It was an absolute pleasure to discuss my pictures with him. His advice was so helpful and he suggested some improvements on my images which were useful, constructive and I will definitely use them in future. Thank you so much for your time Paul. 

https://www.paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk

Girls on the bank of the Tiber

Boy on bank of the Tiber.

Vatican Interview

Gadget and friend, Plymouth.

Mafioso

His work was used in the Star trek short Chance Encounter which is an extraordinary achievement on a Kickstarter budget of £1800. 

Definitely worth a look. 

Shutter Island is a neo-noir production by Martin Scorcese. Set in the fifties,  the narrative begins with a US Marshall (DiCaprio) investigating the disappearance of a patient from the ultra-secure mental health unit on the titular island. The plot twists as this is an elaborate role play in a last ditch  attempt to cure the now revealed criminally insane protagonist before lobotomy.

Apparently at the root of his madness is his experience in the liberation of the Dachau Conzentration Larger at the end of the second world war (WW2). He stands accused of murdering his wife who killed their children this seems a much more plausible reason for reactive

Based on the book by Dennis Lehane (born August 4, 1965) is an American author. The novel is interspersed with graphic descriptions of WW2 and Dachau. It was released in Feb  2009.

Genre wise it fits into fantasy horror as it is difficult to see this as a common treatment in mental health units.

On context

In an interview with the director about the film he reveals that that like artists for example Caravaggio before him he uses film to archeologically “recreate the past”. This has ramifications for real events where history is rewritten. Equally that history is affected by the intervening years and the context of the year of production. A war film set in the  1944 era filmed in the sixties for instance the “The Longest Day” and ” Saving Private Ryan” from the nineties are very different. Even down to casting. An ensemble cast (from many different nations) in the former to one  leading men and a supporting cast (Americans)  in the later.

Reflection

This production off along with ‘Blade Runner’ some interesting thoughts about memory and loss that I used subsequently for script development. Context had ramifications for my research work.

References

Shutter Island, [television programme, online], Prod. credit n.k., Prod. company n.k., Prod. country n.k., 21:00 31/5/2015, Channel 4, 160mins. http://bobnational.net/record/297290, (Accessed 14/05/2016)

The Culture Show, [television programme, online], Prod. credit n.k., Prod. company n.k., Prod. country n.k., 00:20 12/3/2010, BBC TWO, 70mins. http://bobnational.net/record/26279/annotationSearch/martin%2Bscorsese%2Bculture%2Bshow, (Accessed 24/04/2016).

Photorealism with a twist!

17m of glass used  (Petapixel, 2016)

Planning

https://wordpress.com/post/nicolerosenblog.wordpress.com/6522

His Method

A selection of his work (Johansson, 2015)

His perceptions from the TED talk video below  (Johansson, 2012)

• “What we think looks realistic”
• “Puzzle or reality”
• “We trick our brains but it knows it can’t make sense “

The Rules

“Must have same perspective , same light, make it seamless”

“The only thing that limits us is our imagination”

References

Johansson, E. (2012) Impossible photography. Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/erik_johansson_impossible_photography?language=en (Accessed: 6 May 2016).

Johansson, E. (2015) Work. Available at: http://www.erikjohanssonphoto.com (Accessed: 6 May 2016).

(Johansson, 2015)

Petapixel (2016) It took 17 square meters of mirror to get this shot. Available at: http://petapixel.com/2016/04/05/took-17-square-meters-mirror-get-shot/ (Accessed: 16 May 2016).

An amazing juxtaposition of old and new. Chimneys from the middle ages with aerials, dishes and their cables! 

Towards the King (Colin Firth) the microphone is initially  like a noose, then  prison-like, bars cross the King’s face .The microphone is like another character in the room frequently shown closer to the camera to show its position of power i.e. the strongest.  As the speech goes on and the King becomes more fluent the camera is shown smaller as though its power has diminished and the his face is nor obscured as though set free by his fluency . A narrow depth of field is employed, focussing on the faces of the King and Lough, the speech therapist.

