The Art of Blocking - Scene from Hitchcock's Vertigo

O

OldCorpse

Rockin the Boat
A couple of weeks ago, I made a post in the thread "Too much of a good thing: camera movement":

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...vement&p=1986619628&highlight=#post1986619628

In it, I tried to convey the complexity of considerations in moving the camera, and why one should not jump to conclusions too hastily. A related issue is how many setups there ought to be in any given scene - again, the only real rule should be "enough to get the desired effect". Now, blocking is mostly the province of the director, but some directors rely on cinematographers to break down a scene like that, so I'm placing this in the cinematography section. One thing I've long noted, is that often amateur productions have fewer setups, which is understandable from a budgetary point of view, but also, I believe can sometimes spring from a lack of artistic insight in how blocking can assist the director with the final effect of the scene. I also noticed that Hitchcock can have a huge number of setups in a given scene, where it is often hard to figure out why he needed this or that additional angle, since he really didn't do things just for the heck of it - so it's rewarding to closely study each angle to see what the purpose might have been (Psycho is particularly rich in that respect).

Anyhow, I came across this short analysis of the blocking of a scene in one of my favorite movies, "Vertigo", and I thought I'd share it here. I think it nicely illustrates some of the considerations one may take into account when blocking a scene:


Enjoy!
 
Note that during the cuts back to Scotty sitting, we expect him to speak to break the tension, as most of us would, but he says nothing. The audience absorbs the tension - we start to feel uncomfortable. This is a master touch by the screenwriter and Hitchcock.
 
I watched Vertigo a few weeks ago with my wife. It was my second time, her first.

Of all the scenes, this one coincidentally jumped out at me as the one that was the worst shot, the worst blocked.

For one thing, the camerawork, I thought it was choppier than needed. OldCorpse, you bring up "how many setups there ought to be in any given scene," and this one, I thought, would have been much better had there been fewer. The first shot is excellent, the shot of Gavin sitting in front of the cranes. I wish that he had held it longer. But Hitchcock all too quickly cuts from it, awkwardly, to a side shot of Stewart that is so similar in framing to the first that the cut is a little jumpy.

For the second thing, blocking, while elaborate and all that, that's part of the problem. It was artificial, stagey. When Gavin wanders over into the other room, and Stewart backs away into a chair, it was so odd that it pulled me out of the movie. Two people talking would never walk away from each other like that and the speaker move around so intricately as he talked. All I could think of was that this was a prime example of how film in the mid twentieth century still took its cues too much from the Stage, that if an actor was saying something important he ought to be gallivanting about the room coyly, dramatically, or what have you.

Nerdwriter (the video maker) really is just that, someone who seems to have spent too much time alone, pondering things, so that little things become edifaces, mundane movements are strokes of sheer genius. In short, he's overanalyzing it, I think, and I've seen this before. I saw it when I was in college, and many of my professors read into a work far more than the original author intended. As Howard Hawks said to his French New Wave admirers, "You guys know my films better than I do." Hitchcock worked very hard and put a lot more into his scenes than many of his contemporaries. But by today's standards it often seems a bit cheesy, to me at least. I think it's fine to focus in on the good things an artist does, but sometimes I think the reviewer is seeing more than there really is, and I don't care to get worked up about brilliance that exists only in the eye of the beholder.
 
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Combatentropy, there are things you say which are 100% correct, especially "[...]overanalyzing it, I think, and I've seen this before. I saw it when I was in college, and many of my professors read into a work far more than the original author intended." - as a general tendency, we've all seen that in a lot of film criticism, especially from the French, who are prone to that kind of thing (back in the day we used to call it the consequence of "Continental philosophy" - as opposed to Analytical which reigned in the Anglo-Saxon world at the time) - which is not to say that they didn't come up with highly invigorating stuff like the entire concept of "Noir Films", which in the U.S. were a result of very utilitarian considerations (primarily budgetary), mass produced programmers, which the French imbued with a whole philosophy post-fact and voila - Noir. Still fun!

But.

