that confuses, if not completely fools us. In one scene, Orpheus is about to follow Heurtebise through the mirror to either get back his wife or be reunited with his death. Orpheus puts on the gloves and walks toward the mirror, or what we think is a mirror, with his hands out in front of him. When I first saw this shot, I couldn’t understand what was happening. The shot is a P.O.V. where we can see his hands in front of the camera and his body in the mirror in front of us. If a mirror was actually located there, how is it possible that the camera would not be seen? It seems Cocteau used a mirror in this spot earlier in the scene and then removed it for this particular shot. We are not seeing actor Jean Marais’ reflection. However, we’re actually seeing him walking toward the camera with a different actor’s hands in front of the lens. It's kind of difficult to explain but if you watch it again, it’s remarkable, especially since Cocteau put another actor on the other side of the foreground board to fill in for Heurtebise's back reflection.

Professor McRae mentioned briefly in class that film has the ability to mess with time and Cocteau shows just how powerful that manipulation can be. As soon as we enter into the underworld, or what I’m assuming to be Cocteau’s version of Hades, there is absolutely no sense of real time. About two thirds of the way into the film, after Orpheus follows Heurtebise through the mirror, Cocteau cuts to a seemingly arbitrary scene where a mailman drops a letter into Orpheus’ mailbox. We then cut back to Orpheus as he follows Heurtebise through Hades. After about twenty minutes of the film, when Orpheus comes back to the world with his wife and Heurtebise, Cocteau begins the scene with the mailman’s letter dropping. By bookending this pivotal sequence with the beginning and end of this brief moment, Cocteau shows the magic of editing and the power to expand one second into twenty minutes of film.

In Naomi Greene’s article “Deadly Statues: Eros in the Films of Jean Cocteau”, she addresses this idea that the princess is much like a femme fatale figure. I would’ve never thought to look at her in this way but I can now see that there are many parallels. As Green states, “…the main narrative thread in these films involves the poet’s subservient and ambivalent relation to an icy and powerful woman.” Much like in Double Indemnity and The Third Man, Orpheus’ tale includes a character that in many ways is seduced by a female character and is introduced to a foreign world that is both complicated and dangerous.

Greene also discusses how Orpheus addresses masochism and sexuality. After watching the film, the obvious example of masochism is the fact that Orpheus feels compelled to be with his death, to the point of eventually falling in love with her. Towards the end of the film, in a very perplexing moment, Orpheus kisses his own death and lies down on the bed to embrace her. Because the princess is a manifestation of Death, she symbolizes darkness and pain. Orpheus feels for the princess, in other words, her feels pleasure whenever he is close to death. This relationship could easily be interpreted as a comment on masochism and could possibly explain Cocteau’s view on how the lifestyle of an artist. Many artists, whether they are a poet, writer, painter, sculptor or filmmaker, are often associated with depression and loneliness, if not only because they are more emotionally attached to the world around them. I think that Orpheus comments on this very concept and, to me, explains why Cocteau frequently blends the real with the surreal. For, when trying to portray the mind of an artist, it would be terribly inaccurate to present everything literally.

"Will you please stop dawling with that infernal puzzle!"

Laura’s visual realization and quirky characters are as puzzling and mysterious as the plot itself. I’ll be honest, I’ve seen a handful of film noirs and they all seem to have certain things in common, but this was unlike anything I’ve seen before. Watching Laura is like watching The Third Man or Double Indemnity mixed with Bringing Up Baby, with all of its ridiculous and often confusing behavior coming from the enigmatic characters themselves.

It was mentioned at the end of class that this film is about three men who are obsessed with a woman. However, the men seem to be more interested in the image of Laura rather than her actual self. Furthermore, the three main male characters come across at many times as if they have no sexual drive whatsoever (at least not in the masculine sense that we are used to), and rather than being sexually interested in Laura seem to almost flirt with each other. In the first scene of the film we are introduced to Waldo Lydecker. We first discover him, to our and Detective McPherson’s great surprise, lying naked in his bathtub writing his most recent column. Apparently feeling very comfortable with the situation, Waldo eventually gets out of the bathtub, dripping wet off camera, and asks McPherson if he can hand him his robe. While this action is puzzling in itself, it’s strange to see the detective’s reaction as he suspiciously looks downward at Lydecker, forming a slight grin on his face. Now, it was also mentioned that director Otto Preminger often incorporated controversial elements and subjects such as homosexuality into his films, and this series of actions seem to be directly acknowledging that sexual orientation.
Just as a quick note, Laura won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography (black and white) in 1944. This film has some of the most subtle camerawork I’ve seen. It’s lighting is genius, especially on Laura played by Gene Tierney who, when we finally see her for the first time is lit softly but with overall high illumination, making her appear to be the precious star that we’ve been waiting for and anticipating based on her portrait. The camera movements, as I said before, are subtle, it’s tracking very smooth and precise. This is of course contradicted however by various shots such as Waldo Lydecker’s introduction who Joseph LaShelle decided to reveal with a swish pan which comes across as unique and quirky as the character himself. This swish pan is used at the end of the film as well, when Waldo attempts to sneak into Laura’s home to murder her. By using this same camera movement a second time, we subconsciously connect his character with the two actions, an example of how camera angles and movement can establish characterization.