The P.O.V.  reverse shot also shows distortion with the King’s body reflection overlaying Lough’s body, his head and hands and apparently separate from an invisible body. Semioticaly showing his concentration on Lough but also the domination of the microphone. It acts like barrier stopping him following Lough’s cues. The distorted and “cut”  reflection shows the King his dismembered body further demonstrating the power the microphone has over him.   

This scene, like the rest of the film is very intimate. It shows the close bond between the two men which has transcended the therapist/client relationship.

It cuts away to listeners in the wider world, again using odd compositions that have been used throughout the film  with actors angled  out of the screen rather than across/ into the screen. Like the  ultra-wide angle cinematography in the ‘The Third Man’ the vanishing points are outside of the screen to create disorientation in the viewer to increase empathy of what the King is feeling.   The shot of the soldiers moves the focus deep into the picture. Focus has been used throughout the picture to denote importance.

At the beginning Lough has equal screen time in the scene actively encouraging ,again as it progresses the focus becomes the King. The encouragement no longer required.

The film won Best Director, Best Motion Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and nominated for eight others including cinematography. It was similarly nominated in the Golden Globes, and Baftas in the same category but did not win. However, it was beaten by ‘Inception’ an extraordinary cinematographic presentation.

Reflections

The distortions in the camera reflecting the psychological disturbances are very impressive indeed. I would like to use this technique when filming in Ilfracombe to add this sense of distortion. and that everyone is looking at the character.

Reference

IMDb(2011) Kings Speech Awards  Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fY3BOcjAnw(Accessed: 14 May 2016).

SYNOPSIS

Head of German station Alec Leamas (Richard Burton) is recalled to London  after the death of his agents in East Germany. In apparent disgrace he then becomes a defector on the orders of Control (Cyril Cusack).

Prior to his recall during operation Rolling Stone  he has  made two very large deposits in Finland and Denmark banks  for the payment of an agent.

The plan attempts to persuade Fiedler (Oskar Werner), the  second in command (2i/c) of the East German (DDR)  counter-intelligence and an idealistic Jew, to kill his superior Mundt (Peter van Eyck) , an ex-Nazi , because he is a British agent.

Mundt is in fact arrested and tried in a tribunal and the case for his being a double agent is compelling. However, at the last moment Laeamas’ idealist girlfriend Nan Perry (Claire Bloom)   who has been enticed to the DDR implicates London, to the court, that Rolling Stone is still in operation. The 2i/c is arrested and by implication executed, Mundt is released with Laemas and the girl imprisoned. It dawns on Laemas that Mundt is actually a British agent and the operation ensures his survival  realising that Control has sacrificed his DDR agents.

Their escape is provided by Mundt who arranges for them to go over the wall. They are both killed attempting to flee into West Berlin.

ANALYSIS

This monochrome film  is tense, atmospheric and feels very real. The characterisations are credible with good back stories and motivations , however, Burton appears to be playing himself but convincingly articulates Le Carre’s personal feelings. “Communism, capitalism. It is the innocents that get slaughtered” Leamas says in the first Act then finally he describes the dirty, morally questionable work in espionage in a monologue in the closing minutes.  His realistic scenes portraying his character while drunk are  very poignant.

It is a film of three acts. Act 1 sets up the  characters and initial disturbance of equilibrium (death of the agents), Act 2 deals with the defection and gradual increase in tension as he goes from freedom to say no in London to chains in East Germany which ramps up the viewers anxiety. The final, almost unbearable twist, where Perry inadvertently implicates her boyfriend signals the beginning of Act 3.  The explanations and deaths occur in the final act a new equilibrium is achieved Mundt survives and the British have a top agent safely in place. The screenplay very closely follows the original novel’s plot and  illustrates rather than interprets it.

Using Propp’s characterisations Leamas is the hero, Control is the enabler. Smiley is the donor, Mundt is the villain.