Whether one takes everything the Nerdwriter says as gospel, is not the issue for me. What is, rather the key in that analysis, is that one can look at blocking here in a much more conscious multi-layered way. Whether Hitchcock actually was motivated in all his blocking of this scene in the specific way the Nerdwriter says, is not important to me (and indeed, most probably the answer is "no"). However, what is valid is to say something motivated Hitchcock, and it is interesting to think what that something was. That's the value to me. And more globally the value of inspiring us to think in our own work "why am I blocking this scene this way - and what is the best way to achieve the effects I'm looking for, consciously or subconsciously".

I also disagree with you about that scene. As a matter of fact, I must admit, it is one of my favorite scenes in the movie. I DO think that a lot is going on here, and Hitchcock was not the kind of guy who did setups randomly, or just for the heck of it. I have a different take about the blocking in that scene - but don't want to open that can of worms at the moment (too long).

Also, I have seen Vertigo in the theater 3 times and on video at least 20 times. And speaking of the worst in that film, it would have to be the horrendous insert in the scene under the Golden Gate Bridge, where Kim Novak is being observed from a distance by Jimmy Stewart, she is plucking petals/flowers off the bouquet she's holding and throwing them into the water below - and then AN INSERT OF THE PETALS IN THE WATER - and then back again... WTF HITCHCOCK???!!! That disgusting insert throws me out of the movie every time I see it. I mean, not only is it a hideously shot insert - the water clearly not belonging to the ocean - lit utterly differently from the light outside and what we'd expect, the framing and everything else, just utterly hideous, but to start with - what or whose point of view? It is a shocking intervention, like a slap in the face - Jimmy is watching her from a distance, we get closer on her, fine, that's at least somewhat motivated, but then that shocking insert - who is seeing those petals in the water? It's the most bald-faced omniscient view in the whole movie... clearly it's not something Kim Novak is seeing, obviously it's not something Jimmy would see - just head-slappingly awful. And the wrenching transition of perspective at that sensitive moment is like something out of a clumsy student movie. I mean NOTHING in the rest of the scene comes close to that perspective - off shore, several feet below where the action has been happening, like a sudden jump - completely jarring. And utterly, utterly unnecessary - even counterproductive. In fact, we'd much rather see Jimmy jump in the water and we get to see all the flowers in the water below as he's fishing her out (which is the case anyway...). It's not like we can't imagine where the petals/flowers are going when she'd throwing them! Terrible. But this is one of the things about Hitchcock - he was a fanatic about making things crystal clear to the audience, he repeatedly stressed this, saying - rightly - that what may seem obvious to the filmmakers is not obvious to the audience and it is super, super important to keep the audience clear, even if it seems like it's going overboard. And sometimes - like here - he did indeed go overboard. And yes, he could be cheesy. That said, again, I disagree with you about the office scene completely. Maybe a discussion for another day. YMMV.
 
I agree with Combatentropy that the scene feels unnatural in the blocking.

But I won't go so far as to say it fails. Hitchcock gave us a boat-load of "weird" scenes.
I find the scene uncomfortable, unsteadying, and filled with the air of "lack of trust". Was that in any way Hitchcock's intention? Probably.

And I agree with OldCorpse that any scene should have precisely as many setups and the blocking that are required to meet the desired feel of the Director.
I've seen it hit a home run with a dizzying array of setups and blocking. I've seen it done with one static camera. And everything in between.
The only rule is that there are no rules.

As for the subject of Blocking - I grew up in Theater. And good dramatic theater direction puts a very intense weight on blocking. It's half the show.
So although I never gave it much thought, I think I have a big advantage over someone trying to direct film without that sort of a resource in their head.
Without telling someone to go watch a ton of dramatic theater... I sadly have no other suggestions. To SEE the blocking live and in front of you with NO EDITS makes the full effects of the Blocking MUCH more pronounced than it ever is in a 2D edited film. So I don't know if suggesting watching more film is even the best thing or not.

Thanks for the post OldCorpse.
 
This discussion sort of mirrors my reaction to Dogme 95: how much of the aesthetic is principle and how much is justification for lazy/sloppy filmmaking? I know far less about Hitchcock than you guys do, but given the more rigorous demands of film and light at the time, I think it's safe to say nothing he did in this scene was an accident.

Having not seen a ton of pre-70s films apart from the various Jimmy Stewart fare they make you watch in grade school, I will admit the artifice of this kind of blocking makes me cringe. And when I hear older folks remark that movies aren't like they used to be, I nod and do not say what I think: thank goodness!
 
