One of them anyway: restraint.
In particular, and by way of neatly segueing away from the film this post is supposedly about halfway through my first sentence, I was reminded of a great scene in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest in which the inmates are seated at a discussion group and talking amongst themselves while the camera remains focussed on McMurphy. There’s some great acting from Nicholson as he watches each person talk and reacts to what they’re saying – you can see the cogs turning in his head as he figures out the dynamics of the relationships and as the reality of the situation becomes clear to him. It’s brilliantly done.
Of course it would be wrong to say that there’s no restraint in modern filmmaking, but this particular technique – closely following a character’s expression even while there are other, more conventionally interesting things going on – is not something you see often. The temptation, overtly or otherwise, is to pander to the audience, so it’s always nice to see someone really take hold of a narrative and do their own thing.
Recent Comments