The plot is typical Le Carre (who was actually the real  agent in Germany post war) and full of twists and turns. Burton is believable as an agent until the very end. It seems unlikely as experienced operative ( and now mistrustful of London)  that he would not think himself expendable as threat to Mundt’s identity and not wish to escape by a different route rather than the one laid on by the double-agent.

Technically the cinematography has some very demanding shots for instance where Nan runs for a bus. The camera is on the bus and there is a long pan from long shot to close up in one take while the bus is moving. The bus pulls off keeping the Michael Horden character in increasingly longer and longer shot. See further analysis here . A tiny part of the film but semiotically relevant as she crosses paths with the East German agent her ultimately disastrous entanglement in a world she is foreign to begins.

The film was a critical and box office success (Nash Information Services, no date) winning BAFTAs for best actor, art direction, cinematography and film. It was nominated in the Oscars for best actor and art direction.

REFLECTION

The opening scenes portray Checkpoint Charlie bring back happy memories. Unfortunately it is nor a very accurate portrayal having visited it myself. I would love to get to repeat the bus scene at some time. The framing is extraordinary.

REFERENCES

Nash Information Services (no date) The Numbers. Available at: http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Spy-Who-Came-in-from-the-Cold-The#tab=summary (Accessed: 24 April 2016).

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, [television programme, online], Prod. credit n.k., Prod. company n.k., Prod. country n.k., 16:25 24/4/2016, Film4, 135mins. http://bobnational.net/record/406148, (Accessed 24/04/2016).

When I was growing up in London in 60s (ahem) my friends and I would think nothing of travelling across the city unaccompanied. I vividly remember travelling unaccompanied, aged ten, to Heathrow from Winchmore Hill to watch the planes. Equally, sent to Chalk Farm station aged thirteen to buy 30 Roundhouse theatre tickets by my school on the morning of the performance (with the appropriate bundle of cash).

Equally I remember watching Dr Who in the 60s and seeing Yetis and Daleks roaming the deserted and cobweb strung tunnels unchecked. Another fond memory was taking the the the train on the Isle of Wight. This railway used old Underground trains and therefore mixed rural idyls with London trains.

So I can say I have a sentimental fondness for the system. The art of the Tube is very simple, effective and iconic. I have wanted to create tube maps using the fonts, iconography and those wonderful primary colours. Our recent trip to London stimulated me to produce a route a map of my local area with stations that would offer me the convenient travel of my childhood.

Devon Line Map pdf

Method

Pre-production

I created the map in Autodesk’s Graphic (formally known as iDraw) as the preloaded icons would be very useful.

Initially I created a long, thin box populating it with black circles and small boxes representing the stations. The maps have evolved over the years so I chose from reference images what I wanted to use and gave them a slight twist to make them different. Additionally I used the TfL (Transport for London)style guide for more detailed notes. I used the “London” font which is an approximation of the copyright Patterson font used in TfL (Transport for London) literature and signage. I chose stations that would useful including the college at Vantage Point.

I produced a pdf and having had a previous chat with printing services I knew they offered banner production. Unfortunately I could only estimate dimensions because I was not sure which line we would be using and they have different widths. I therefore printed three times and trimmed by eye. I obtained a very low tac glue to secure the image over the existing map.

Unfortunately, the train at Paddington was crowded but a suitable site presented itself. I applied the glue to the existing map  and fixed my replacement. Not an absolute fit as expected. Placed my models  and recorded the image using an  Fz1000. The banner was then removed and the glue wiped off the  train map.

Post-production

The banner fitted except for lower edge and the length was too short on the right.

A section of age rail under the map was copied and then stretched across to give a straight edge. The area to the the right was cloned out.

The white balance was corrected and the picture manipulated to sharpen and correct underexposure.

Screenshots of method.

Reflection

Civil disobedience is a departure for me but I think the end result is mildly amusing. I am very pleased with the route maps themselves and I think I will make more (for framing not trains).

Although I could have done this by compositing I think it is more  “authentic”. My original collaborators took a different tube and I had to use stand ins. I was was very keen to  get the map and down with minimal time. I could have spent more time on those shoes. In haste I had shot in jpg when my intention was to shoot in RAW.

