Film Case Analysis - The Photography of "Francis"

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Film Interpretation: "Francis"

American 1982 color film 140 minutes

Director GRAEME LIFFORD

Photo by LASZLO KOVACS

RICHARD SYLBERT

Editing by J.WRIGHT

Composer J.BARRY

Photography of "Francis"

"If you have three very smart, creative people, you make sure that all three are doing the same film, not three different films. It happens, you know, but to me It was an exciting experience because we were able to communicate ideas closely with each other and find a common denominator for everything." Laszlo Kovacs describes his relationship with director Graeme Crave German collaboration with graphic designer Richard Silbert on the film "Francis". This common denominator is a common understanding of the meaning of the film, a feeling of strong emotional impact that is believed to be a consistent film that a film should have. It's a feeling for the intangible, which, while incapable of being summed up in words, influences every choice made in filmmaking. As a cinematographer, Kovacs' job is to a large extent to unearth this feeling in the early stages of filmmaking in order to translate it into lights, camera lenses; filters and frames during filming.

The story of Francis Farmer is about the life of Francis Farmer. The actress starred in 14 films from 1936 to 1942 -- most famously "Come and Get It." "Francis" is a story of extremes - from her rise to stardom to her unimaginable abyss in prison and mental asylum. This is a portrait of an ultra-independent woman, an idealist, an opinionated man who is not only against religion, against her mother, but ultimately against herself. On one level, it's a story of a conflict between society and the individual, where society wins, but the story itself is an indictment of a mother, a psychic who conspired to destroy her spirit, brain surgery on her, Analyst and studio owner. On another level, the story is about a smart, beautiful, and full of life woman who, for a myriad of intricate reasons, embarks on a journey of self-destruction.

"Francis" is the first film directed by Crayford. He has worked as an editor on Bob Revelson's "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and Kovacs' "FIST" for Norman Juwison, among several other films. He and Kovacs first met while filming "A Cold Day in the Garden" in 1968, when Crayford was Robert Altman's assistant director. When Crayford called Kovac and asked him if he was interested in filming "Francis," Kovac's first reaction was "Which Francis?" Farmer knew nothing about it, but when Crayford briefly described the story to him, Kovacs immediately felt that he had to work on the film. One reason is that the film's story spans the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, and Kovacs' "FIST" belongs to that last period. He calls this period his absolute favorite. But more importantly, he reacted very strongly to the storyline described by Crayford.

Crayford sent Kovacs a script that was still being revised and suggested that he read Farmer's biography, The Unreal, by William Arnold. After Kovacs read these two books, he spent the remaining five or six months of his pre-work time trying to absorb those who had been written by contributors Mary Yates and Jonathan Sanger as well as Crayford and Art Design. The material about Farmer collected and sorted out by teacher Richard Silbert. He felt it was necessary for the photographer to understand the various parts of the film. "It's not enough to be a cinematographer or a cameraman. You can't just light and shoot the shots. You have to emotionally understand what the characters are going through. The formation of connections and character motivations. In short, the whys of everything. You have to know the answers to all these whys."

Of course, this is especially true for a work like "Francis" that depicts the character of the character. Kovacs described the film as a "one-man show, all by one person". Throughout the process, Kovac's first step was to grasp as much of the situation as possible, to get as many impressions as possible, until an intuition formed in him. This may sound simple, but it is not easy to achieve. This also includes the political and economic issues at the time. If you want to understand Francis Farmer, you have to understand the labor movement of the 1930s, the theaters of New York, Hollywood... it's all complicated. She is a multi-layered character. "

Kovacs, Crayford, Silbert had countless conversations. They screened all of Francis Farmer's films, but the moment his inspiration really came to him was when he was finally able to see the location or the set. Silbert had done a lot of work before Kovacs came in. Kovac recalls that on a trip to Seattle to see the location, Silbert took the group on a walking tour of the places Farmer used to live—her house, high school, the beach and a place she frequented in her spare time. s Bar. They visited a mental hospital where Farmer had lived for several years, even though they knew they would never be allowed to film there. All these moments, Crayford has been articulating what he thinks of the story and what he's going to get out of all this variegated material. "And I'm absorbing that material," Kovacs said. "I'm just watching, observing, asking questions, or listening to all the discussions that people have about it."