I appreciate you letting me rain a bit on one of your favorite movies, OldCorpse. I knew you could take it, because you dish it out ;) You even dog on Vertigo more harshly than me --- albeit about a different scene.

Now let me reverse polarity, and be positive instead of negative. One of the most memorable Hitchcock moments for me is from a different movie, North by Northwest. Gregory Peck shows a photograph to a man, and he seems to react in shock, but soon you realize he was just stabbed. Okay, that has less to do with blocking, but I cite it is as evidence that Hitchcock was very thoughtful and even inspired at times. Whatever my reservations about that one scene in Vertigo, my wife and I still enjoyed the movie overall. A good yarn!

On the general subject of the cooperation between camera and blocking, I can't help but think of one of my favorite movies, Raiders of the Lost Ark, in particular the scene in Indiana Jones's home. Shot from one angle (except a close-up near the end) the blocking, and the camera's own interactions with it, keeps the scene visually interesting.

Sometimes a scene with almost no blocking at all can be enthralling, as with the scene in the Map Room, if the build-up is right and maybe with a little help from John Williams.

Was music too much of a crutch in that last one? Okay, what better example of blocking than a good old-fashioned bar fight scene, this time with no music to help it along (once the fight begins).

You definitely could have picked worse example than Vertigo, which has made it to AFI's Top 10 and for the British it is number 1. All the same, I hope to one day see Indiana Jones raid the top 10. Even though Spielberg to this day considers it a B movie, I think really is a tour de force.


</hijack>
 
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OK, since it's gone this far, let's go a bit further :)... in the end hopefully we all find something of value by exchanging our thoughts. Alert - spoilers ahead, if you haven't seen Vertigo.

Re: "[...]the first shot is excellent, the shot of Gavin sitting in front of the cranes. I wish that he had held it longer. But Hitchcock all too quickly cuts from it, awkwardly, to a side shot of Stewart that is so similar in framing to the first that the cut is a little jumpy."

I think it's fairly simple to justify why Hitchcock did it this way. You block in order to achieve objectives, not the other way around, although bad filmmakers often in fact do it the other way around - this is how you get scenes which are blocked in such a way as to showcase the setting, or lighting or whatever other goal (I just watched a movie like that last night - the director was all about "pretty" postcard pictures, never mind that it was totally distracting from the nominal objective). This btw. is one reason why I feel DPs so rarely make a successful transition into directing (compared to writers, editors, actors). The DP gets hung up on fitting the scene to the lighting, to the blocking, to the framing - and forgets that it should be the other way around, that the content of the scene should be served by these elements, which is why writers and editors who deal with the bigger picture make for more successful directors. In this context, in order to understand (or design) the blocking, you cannot just focus on the one particular scene you are blocking at the moment, because that scene is part of the whole movie and it builds on other scenes and in turn builds toward further scenes. A DP might make it a pretty postcard, seen in isolation. But a director needs to think about other scenes that will follow or that preceded it.

To take the example of this scene from Vertigo, let us ask what and who the film is about. There are several things the film is "about", but to mention the biggest: it's about the nature of love and whether we love the person or the image we have of that person in our own head, not reality of that person, but our fantasy - and whether the other person can make us love them for themselves, not for the image. It is about the character of Scotty (Jimmy Stewart) who falls in love with a woman, and his idea of who that woman is, and when that woman is snatched away from him, can he love the reality of the woman, not the image, and how he tries to twist that reality to conform to his image and fantasy and because of that obsession loses her again - this time the real her. So he loses both his fantasy and the reality. This film is really 95% about Scotty. The Kim Novak character is just a tool to explore how Scotty deals with these themes of love, fantasy and reality. We really only get a small glimpse of her - as a person, not as a tool in a criminal plot to deceive Scotty - once she falls in love for real with Scotty, and it ends tragically... but we don't learn much about her. She's really a distant second character to Scotty - distant. In fact, we learn more about Midge than about the Kim Novak character - Midge is the real world just under Scotty's nose, which he largely doesn't perceive and ignores, while she pines away for him... that too, is love, not to be reciprocated for her - as so often in life. While he chases a fantasy and twists reality to its image, he misses the real world love just under his nose. And really, that's it. It's a movie that has basically these three characters, of which Scotty is the dominant 95% interest in the whole film. It's a remarkably compact character study of a man and the exploration of the essential dilemmas of love. What of the villain - Gavin? It's amazing on several levels. Here we have a character who rarely appears in the film - there is only a handful of scenes with him in it, and none of them are particularly dramatic - no fireworks. A villain so removed from the center, that - remarkably for the era - the film never resolves with the punishment of the villain. He is purely a device to set the plot going, and after that, there is really no need for him. This is definitely not the case of the villain being more colorful or involving than the hero. Here we have ostensibly a thriller with the villain being of practically zero impact and importance. Because the whole crime aspect, the thriller, is just a framing device to explore the character of one man, Scotty, and the issue of personification of love.