References

TfL publication guide (Citation Needed) https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/suppliers-and-contractors/design-standards-and-licensing

Single station Image

Robert Capa was a war photographer and photojournalist covering wars and violent events in China, Spain, Mexico, Sicily and Italy.

He was selected as one of only two “pool” photographers to go ashore during the invasion, the pictures being shared amongst all the publications “Capa had a reputation as a great war photographer … and he was stuck with it,” says John G. Morris, the photo editor at LIFE magazine’s offices in London (Herrick, Coleman, and Baughman, 2015). As Capa’s reputation preceded him he may have been obligated to be on the beach without being enthusiastic to be there.

The pictures he took on D-Day have appeared in many publications since they were taken on the 6th June 1944. There are ten pictures in the series from that morning.

The pictures appeared in June 19, 1944 issue, “Beacheads of Normandy: The Fateful Battle for Europe is Joined by Sea and Air.”  Life magazine

The “Face in the surf” or “Crawling through the water “D-Day, 6th June 1944.

No 9 in the series

The image appears overexposed, highly grainy with a reduced tonal range. Areas of shadow are blocked-up and highlights blown. The shot is facing west so not contra jour. It is hard to see any focused parts of the image and Capa titled his account of D-Day’ Slightly Out of Focus” (Capa, 1947) so one assumes hethought they were out of focus. The tonal range is very limited with blocked shadows but clear whites.

According to Morris, the image was rescued from a development mistake and is one of only eleven surviving images of five rolls taken so may have been distressed in development.

The overall effect is of an extreme situation with not only the distressed image imparts the stress the photographer and the subject were under.

Of the image was taken under extraordinary conditions –under fire. According to Capa  “the bullets tore holes in the water around me” (Capa, 1995). He goes on to describe the day as “very gray (sic) for good pictures”. Additionally he was shooting away from the sun (judging by the obstacle orientation) therefore the light is soft, however, it is unknown what the negative processing has done to the final print as unlike the others in the set the negative is not available. 

According to Pulitzer Prize winner J. Ross Baughman, Capa’s camera, Contax II 35mm rangefinder camera with Carl Zeiss Jena 5 cm f/1.5 high-speed lens. Could give him no more than a modest shutter speed and a shallow depth of field (Herrick, Coleman, and Baughman, 2015). Photojournalists of the time would have used a similar camera because of its ability to use rolls of film, portability and robustness. The nature of the camera influenced the genre.

The image is in black & white. In 1944, it is believed that this would have been a choice forced upon photographers down to the early days of colour film, cost and requirements to look after the colour substrate before and after exposure.

The circumstances were so extreme that it is hard justify any criticism as the man was in the water, while being shot at. Again he says “a new kind of fear shaking my body from toe to hair, and twisting my face.” Recent commentators point out that he was on the beach for some while in cover behind “vehicle 10” (Herrick, Coleman, and Baughman, 2015). They also  raise the issue of  whether he took more pictures or not.  

In the largest crops available (the contact print/ negative appears unavailable). The hedgehogs (beach obstacles ) form a line from left to right on the third line. The soldier is centre frame but lies roughly on the lower third line.

The picture can be used successfully either cropped or uncrossed. The picture has been used frequently in portrait, landscape cropped and uncrossed. While there are short diagonals found in the beach obstacles they really make an impact as the ugly subject. There seems no need for leading lines  as the central subject is so dominant.   

The image starkly conveys the terrors of the day. The almost impressionist result with its distressed look makes the soldier look lonely, vulnerable and exposed. On a day when thousands of men are landing he looks alone in the surf. With this image Capa boils down the the invasion to the single soldier his weapon either lost or underwater.

The story photograph has a further element as the subject is a GI named Huston Riley, he had taken thirty minutes to reach the shore. He is pulled out of the water by Capa and another soldier. Capa’s camera jams shortly after and leaves the beach.

Number seven in the series and therefore prior the face in the surf.