Finally, Kovacs begins to develop a sense of the tone or texture of the film. After he has mastered sufficient materials, he has entered the stage of fully coordinating with the director's views. "That's when you actually feel it," he said. "The feeling actually has two meanings. Not only can you feel it emotionally, but you can even feel it with your senses. You can literally touch it with your fingers. You can't precisely feel it. You can describe it, but you can already talk about its texture and tone and various structural details. You can tell that it is a kind of blunt thing here, and you also know what needs to be expressed through symmetry or movement.

Kovac is especially fortunate to be able to work with Sibert. He sees Siebert as a true art designer. "His choices always felt certain and precise, and they were exactly what the director envisioned. He brought basically everything that was discussed into reality."

While emphasizing the director's elaboration of the plot and determining the rhythm, Kovacs did not hesitate to attribute the visual image design of "Francis" to the art designers. It also seems clear that much of the appeal of "Francis" is the result of Sibalt's very thoughtful and meticulous design work, and all Kovacs can do is build on it and build on it by matching it. Adaptive lighting and photography styles make it even more beautiful. He and Siebert had detailed discussions over and over again about the composition of images in various shots. Kovacs even said that many of Siebelt's sets appeared to be shot in one correct way. Kovacs was happy with that because he always understood what Sibalt was trying to achieve with a certain set and felt that it was appropriate for the film.

Kovacs sees art design work in several different ways. The most obvious is, of course, the consideration of age. All components of the sets, costumes and props had to be appropriate for the era. Kovac, in particular, said that Sibelt's familiarity with New York and the refurbishment theater world helped the filming. But historical accuracy is not the focus of Siebelt's work. It's just a foundation on which he does all his art.

"Francis" is a typical example of combining all the image material with the orchestration method in the film design. Carefully chosen colors, textures, and composition provide the film with an pictorial composition that enhances the film's dramatic or narrative structure. The musical analogy for Sibelt, discussed in another article by Jay Carmichael about the production of Francis, may seem a little too abstract at first, but as long as you watch the film Looking at the stills later, you can recall how much the film's art design actually played a role in the emotionally formed orchestral effect of the audience. The natural face of Frances' home, the strong contrast between her home and Hollywood or New York, the relationship between her home and Hollywood and the mental hospital, the resolution of a series of conflicts, all expressed through color and texture, as well as dialogue and action come out. This is what Kovacs had to say about the different techniques of lighting and photography he used for the Farmer home scene:

"Every time you go back to that house, it's different, something is different. Either the position of things has changed, or there are strangers in the house, etc. And those qualities have to be transformed into light, Everything has to be shown on the screen immediately. The audience can understand the emotion and what's going on as soon as they see each picture - before any actor speaks. That's the real power of cinema-- Strong visual appeal. As long as it is right, a picture can be more telling than a page of dialogue.”

Another aspect of Siebelt's art creation is the way the set is used to illustrate the character. The most prominent examples are several scenes related to Crayford Odets. This is how Kovac describes his reaction when he first saw the set for Odets' New York apartment: "It was in the shed next door to us, and I couldn't help but stick my head in and take a peek, but I said to myself, 'No, I don't want a look, I want to be there. I'm going to see it when it's all set up.'" Siebelt and set maker George Guy Enns worked closely. George Gaines has a great sense of detail, and if he knows what kind of character you're playing, he knows what kind of pen you might be using. So I decided to wait until the framing was over. When I finally walked into that finished set, I said: 'My God, is he such a person? This guy can't be so self-centered, so self-absorbed. ' I mean, the set really does reflect the character's character, and I totally understand what Sybalt was trying to convey. I felt tempted to say to him like this: 'This is amazing. You make my job so easy because everything you show is so conceptually clear that anyone with a brain can understand the implications. '"

One of the ways Siebelt created this impression of the Odets apartment was by using white. This whiteness in Oditz's apartment not only connects thematically with the Hollywood set, but also creates a sense of elegance that is in contrast to the intense monotony of the theater set that rehearsed Oditz's play. It's as if the two circumstances in which we meet Odets capture just two sides of his character - an idealistic playwright and an egocentric lover.

