"We shot a few," heroine Emily Mortimer told me after the film's 2004 premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. "Director Shona knew The shot had to be a long shot, but she didn’t know how long it should be. So she had to see which length was better when editing. So she’s a very bold director, letting space come first and action.”
Every once in a long while, a director and actors will discover, or rediscover, the dramatic power of silence and time. They are moving pictures, but that doesn't mean they always have to be moving. At Sundance 2005 I saw Miranda July's "You and Me and Everyone We Know," and its scene where a man and a woman who don't really know each other walk down a sidewalk and engage in a kind of casual word play that leads to a defining moment in their lives. The scene is infinitely more effective than all the countless conventional ways of obtaining the same result. In the same way, the bold long shot near the end of "Dear Frankie" allows the film to move straight as an arrow toward its emotional truth, without a single word or plot manipulation to distract us. While they are looking at each other, we are looking at them,and for a breathless, true moment, we are all looking at exactly the same fact.
Every so often, a director and actors discover, or rediscover, the dramatic power of long silences. Although a movie is a moving picture, it does not mean that it must be moving all the time. At the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, I saw Miranda July's "Love Me You He". In one scene, a man and woman who didn't know each other walked side by side on the sidewalk, chatting casually, playing word games, and finally their The conversation led to a moment of meaning in their lives. Such a treatment is more effective than countless other conventional methods. Likewise, the daring long takes near the end of "Frankie, My Love" let the film go straight to the heartfelt emotion it's trying to convey, without a single line or plot twist to distract us. When they were looking at each other, we were looking at them, and right there we forgot to breathe, absolutely genuine moment, we all saw the same truth.
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