With landing craft in the background soldiers of an engineer demolition unit prepare a hedgehog for demolition. Previously captioned as “Men in the second wave taking cover” in Life Magazine that these images appeared in on June 19th .

Now that it has been correctly attributed to engineers demolishing beach obstacles the picture engenders a feeling of intense admiration for those demolition experts going about their mission in what appears to be a fearless manner.

Equally in the background are coxswains steering their landing craft skilfully through what appears to be a huge swell.

The image is very grainy but much clearer than the face in the surf. It is underexposed with blocked out areas around the metal obstacles.

It is a low-key exposure with taken in a northerly direction with sun (if any, to the left again judged by the beach obstacles). Again the picture has low tonal range with no clear whites.

The engineers are in focus although the image is very grainy. Centrally composed, the group of engineers and obstacles line up on the bottom third line. Slightly surprisingly in the specimen image the engineer helmet white “arc” insignia is clearly visible which is not the case in other images seen   

Again it is churlish to criticise as the images are unique. Other photographers and cinematographers have taken pictures later in the day that are clearer such as

This picture has been reimagined with different crops and even as a panorama.

Finally Capa, despite revisionist analyses, a man armed only with a camera who had put himself in a perilous position just so we might know what feats of heroism are required to maintain freedom.

Appearing initially in Life Magazine to a worldwide audience hungry for news of the Normandy landings the pictures have reproduced on many publications frequently on the front cover. Arguably the audience included the Axis powers and might be considered part of the misinformation plan.

Steven Spielberg used his pictures as the inspiration for the Mise-en-Scene and plot of ‘Saving Private Ryan’ saying he was inspired by the photos (Duncan, 2009)

References

Barrett, B., Coleman, A.D. and Baughman, R.J. (2015) Guest post 15: J. Ross Baughman on the NPPA (a) « Photocritic international. Available at: http://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2015/04/19/guest-post-15-j-ross-baughman-on-the-nppa-a/ (Accessed: 22 February 2016).

Burgett, G. (2014) TIME addresses the fake ruined negatives from the Robert Capa d-day documentary. Available at: http://petapixel.com/2014/07/01/time-addresses-fake-ruined-negatives-robert-capa-d-day-documentary/ (Accessed: 23 February 2016).

Capa, R. (1995a) Slightly out of focus (American autobiography series). United States: Reprint Services Corp.

Capa, R., Cartier-Bresson, H., Capa, C. and Whelan, R. (2001) Robert Capa: Photographs. New York: Aperture Foundation.

CineFix (2015) Saving private Ryan’s Omaha beach – art of the scene. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7M8iGQOjMI (Accessed: 6 March 2016).

Duncan, P. (2009) Stanley Kubrick: The pocket essential guide. United States: Pocket Essentials.

EcElroy, R. (2014) Guest Post: On Robert Capa « Photocritic international. Available at: http://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2014/06/26/guest-post-12-rob-mcelroy-on-robert-capa/ (Accessed: 22 February 2016).

Herrick, C., Coleman, A.D. and Baughman, R.J. (2015) Guest post 11: J. Ross Baughman on Robert Capa (a) « Photocritic international. Available at: http://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2014/06/06/guest-post-11-j-ross-baughman-on-robert-capa/ (Accessed: 22 February 2016).

Jutte, P. (2015) Robert Capa-THE MOST FAMOUS PICTURES FROM OMAHA BEACH. Available at: http://www.strijdbewijs.nl/robert/capa1.htm (Accessed: 21 February 2016).

Kaufmann, L. (2015) Alternate history: Robert Capa on d-day (24) « Photocritic international. Available at: http://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2015/07/12/alternate-history-robert-capa-on-d-day-24/ (Accessed: 20 February 2016).

Krugh, K. (2015) Guest post 17: Charles Herrick on Capa’s d-day (a) « Photocritic international. Available at: http://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2015/06/06/guest-post-17-charles-herrick-on-capas-d-day/ (Accessed: 25 February 2016).