So what Kovacs did for the shot of the Odets apartment was to make sure there was always white in the frame. He said: "Despite the big feature of Odets, there is also a big, loose white shirt sleeve that I give special emphasis. Or when the theatre manager told Frances she couldn't go to London with the show. When she stood up, what you saw was the white bookcase and the white hall behind her. She was wearing a dark dress with a black belt. Red, blue, yellow, pink, etc. No. Not any other colors. Even the flowers used in the shots of the Odets apartment are white lilies."

In addition to the color combination, the choice of furniture and props also adds to the sense of Odets' character. Kovacs can think of instances where Sibalt came over to him during filming and told him not to include something in this shot because he realized that, while it was appropriate for the time, it was not suitable for the character. .

Kovacs cites another powerful example of this approach to setting characters, the office used by Francis' father. "It's a bizarre workplace. Sybalt seeks grandeur to contrast this father's condition - not to belittle him, but to show that he's barely a lawyer for a beggar, a drunk and a poor man. You first Think his office is probably a little comfort zone somewhere. You'll also contemplate: Dirty walls, stained windows, a small desk, no pictures on the wall, nothing to see No. However, Siebelt chose a lobby where a restaurant used to be very prosperous. These have marble columns and stained glass. The camera is now down, and his desk is in the corner of the mezzanine lobby. On the side is the payphone. This is where the beggars come, sitting on the sofas and chairs around, waiting."

According to Kovacs, Taiben did not at all point out that the office was located in such a place, and in fact it had no basis whatsoever. This is Sibert's heavy strokes for his father's condition. "It's his gut feeling," Kovac said. "It's what inspired me as a cinematographer. But you have to accept that first, you have to understand what he's after. You also have to realize that some At times, the closest route from A to B in filming is not a straight line. It’s hard to tell how you know when you can take the most direct path and when you have to take a detour to illustrate the problem visually.”

Another set that Kovacs thought was particularly effective was the black bathroom. Francis came to the house for a party after a tiring day at the studio. "Francis asks the hostess if she can use the bathroom, the next scene is a bathtub, and then you find her taking a shower. Then the camera pulls back and you see this beautiful design, perfectly symmetrical, with the bathtub in the middle. The bathroom. Somehow it gives you a sense of stability, a sense that she's very sure of everything she's doing. She was okay at the time, so he used the composition to support that feeling. General That's how he made the sets, so to speak. It couldn't even be done in any other way. That's amazing. Siebert took out a lot of guesswork and empty talk that didn't work. He said: 'That's it now, guys.' And that's how you shoot it."

Kovac's own contribution really starts in the early stages when dailies are ready. The preparations for "Francis" have finally reached this point: Kovacs feels he has grasped the intentions of Crayford and Siebert enough to transform them into light and photographic form. He didn't say much, just said, "Okay, I get it. Now I'm going to show you how this will look on film." They had eight days of test shots, basically close-ups. Due to the variety of changes Francis goes through in the film, makeup and hairstyles had to be determined for the various stages of her life, and Kovacs also determined the corresponding lighting forms for these images. They took pictures and they did a film test, which turned out to be the most successful. The footage was cut from the working copy, printed as 8x10 photos, and pasted on a large board for the purpose of analyzing the structure of the film, then reproductions of these photos were used by makeup artists and hair stylists as references during filming .