This is indisputable - Gavin, the villain, is of practically zero importance other than setting off the plot and chain of events. We learn nothing about his character. What animates him is the desire for freedom from his wife, but taking her money, which is the key to that freedom. That's it. Again, we barely see Gavin in the film.

Knowing all this - as a director, how is Hitchcock going to approach that scene? First, he is going to focus on Scotty, not on Gavin. He'll only feature Gavin to the degree that he needs to set up the initial plot device, the first domino push, and once done with that, the rest of the chain of falling dominos has nothing to do with Gavin. So how are we going to block that scene? We'll give a thumbnail sketch of Gavin's financial situation - and immediately his motivation. So we hear about his shipbuilding business he married into - lot of money, but it's not simply his - it comes chained to his wife.

And now the breakdown in setups: the scene opens to a dissolve with both Scotty and Gavin. Behind Gavin we see ships being built - and the immediate opening lines inform us that Gavin *married* into this fortune... not wasting time here folks! He has no interest in shipbuilding, he's just administering it for the money - from his own mouth. Boom, end of the first set up. Now, combatentropy, you would've preferred if we hung onto this setup longer, with the cranes in the background. I side with Hitchcock. Here is why: what is the objective of this scene? Why keep the shipbuilding background in frame once we have the info about shipbuilding and how he married into it, and has no interest in it? No reason at all. Because it is not about shipbuilding. We literally never hear shipbuilding mentioned for the rest of the film, it's so unimportant - it's a mere signifier of wealth that's been married into. Full stop. So why hang onto that image once it's been conveyed never to be referenced again? Instead we cut back to the conversation, because what we really want is to focus on Scotty and how the information Gavin is conveying impacts Scotty. Again, note, Scotty never impacts, mystifies, intrigues or influences Gavin in any way. But Gavin and his story ensnare Scotty, so we want to watch Scotty. And Scotty has to respond to Gavin's probing about his acrophobia, and Scotty has to respond to Gavin's request and imposition, and Gavin's presentation of the central mystery of his wife. It's not about Gavin. It's about Scotty. So let us watch Scotty. That's how we'll block. We'll block to see the impact of the information Gavin is imparting, and Gavin's maneuvering is having on Scotty - so we need to see how Scotty is taking it, how he's reacting. I timed all the screen time when the cam was exclusively on Scotty, exclusively on Gavin and on both of them in the same frame (with angles favoring either one or both). Guess what: most time is spent on solo Scotty; then on both; shortest on solo Gavin - not giant differences, but telling. Our interest and where we are being led as a setup for the rest of the movie events is reflected in the screen time devoted to each element. Which is why we cut away from the shipbuilding image as soon as that info was conveyed - to hang on longer, would just keep the shipbuilding in mind longer than needed... at which point, it becomes a distraction. I don't want some activity in the background that has nothing to do with the important - critical - interaction that is happening in the foreground, how Scotty is reacting to Gavin's moves. I want 100% concentration - no flags waving in the background, no silent reminders. Point for Hitchcock. Remember, the audience can absorb and hold in their minds only about 2-3 concepts at a time, so when you convey information, you do it piecemeal, and cut out extraneous elements. And so we cut back - next set up - to Scotty and Gavin. More info being conveyed. Next set up - exclusively Scotty...! We see again, the order of importance. And then we cut back and forth, with most of the screen time ultimately spent on Scotty.