Marshall, P. (2015) Capa’s story « >Re: PHOTO. Available at: http://re-photo.co.uk/?p=5335 (Accessed: 26 February 2016).

Moore, D. (2012) Freeman hit twice after Normandy landingReminders that ‘war is hell’. Available at: http://www.thearabtribune.com/articles/2012/06/12/news/news3.txt (Accessed: 23 February 2016).

Sweeney, H. (2013a) Coast guard photographer captures d-day sights. Available at: http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/06/06/coast-guard-photographer-captures-d-day-sights.html(Accessed: 22 February 2016).

Swimming (2015) Available at: http://navyseals.com/nsw/navy-seal-history/ (Accessed: 25 February 2016).

Teoli, D., Page, S., Thornton, C., Steinberg, D. and Kearney, M. (2015) Alternate history: Robert Capa on d-day (23) « Photocritic international. Available at: http://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/2015/07/09/alternate-history-robert-capa-on-d-day-23/ (Accessed: 20 February 2016).

The magnificent Eleven: The d-day photographs of Robert Capa (no date) Available at: http://www.skylighters.org/photos/robertcapa.html (Accessed: 22 February 2016).

Tramz, M. (2014) How the Iconic d-day photos were almost lost forever. Available at: http://time.com/120751/robert-capa-dday-photos/ (Accessed: 22 February 2016).

(No Date) Available at: http://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Capa_D-Day_captions_Contax_Roll3.jpg (Accessed: 22 February 2016).

Rutger Huer as Roy Batty (Bukatman ,1997, p.79)

Characterisation and post release editing.

Philip K. Dick posited an artificial life form is his short story ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”. A screenplay was created and after a troubled production came to cinema as’ Blade Runner’ in 1982.

The terms blade runner and replicant where created for the screenplay. In a dystopian future blade runners eliminate replicants (synthetic humans) who have returned to Earth. The most frequently asked question about the film is whether Deckard the Blade Runner protagonist, hero character is a replicant himself.

According to Scott Bukatman, editor Terry Rawlings said ” Ridley …left it up to the viewers to decide”but he adds during production the question  many things were ‘possibly it’s this or ‘possibly it’s that’ (Bukatman, 1997, pp. 72–73). Keeping the film as evocative than explicit.

Lorentzen comments in Visual Culture  describing ” Roy Batty, the Aryan leather-clad schizoid cyborg”, “…straight out of liberal Anglo Western fantasy, angel perfect and yet monstrously homicidal in dark stalinist fascistic-liberal democratic hues as he contemplates a humanity which makes him exterminate ruthlessly with a self destructing desolate compassion-a love that can kill”(Jenks, C., p.167).

Roy is the leader of the group who have returned to Earth seeking their birthdates (incept date) so they can establish how long they have to live. He is the antagonist but ultimately saves Deckard.

The initial release  had a Deckard voiced ‘Chandler like ‘ narration. Detached, private investigator-like  and in control.The film was not initially a success critically or at the box office and a number of cuts including Director Ridley Scott’s one have been released. These  editions  removed this and altered Decker’s character making him seem more on the edge, less in control (Bukatman ,1997) The major change was deepening the likelihood of Deckard being replicant by using scenes with origami unicorns and Decker’s dreams.

Another effect of changing the narration was to reduce the racial prejudice. In the book, an advertisement for androids promises to ‘duplicate the halcyon days of the pre-Civil War Southern states”. These’custom-tailored humanoid robots’could serve as’tireless fieldhands’, the ad suggests. Blade Runner preserves Dick’s analogy, as well as the’passing narrative’of escaped slaves that underlies the novel. Replicants are passing for human rather than for white, but at one time, of course, blacks were not’defined’as human by American slave-holding interests (Bukatman , 1997, p75).

References

Bukatman, S. (1997) ‘Blade runner’. London: British Film Institute.

Jenks, C. (1995) Visual culture. Edited by Chris Jenks. New York: Routledge.

Having watched it again, examined parts of it for my narrative research and read Misek’s Wrong Geometries (Misek, 2007). I have clearly missed lot.