There's one thing Kovacs didn't fully realize until he saw the finished film. That is, to a certain extent the whole story can be shortened to these few features of Francis. Not only has her face undergone morphological changes, but Jessica Lange has progressed in her performance, while the tone of color and the texture and atmosphere of the image created by the lighting help convey the meaning of the film.

The clearest example of this is, of course, the contrast between the glamorous lighting on the Hollywood stage and the lighting when she was in a mental hospital. For what he considered to be the golden age of Hollywood, Kovacs went straight to the golden tones for the lighting, and he also adopted some of the usual tricks of the era – soft images with hard-toned backlighting. Aside from having to use it as a light source in the shot, the Hollywood scene is the only place he uses backlighting.

Kovacs used soft lighting for the middle school stage, which combined with the no-makeup look resulted in a very soft and pristine effect. He said it was easier to make Jessica Lange look younger than to make her look older. For example, the image of 'this is your life' at this stage is difficult to deal with. This was not even resolved before filming began. Numerous trials have been done on cosmetic products, but none have worked well. In the end, Kovacs concluded: The key is light. There was one point he was sensitively aware of during the shoot, and it was Jessica Lange's eyes. Kovacs feels that the eyes of any actor or actress are always the key to the plot. He noticed that Lange's eyes were always watery, prompting the audience to feel the repressed emotion she was trying to express. While he was thinking about trying to keep some light in her eyes, an idea came to him; no eye light at all when filming the final scene. The result is a wonderful addition to Lange's lobotomized woman. Compared to everything we've seen before, her eyes are now lifeless. In the scene where she talks to Harry and walks home, there is a long follow-up shot, and to achieve that, Kovacs uses a top light. The added bonus of doing this is that it creates a light shadow under the eyes while also accentuating her cheekbones, which when combined with a certain amount of makeup, make her age convincingly.

Kovacs used the natural effect of venetian blinds for lighting in several of the scenes in which Francis was put into a mental hospital. He joked that he loved the feeling of being imprisoned by the shadow of the venetian blinds so much that he used it in Heartbeat. According to him, he has been waiting for someone to trouble him because of this. But he felt it worked well in "Francis." The film's first use of venetian shades is in the footage of Francis' first conversation with the nursing home doctor. The shadow doesn't actually fall on Francis' face in that shot, but it does fall across her face later in the film when she is admitted to a state hospital.

In general, Kovac sees his lighting in "Francis" as representing a transitional phase for him, during which he was training himself to adopt a much simpler approach to lighting. He said: “If you don’t keep the lighting simple, it can be a very grueling experience. Now, after so many years in the business, I’ve come to realize that the simpler the better. I used to use a lot Lights, now my way is to have as few lights as possible to achieve the same effect. For me it's more real and much more believable, as long as you keep it simple. Shoot the court where she was sentenced to 180 days I only had three lights on for the shot. This courtroom was shot live on the sixth or seventh floor of the St. Peder Building, so I couldn't have the lights out of the window."

Kovacs also likes to use enough light that he can shoot interiors with an aperture of f-4. "I don't like low light because I think it actually destroys the quality of the image. You have to use a big aperture and a small depth of field, and it's nerve-racking, and if the actor's nose is pointy, his ears are going out. Focal length. I can't stand that. I mean, don't know how that's going to work."

Just as Siebelt designed the color combinations of sets and costumes to enhance the film's dramatic structure, Kovacs controlled the color reproduction of photography by adding gelatin filters to the lights and precise lighting. He also used color to illustrate shots, like the last shot of Francis' parents in the house. He said: "I went back to the golden tones of the old days. My mother is getting old, but she still has that crazy dream, I don't know why, but my gut tells me that this place should be made to feel warm - just Like it should be, but it's not."

The filming of "Francis" was a relatively long and stressful experience. "It's emotionally draining because you can't separate yourself from her intense performance," Kovac said. "You're there, you're part of it, and you're emotionally drained. Can you Imagine what it's like when she has to do it over and over again?"

