Notorious: Filmstudies by Mélody Cisinski
Another great example of film studies done by a professional storyboard artist. Mélody Cisinski, who works as a story artist at Pixar, boarded out the ending of Notorious. I actually saw this film myself not too long ago. I like Hitchcock a lot and had always been curious about this film, from the stills I'd seen of it it looked amazing. I finally found a German version on Bluray, that included the original dialogue as well. (Germans dub everything, whereas in the Netherlands we prefer to keep the original actors voices and use subtitles)
Funny thing is that I didn't like Notorious so much on first viewing. Not sure what I expected but maybe something a bit more like North by Northwest or Rear Window? But after seeing Mélody's analysis I really want to rewatch it.
Note: This is a repost of a tumblr post by Mélody Cisinski. The original text of her post has been slightly edited by me.
Funny thing is that I didn't like Notorious so much on first viewing. Not sure what I expected but maybe something a bit more like North by Northwest or Rear Window? But after seeing Mélody's analysis I really want to rewatch it.
Note: This is a repost of a tumblr post by Mélody Cisinski. The original text of her post has been slightly edited by me.
I just did this film sequence study from Notorious by Alfred Hitchcock, because I really love the ending. I have learned a lot doing this study!
Of course this is only my opinion, I hope I did not betray the point of view of this extraordinary director. I humbly apologize if I did. I don’t try to give any lesson but I want to share my discoveries about it, hoping they can be useful or inspiring for somebody!
I strongly recommend that you first watch the sequence (the entire movie if possible) before reading this! Here is the youtube link to the sequence of the movie:
(text continues below)
1/ Why there is a CUT or not. What is the effect of this CUT on the audience
Example : When Cary Grant (Delvin) tells his love to Alicia (Ingrid Bergman), there is first a close up with the two of them talking with intimacy, then Delvin says “because I love you” and following this, there is a brutal CUT to another close up. I wondered why such a brutal CUT to get to another similar shot? This second shot is only a close up of Delvin. Not Alicia. We focus on Delvin’s feelings. He has just admitted his feeling, him, the tough bachelor guy. that’s a surprise he admitted that, even for him, so I think that’s why there is a CUT.
Then the shot continues, the camera turns (and we do not CUT) around his head, in order to film Alicia’s face, who is enjoying the moment. Why no CUT? I believe because it feels more harmonious, more smooth, more floating. She is drugged, poisoned, weak, she is barely awake, she just feels on a light cloud right now so no CUT is needed. We are in the same feeling as her because of this smooth camera move, I believe.
So cutting a shot or moving a camera has a different effect on the audience.
2/ The art of jumping from one point of view to another point of view (POV)
First: Hitchcock never get us lost in this process. He makes sure we know who’s point of view is this point of view. It seems logical but I never thought about it explicitly before.
Typically we see (it’s just a schematic structure of course) : The character A watching somebody off screen. Then we see the POV of character A : the character B in a wide shot, more or less. Then we see a close up of character B, his reaction when he noticed character A. etc.
Second: There are no neutral shots unless it is an establishing shot. I know this but I have never felt it so much until studying this sequence. Almost all the shots are close up, very specifically so that we are always with the right character at the right moment of the story in order to make the audience feel the strongest feeling as possible from this story. When there is danger for Delvin, we are with him, when he reveals his love for Alicia, we are with him then we go with her to feel the same way as her, then we are also with Sebastian the nazi, to feel his stress about the situation. It is all about the characters.
3/ Filming the subtext is the most important.
When I studied this sequence, I noticed how Hitchcock followed the subtext of the script. He probably read the script and decided “at this moment of the dialog, this character A react like this so I will film him”. He filmed more the reactions of the character listening to the other character talking, than he filmed the character who is talking. This movie is about spying and lying so it is very complicated to show what is really going on. Everything happened silently so the facial reaction and eyes matter more than the dialog.
4/ How to use as much as possible a background for a sequence in order to push the storytelling.
The stairs in this movie is a visual symbol of the jail, an obstacle. But an obstacle could have been horizontal. Here we have a vertical background. so it is more stressful to go through.
Delvin must save Alicia who is prisoner behing these stairs, and now they must escape from them.
To be more specific : Delvin is whispering and negotiating with Sebastian, and he is carrying Alicia who is knock out , and he is threatening Sebastian with his gun hidden in his pocket, and in the same time Sebastian’s mother is pressuring them in the negotiation, they all 4 are walking down the stairs, and the 3 other nazis are starring at them from the first floor, trying to understand what’s going on. So a lot is going on in the same space, the same minute. So it is oppressing for the audience.
And setting up this stressing sequence in the stairs is pushing the storytelling to a higher level, because it gives us a sensation of vertigo, and falling and instability. Because there is only close up shots on them 4 , walking down. No perspective. There is no wild shot so the audience is with them, feeling they can not escape.
Imagine the same sequence with wide shots, with the negotiation at the second floor, people standing, there would be much less suspense and this sensation of emergency I think.