In his review, Nick Shager states that Laura is Preminger’s “critique of high society” and that Laura is “an affirmation of a traditional, hard-working, middle-American lifestyle.” But as it was proposed in class, while these statements may not be wrong, I don’t think that this is Preminger’s goal. It appears that Preminger uses certain accepted characteristics of film noir while filling his story with memorable and in many ways complicated characters that demand much more attention than the plot. In doing this, he allows us to keep coming back to this film and wonder what exactly is going on. And with the sheer ambiguity of the characters and overall purpose of the film, one could study this unique piece of cinema for quite some time.

The Power Of Light And Shadow

The Third Man is quickly becoming one of my favorite films. It’s just so unique. I watch it and think to myself that there never has and never will be another film like it. The making of this film, more than many others, seems to have been an instance where a group of incredibly talented and eccentric people came together and made something that just worked on every level. Graham Greene’s brilliantly written script, Anton Karas’ unique musical score, Robert Krasker’s intriguing cinematography and Carol Reed’s fearless directing combine to make an unforgettable film that is new and fresh every time you experience it.

The Third Man won the academy award for best cinematography in 1948, which comes as no surprise. Robert Krasker creates stunning images. This film really shows the importance of not only what is lit in the frame, but also what isn’t. When Holly Martins first sees his friend Harry Lime (who, for all he knows, is back from the dead), all the viewer is shown at first are two shoes planted to the ground and a cat that curiously rubs up against them. The doorway Harry stands in is completely black while a light, presumably created from a street lamp, floods the bottom half of the frame. Due to Holly’s loud voice, a woman turns on her bedroom light which allows for Lime’s entrance. The revealing of Orson Welles’ character is no less dramatic and spectacular than that of a star that has just appeared on stage.

Shadows play a very important role in film noirs. Considering the aesthetics, the high contrast lighting creates both a haunting and mysterious look that many of these dark detective stories require. We mentioned in class German Expressionism and the influence that this particular movement had on film noir. German Expressionist cinema relied heavily on mise-en-scene to create mood and capture emotion. In The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari, rather than using expensive lighting setups, the filmmakers painted dynamic patterns on the walls to represent shadowed areas and to direct our eyes to certain parts of the frame. Rather than using painted diagonal lines, The Third Man tilts the camera and uses light and shadows to give us a skewed sense of reality.

Another aspect of the film’s cinematography is the way Krasker uses the “Dutch” or oblique angle. Last summer I was able to see the film Doubt which, in my opinion, was one of the most impressive films of 2008. The film was shot by Roger Deakins who not only created a beautiful looking movie, but also showed me the impact the “Dutch” angle can have in a film. There are only two moments where Deakins chooses to use these extremely tilted angles but when he does, they carry so much emotional weight. Krasker, much like Deakins, has a clear understanding of how this angle can be used to enhance the way we subconsciously experience the story. With The Third Man, Carol Reed creates a world that, right from the start, is off kilter. When Holly Martins gets off of his train, he heads straight for his hotel. As he enters the building, he walks underneath a large ladder which undoubtedly foreshadows the amount of bad luck he will very soon experience. When Holly enters the hotel, Krasker foreshadows the skewed cinematic world by showing us the porter in an obvious oblique angle. The porter tells Holly that his friend Harry Lime has just recently been hit by a car which killed him instantly. Nothing else could have possibly shook up Holly’s state of mind more than being told this news and Krasker expresses this through the frame’s composition.

Krasker also uses this oblique angle throughout many of Holly’s conversations and interrogations with people. While Holly talks to/interrogates the people that Harry was with when he supposedly died, we can’t help but think that some of the information we are being given is false or is slightly manipulated. Krasker uses oblique angles throughout the entire conversation between Holly and Baron Kurtz. Kurtz, who menacingly stared at Holly at Lime’s funeral, now acts completely different. He is suspiciously kind and gentile to Holly, providing him with all of the “advice” that he has to give.

In his article, “The Revenant of Vienna: A Critical Comparison of Carol Reed’s Film The Third Man and Bram Stoker’s Novel Dracula”, John Dern interestingly compares Harry Lime’s character to that of Dracula. Looking back at Nosferatu, an example of German Expressionism, one can see strong parallels between the two characters’ mystery and presence. While The Third Man is a 1940’s film noir and Nosferatu is a 1920’s German Expressionist horror, these two seemingly opposite films are quite similar in their aesthetic approach. The inspiration is clear not only in the very similar entrances of Count Orlok and Harry Lime but also in the way each one is often filmed in shadow. While Dern claims at the end of his article that he is in no way implying that Lime is a vampire, he makes an interesting statement where two opposite characters are conceptually and aesthetically connected through their cinematographer’s use of composition, light and shadow.