Lack of awareness of how to weight screen time and therefore how to block purposefully is a signal failure for a director. Such failure results in a very by the numbers blocking and feeling of disengagement, which was one of my objections to the hack directing of Sicario, specifically as I put it in this passage in the Sicario thread:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?342984-Sicario&p=1986601635&highlight=#post1986601635

"the conversation in the border detention center between the Benicio character who stands by the water cooler, and the fellow who walks up to him. Basically it was shot in a super conventional way: on actor A as he speaks, then to actor B for his reaction/speech, and back again and so on. It is of course the conventional way, but it is mostly LAZY. The reason why conversations are shot that way is quite sensible: you want to see the face of the person speaking and you want to see reactions. However, think about it: this is NOT what is the actual focus of attention for the audience in ALL conversations. In many conversations, the audience may be far more interested in only ONE of the speakers (f.ex. we know s/he is lying or trying to con), and therefore we would want to focus most of our time on this character, and after establishing shots to get our bearings and an occasional shot of other speaker, we could and SHOULD leave the camera on the actor of interest, even if the other actor is talking. It would therefore be a MISTAKE to pivot away from the interesting (to the audience) guy and keep giving equal time to the other guy just because that's how it's done conventionally. For a refreshing take on this, see Eric Rohmer's work - in (I think) Claire's Knee, there is a scene in the kitchen between the main character and a woman who comes in - but after she comes in, we see/hear the entire dialogue with the camera always only on the main guy... very refreshing, and completely justified in that we only really had any interest in what the guy had to say. Basically, the idea is that every single shot should be justified - does the audience REALLY need to go to the reaction shot? Instead, so much camera work is done on automatic pilot - wide, medium closeup etc., just because it's always been done that way, with no thought "but is it the BEST shot at this moment?".

Anyhow, that's just a tiny portion of the explanation of motivation of the blocking in this scene, really just a response to combatentropy's suggestion. The key takeaway from this though is that we need to analyse blocking as a function of the objectives we are trying to achieve in that scene - and also, crucially, of the scenes in the rest of the movie, so you can't analyse the blocking of a scene just in terms of this one scene itself. Here's why that is important: if shipbuilding was to be an important element in the rest of the movie, then yes, combatentropy's suggestion would be absolutely valid, and I think it's safe to assume Hitchcock would have blocked more for that, per CE's suggestion. But the rest of the movie doesn't even mention it anymore. So Hitch did not block for it. We also need to be sensitive to the attention span bandwidth available to the audience - it's quite limited, and we need to block for that. So, for example, if we have a quiet scene, where f.ex. two characters are simply dreamingly chilling - it would be quite OK to have a more active background, in fact, it may be additive to the scene - therefore we would block to see more of the background for longer, shipbuilding or whatever else, since it would add color but not subtract from our attention. We would block for that. But we blocked for something else - we needed attention paid to other things, and background distractions would be a negative.

Combatentropy:

Sometimes a scene with almost no blocking at all can be enthralling, as with the scene in the Map Room, if the build-up is right and maybe with a little help from John Williams.

Was music too much of a crutch in that last one? Okay, what better example of blocking than a good old-fashioned bar fight scene, this time with no music to help it along (once the fight begins).

Here's what's interesting wrt. the interaction between music and blocking. When I study blocking in a movie, I often mute the sound completely. That's because music can be very distracting (as you put it "help it along" - btw. in the best case... unfortunately often it hinders as it calls the wrong kind of attention to itself). Yet dialogue can be an important part of blocking, so I sometimes may want to still know the dialogue - though not necessarily hear it. At that point, what often comes to the rescue is to turn off the sound, but turn on the subtitles so I can follow it. Here's what distinguishes those two as it pertains to blocking. For the vast majority of directors, music comes after the film has been completed, and certainly after the scene has been blocked (though not always edited!). Therefore, you don't block with music in mind (although there are some directors who do so! They listen to a music piece while f.ex. choreographic a camera movement). So you can cut out the music, and not miss anything when analyzing the decisions a director made while blocking. And so combatentropy was quite right in asking "was music too much of a crutch" while evaluating the blocking, because while the music has impact in the scene, it had zero impact on the blocking and since we're talking about the blocking, music should not be part of that discussion. But dialogue is different. Because dialogue exists before the film is shot, and therefore before any particular scene is blocked (assuming the scene has dialogue, and assuming the actors are not simply improvising everything on the spot). Therefore, you often block with dialogue in mind - so dialogue is primary here, and it is to the dialogue that we bend the blocking efforts. Information is imparted, actors react, someone might be the primary reactor, or mover, or there may be symbolism involved, or subliminal cues or whatever - therefore if dialogue is the means of imparting such information, blocking is a reaction to that. In that scenario, blocking is subsequent to dialogue, but blocking is first before music.