He draws attention to many elements ranging from the camera’s immobility that he says ” invites the eye to explore their many vertices. Even in chase sequences, the dominant camera set-up remains that of the tripod shot, emphasising the complex urban topography that the characters must negotiate” .

 He of course comments on the high contrast lighting how they pick out existing lines (Fig 1)  but also how they create shadows (Fig 2.) and even that the light beams “hang the mid-air” Fig.3.

Fig 1. High contrast light

Fig 2. Existing lines walls and tramlines

Fig 3 Lights hanging in mid air

Missal notes that the world is created in three dimensions with x, y and z axes which are emphasised by their “Wellesian use of wide-angle lenses, which allow lines to maintain their sharpness from foreground to background .” It gives it a film noir look.

Ultra-wide angle view 

He draws attention to the film’s “cinematography approximates (sic) the organising principles of early Renaissance perspectival painting”.

Masik explains “In the quattrocento, perspective was the means by which spatial unity was reconciled with artifice. Its discovery allowed painting to become simultaneously more verisimilar and more complex”. Artists using this style included Da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli and Tommasi Masaccio’s “The Tribute Money’

Tommasi Masaccio’s “The Tribute Money’

He quotes  Leonardo (Arnheim, 1992, p. 295) [That the] “imagined cone of light within the painting is mirrored in front of the painting, as light rays converge on the retina of the spectator “

But he went  on to say about perspective and semiotic implications for the protagonist that the” Renaissance perspective is not quite sufficient to describe the effect of the film’s multiplicity of lines either on Holly or on the spectator. The perspectival look is usually thought to be one of visual mastery, involving the orientation of all the components of the image towards the spectator: when looking at a Renaissance painting, the spectator sees everything.

By contrast, Holly’s  vision is partial and aspects of his world-view – for example, that Harry is not a criminal – often need to be corrected by those who see the full picture. Holly has no perspective on what is happening. In addition, again unlike the spectator of a painting, he is looked at as much as looking: everywhere he goes, Viennese eyes follow him.”

Fascinatingly Mask also draws  attention to the multiple vanishing points outside of the frame  “The orthogonals converge off-screen, decentring the composition: they exert a centrifugal force on the eye, drawing it to visually inaccessible off-screen spaces”. These vanishing points are semiotic as they compete he’s says  “compete to draw our attention in divergent off-screen directions. Renaissance spatial unity is exploded, leaving a void in the centre of the frame. Like Holly, we too are not sure where to look”.

 Figs 4 & 5 Multiple vanishing points an confusing building lines at the discomfiture.

This is particularly evident he goes on in Schreyvogelgasse (Figs 4 & 5), “the street in which this shot was filmed[ Holly sees Harry for the first time], is built on a steep gradient. On one side, a row of houses resists the incline of the hill and clings to horizontality; on the other side, there is a sheer drop to another street with a different gradient. Krasker’s cinematography transforms this improbable place into a seemingly impossible space. Mise en scène and lighting combine to emphasise multiple orthogonals, directing the eye to multiple vanishing points simultaneously, as if the image were a collage of irreconcilable perspectival environments”.

Fig. 6 Internal example 

The effect of exterior wide shots he alerts us to “are so consistently Dutch angled that ultimately they turn the entire city into a vertiginous space. They not only reflect the point of view of a character who cannot see straight, but also form an integral element of the film’s architectonic structure. The entire film is predicated on the absence of a visible horizontal axis”.

Masik  goes on “Holly embodies linearity, he is the main thread running through the film, an almost continuous presence from scene to scene, himself following the trail of the elusive ‘third man’ in a causal, linear narrative. Holly’s progress through the city is that of an outsider, unsure of his step, placing one foot in front of the other. In his movements from location to location, he follows the cartographic lines of the city streets, and in his movements from shot to shot, he follows the ‘axis’ of classical continuity editing: the position of the camera ensures that we know which direction Holly has just come from and in which direction he is going. Harry, by contrast, embodies non-linearity. He is an insider, a central figure in Vienna’s underground network of black marketeers. He has a detailed knowledge of the city’s urban spaces, moving freely from one occupied zone to another through a network of intersecting sewers. He follows oblique paths that contradict the mapped urban geometry of the city streets, and surfaces in seemingly unconnected locations across the city: a bridge, a square, an amusement park”.