Kovacs estimated that they shot about 20 percent more raw film than was used to finish the film, a figure he said was normal. He also said that the script was still being revised during filming. There are about 96 sets and live-action sets in the film. The hardest part of filming is finding everything you need in Seattle within a limited time. He says he likes to be involved in planning the shoot, and doing so ensures that as much time as possible is allocated to location work where it is impossible to fully control the weather and light.

He felt it was important that the cinematographer should participate in the pre-planning work of the film, and he insisted that when it came to the formal rehearsal and actual shooting, there was a limit to what the photographer and director could do. Even more so for the film. He felt that many choices were made intuitively on the spot by the cinematographer while shooting. "I never like to go home and prepare like homework. Let's say we're shooting a new shot tomorrow morning. I know the whole story, and I know how that shot relates to the whole structure. A general idea for lighting, but I wouldn't sit down and start fiddling with some graphic design or something, because that might be irrelevant. The next morning, when I came to the set, when the director brought the actress After he came in, he said, ok, let's rehearse the scene. At this moment, all my plans are not abandoned. My opinion is, who can do any kind of graphic design like that, or even draw some schedules in their minds The picture. The only one who can really do that is the director. Even the director is very careful about it. You come home and you sit in a chair, it's just you and me, and a piece of paper. You exclude the actors, but you can't Do, because the actors will bring out the richness of color and detail that you never imagined when you were laying down on your desk and drawing a schedule."

“Just as a face can have a thousand different emotions and expressions, so can you light a close-up in so many different ways. The choice of lighting is when you see the scene, on the spot Choices made. The importance of a good rehearsal is not only that you see the specific positioning and scheduling, but that you see where the emotional climax is. You feel the meaning, so you know that you have to give the performance. What is it. That's when you can really determine the lighting. Usually you light a panorama shot first, which is not as important today as it used to be. A lot of directors now use what's called a master shot and let the actor figure out which Directional shots, a lot of times, they simply leave that out of the way. It's a good dramatic start for all the creative people involved with this. You create the whole mood, you set the light The source. Then once you start working on the scene further, it becomes possible to create an off-camera secondary light source. You can take poetic outliers to create unique effects.”

One of the best examples of this type of on-set creative decision making is the scene in the film where Francis berates the director on set and storms out of the studio screaming. As soon as she pushed the door open, light streamed in from behind her, forming an image around her that seemed to be a reproduction of her mental state. Not only was the image not preconceived, it was born half of necessity, because the shot was shot at night. Kovacs assured Crayford that with some greenery and enough light reflecting off the white muslin, a photorealistic daytime exterior could be created. Crayford agreed to shoot as such, but Kovac could sense he wasn't quite satisfied. Then Crayford came to him again and asked him what was the idea of ​​turning off the light on the door completely, so that nothing could be seen there but the light streaming in from the outside when the door was opened. Kovacs grabbed the idea, shot more light into the white muslin, and added a fog mirror to the lens to intensify the effect.

Kovacs made two other films in the time between filming of "Francis" and seeing the finished version. He said he was never surprised by the way a film was edited. He believes that photographers who leave for a period of time after making a film and then come back, unlike directors and editors who have been working for several months, can look at certain problems in the editing process with fresh eyes. Aside from the inevitable cuts to shorten the film, one of the things that impressed him most about the "Francis" cut was the violence in the hospital ward and Francis' appeal before he was sentenced for release. Shots are cut together. Those images flashed through her mind as memories as Frances faced the verdict, to good effect, even though the two sets of shots were originally shot as separate shots. The film continued to be edited in the editing process until Kovacs returned to direct the lighting for the standard copy.

Francis, in its finished state, is a prime example of how a film is an inseparable, integral product formed by the close cooperation of its various aspects of the creative staff. Every artist and craftsman tries his best to add his share to the efforts of his fellows, and the result is seen on the screen.