Anyway, this has barely touched on the blocking in that scene in Vertigo - it's too big a topic to tackle in this format, so I didn't really want to open that can of worms. I'm leaving it at that. My purpose in posting that video analysis by Nerdwriter is to inspire us to think about blocking - and not be hacks like the director of Sicario (among many other hack directors).


 
This thread is incredibly helpful for me. Most of the time I'm thinking about practicalities of the space, script, my crew, time etc and sadly a lot of this kind of thinking hasn't factored into my work. Not consciously that is. I'm really excited to try something in a scene that is less based on practical elements and more based on some characters position of power in the story or an element I want the audience to pay attention to etc. I guess what I'm saying is, the more times I think in this analytical way and know a reason behind a choice the better of a story teller I become. I would've loved to take a class like this in college and just analyze blocking, camera etc. So fun. There's an editing theory class I watched on lynda.com and that was an eye opener for me. They have a 30day free trial that's really cool. Anyway! If anyone else wants to breakdown any scenes please know that there are people on here who are excited to read your thoughts. Well, at least I am. haha
 
I found this topic interesting, but I'm not sure about the content. In 1994, I went into a college for an afternoon to do a workshop, and left again 1o years later. I spent a lot of time with students from 16-24, and over the period became involved with examining and creating qualifications. Media studies, which I got out of quickly, worried me, because unlike music/music technology/some of Performing Arts, there was little science but lots of 'reading' what was going on. The Hitchcock breakdown is based on conclusions drawn from watching it - reading the scene, so to speak. Where a director is complex, like Hitchcock, most of the conclusions are probably valid, but I don't believe that you can produce rules from observation. Maybe you can develop guidelines, but we don't know that Hitchcock really thought like this. Sure, there are recurring themes, but over the years I've read all sorts of university material produced to support qualifications, that took somebodies personal opinions and b beliefs and turned them in to hard facts, or sadly fiction. Dissertations on crazy things as well as sensible things but It's so easy for an enthusiast to produce what appear to be hard facts from something they're passionate about. I read one wonderful dissertation on a popular comedian, breaking down his style of comedy, isolating examples and giving really complex facts about how X would always follow Y, when Z happened. This did indeed appear valid, as I've worked with the guy dozens of times, and I mentioned this to him. He looked stunned. All the conclusions were based on numerous logging of the content, but they were all simply accidents - things that happened, and repeated. No planning in that area at all, just habit. Indeed, some choices were simply practical or technology based reasons - X had to be done after Y because that was the way an outsider produced the original clip list, and the comedian didn't have the computer skills to change it - so ran with it.

I'd love to think that Hitchcock did his blocking in this way - it sounds so sensible and common sense. The sceptic in me just doubts it really happened like that. I don;t like movies much, so frequently watch them with the director's commentary to add a bit of interest, and I'm surprised fairly often by their comments.

I have a deep distrust of subjects that have 'studies' after the title - Media, Theatre, Literature etc, because there's too m much opinion and not enough verifiable fact.
 
I agree. Watching a movie and then analyzing the blocking is mostly nonsense. I like what Old Corpse said about the cranes, but Nerdwriter's piece has very little analysis (he mostly articulates what is happening) and what analysis he does bring can only be derived having seen the whole movie. He admits this with his opening saying it is a second-viewing perspective. Having viewed the movie, nerdwriter now is able to see what Hitchcock was doing; nonsense. He has no idea what Hitchcock was doing. Only Hitchcock knows what he was doing and why he was doing it. A second-viewing perspective is invalid. The only thing that counts is what the blocking delivers at the first viewing. In other words, view the movie to that point and then analyze the scene - without knowing the rest of the plot. At that point, you can give an opinion of what the blocking did for you; not what Hitchcock had in mind. Any other analysis is along the lines of what Paul is saying - people just guessing at what the director is doing.