He then observes very acutely the famous chase scene but semiotic nuance to it which highlights the brilliance of the film’s  creators.

“In their final encounter, Harry once again appears as if out of nowhere, but this time his appearance is followed by a startling inversion. Realising he has been set up, Harry again makes a quick escape, but this time does not disappear. Rather, Holly disappears, and the camera stays with Harry. Suddenly, unexpectedly, Harry becomes the film’s protagonist, so that what previously held for Holly now holds for Harry. As he flees from the police, he remains present in every shot, no longer able to slip between the cuts of the film and create his own virtual trajectory through imagined city spaces. Thus Harry crosses over into, and becomes a prisoner of, the denoted city.

Harry’s first instinct is to do what he always does and go underground, crossing back over from the denoted city into the imagined city. But alas, now when he enters the sewers, the camera continues to follow him, and so the sewers also become denoted. Accordingly, the disorientation previously experienced by Holly when he chased Harry, a result of the mismatch between denoted place and the visual construct of cinematic space, is now experienced by Harry. In fact, the disorientation becomes even more acute for Harry than it was for Holly. Holly may not have been able to catch up with Harry when he chased after him, but at least there were recognisable landmarks by which he could later reorientate himself, returning with Major Calloway to the precise location at which he lost Harry. In the sewers, however, there are no landmarks and no street names. The spatial coherence of the city, previously distorted, is now shattered into pieces. Each piece is a shot. Each shot exists in isolation, its only connection with previous and subsequent shots being the fleeing figure of Harry himself.

The cutting begins to follow more graphic principles, with shots placed next to each other based on their compositional properties rather than narrative logic: left-leaning Dutch angled shots are placed next to right-leaning Dutch angled shots, perspectival long shots are placed next to medium close-ups, and so on. In fact, the shots of Harry running through the sewers could have been edited together in any number of different combinations and they would have made just as much or as little spatial sense”.

In a final observation he identifies that ” Harry dies, but the film continues for a few minutes more, with a scene at his funeral in which the narrative resolution of his death is transformed into a graphic resolution. The funeral ceremony finishes, and Holly waits at the side of the road as Anna approaches. After over a hundred minutes of wrong geometries, The Third Man concludes with a shot in which the horizon is horizontal, the composition is symmetrical and at last there is a vanishing point exactly where it should be – in the centre of the screen . But though the film at last achieves a stable Renaissance perspective, the human geometry is wrong.Holly and Anna, the film’s romantic leads, ought to follow classical Hollywood convention and walk together away from the camera, hand in hand towards the vanishing point of their shared future. Instead, Anna walks towards the camera Fig 7. She does so at such a steady pace that visually as well as narratively it is no surprise when she keeps walking right past Holly. As Anna exits screen right, Holly lights a cigarette.

Fig. 7 Finally a horizon and the perspective inside the frame. Relationship wise  the perspective is awry. She walks past him.

The film ends, but it is possible to imagine the shot extending for a few more moments. Holly finishes his cigarette, stubs it out, and then also walks towards the camera, exiting screen left as a visual counterbalance to Anna’s exit screen right. In cartographic terms, Anna and Holly walk along the same vector, taking the main road out of the cemetery. Perspectivally, however, they follow divergent paths away from the vanishing point, like two spokes radiating out from the centre of the Ferris wheel at Prater Park. The lines of their lives move not towards but away from each other”.

References

Arnheim, R. (1992) Art and visual perception: A psychology of the creative eye. 2nd edn. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, [1974].

Misek, R. (2007) Wrong Geometries in the Third man. Available at: http://rouge.com.au/rougerouge/third_man.html (Accessed: 15 May 2016).