Sure, you can suggest things like a certain camera move does this or that. But to suggest that you can interpret what Hitchcock is doing - no.
 
I agree that we can't really know what anyones original intentions were. But, in interpreting others work we're gaining new tools and understanding that we can apply to our own projects just based on what we perceive.
 
StrobelPhotography said:
I agree that we can't really know what anyones original intentions were. But, in interpreting others work we're gaining new tools and understanding that we can apply to our own projects just based on what we perceive.
Click to expand...

That is the key to me. I've tried re-stating several times what the intention was behind my posting the Nerdwriter link, and perhaps I should have included that in the OP, but yes, to me, it's about the analysis being an inspiration to other filmmakers (in this case folks reading this thread) - an inspiration to think more carefully and considerately about blocking in our own work. I know that especially when I first started out, I was so concerned about just getting everything else right, that blocking was a bit of an afterthought and I just went with the flow. But then I started thinking much more about what every element in a film does, including blocking and it has radically changed my approach.

Whether you agree with the specifics of Nerdwriter's analysis, or indeed my take on this, what I think is of value is the inspiration "think, don't just aim the camera with your first impulse".

And indeed, you can't read anyone's mind. But you can read their words, and sometimes even believe them :) - as in when Hitchcock explains what he was thinking and his beliefs and techniques, f.ex. in the excellent book "Hitchcock" by Truffaut . So yes, it is possible to be influenced by the thoughts of a director when he explains them himself in his own words - there's a movie about that very thing, various directors talking about that book Hitchock/Truffaut (2015). For anyone who is interested in the making of Vertigo, there is "Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic" by Dan Auiler. There are also tons of interviews (some on youtube!) with key collaborators on that movie, including the screenwriter Samuel A. Taylor which I found quite interesting, Kim Novak and others. In any case, my point is, that sometimes you do indeed hear the director's take on why s/he did this or that (unless you don't believe them!).

In any case, regardless of your access to the mind of the director, watching a film for technical details still has value, if nothing for no other reason than it can make you think and consider things you may not have done otherwise. To take a random example, the shower scene in Psycho - did you know that, and I'm quoting here:

"The shower scene in Psycho required 78 shot set-ups and took seven days to film. The set was built so that any of the walls could be removed, allowing the camera to get in close from every angle. Although other scenes were shot with more than one camera, this one used only one cameraman."

Now, this was a low budget film for Hitchock and done on a relatively tight schedule (they did end up over schedule). Ask yourself - you are on a low budget and pressed for time, and you are devoting 7 days and tons of setups ON ONE SCENE? Clearly, the director must have cared. Clearly, he must have had reasons. What do many directors do on a low budget movie? They shoot scenes as fast as they can, and that means using fewer setups. So if you deviate from that, and devote an insane amount of time from your budget to that particular scene, most clearly you must think it desperately important to have all those setups. And doesn't that make you think? Doesn't that make you want to examine the scene and try to figure out why it was done that way? Even if you don't have access to the director's thoughts. It is still a worthy project. It still makes you think.

Watching movies and reading books about the making of, and listening to director commentary, and looking at BTS material and interviews, all has value. Even if we can never know the intimate thoughts of any artist, there is still value at the very least in inspiration, IMHO.
 
Another way to look at it is what if the Vertigo scene was shot with the typical establishment master shot, then the move in to the desk. Then the a/b head and shoulder shots of the two of them and a two shot as they remain at the desk. BORING! If for no other reason than to make the 5 minutes more interesting, the movement around the room while somewhat unrealistic, adds a texture to the scene.
 
Paul F said:
Another way to look at it is what if the Vertigo scene was shot with the typical establishment master shot, then the move in to the desk. Then the a/b head and shoulder shots of the two of them and a two shot as they remain at the desk. BORING! If for no other reason than to make the 5 minutes more interesting, the movement around the room while somewhat unrealistic, adds a texture to the scene.
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That is another way to look at it, but if you know anything at all about Hitchcock or blocking, you wouldn't.
There are infinite ways to add texture to a scene. If you are blocking without considering what unspoken content you are adding, your choices will be unmotivated and general. That's weak filmaking.
 
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If 20 of us were in a film class and we discussed the blocking of that scene, I wonder how many interpretations there would be of the blocking.
 
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