Sunday, January 31, 2010
Style in Service of Substance
F. W. Murnau, the director of The Last Laugh, used a wide palette of virtuoso film techniques to express the feelings of his everyman doorman: pride, terror, drunkenness, and despair. Focus on a single scene or technique and describe how the technique expressed an emotion, a state of mind or otherwise served to make a point.
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One scene that depicts terror is the scene in which the doorman returns to his home after the woman discovers his demotion. The idea of superimposing images is used to show the fear and despair of the doorman. It was images of his neighbors faces superimposed together. They were all laughing at him. Also, it was what every single person that lived by him focused on. It was the biggest news out there. He lost everything he had that made him happy. By superimposing close ups, it shows how the other people are getting to the doorman. It shows how much he cares about his image and reputation. By following him as he walks, we see how people look at him from behind and laugh. He has lost all hope and his image is lost.
ReplyDeleteA scene that jumped out at me was where the doorman was leaving the Atlantic after getting demoted. As he began to walk away from the hotel, F.W. Murnau used special effects to make it look like the hotel was falling down on the dazed doorman, and he shut his eyes in fear. When the doorman opened his eyes, the hotel was standing in its normal state. This effect really helps the viewer empathize with the doorman, and helps emphasize the importance of his job at the hotel, and how his demotion has absolutely crushed him. Also, the facial expression of the doorman shows how terrified he is about losing his job, and how his future is now uncertain. This scene also shows how the doorman is overreacting in a sense, even going as far as imagining the building falling down. The building could be seen as a metaphor for his life, and even though he truly believes his life has no meaning anymore, if he only opened his eyes he would see that everything would be all right. Instead he feels the need to keep his eyes shut out of fear and tries to live the life he used to have, which leads to the loss of his friends and family.
ReplyDeleteThe scene that was the most out there for me was when the doorman went to the party late at night while the bride and groom were celebrating as newlyweds. There was a lavish display of food and drinks and as the scene and night went on, the doorman drank more and more which led to very dramatic effects. To show his drunkenness, F. W. Murnau used lighting and contrast to emphasize the late hours and how the doorman was feeling. He would focus primarily on him while making the background dark. Also, Murnau used superimposing and blurred the entire room at times. For instance, when the doorman stood up to try and walk, he would make the entire room seem shaky to show he was very drunk. These effects made a great scene to really emphasize the drunkenness of the doorman.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the funniest scenes in this comedy was the scene of the doorman drinking too much and becoming drunk. Like Sarah said the scene switches the lighting to emphasize that it is dark and the late hours. Also to show that the doorman was drunk the camera swayed with him when he would sway to not only illustrate that he was drunk but to also make it seem as if the audience was drunk so we could relate with the doorman. In addition to making the scene shaky he also made it blurred at times to show the audience what the doorman was seeing. The director did all of this to illustrate to us how the doorman was feeling and without these techniques we would really never have gotten the feeling how intoxicated the man was and I believe the scene would not have been nearly as funny. It also showed the audience how distraught the man was feeling and how he used alcohol and a lot of it to try to deal with his pain of losing his job and the techniques he used really help display it to us.
ReplyDeleteOne scene, the night the doorman has lost his job, shows him in another world where his problems did not exist. This scene is after he has had too much to drink and he is daydreaming about what his job should be like. It takes the scene from the beginning of the movie where he is struggling with the trunk and distorts it in some sense. First of all the camera angles make him appear bigger and stronger than in the first scene where the camera is looking down upon him, making him appear vulnerable. Also Murnau uses various techniques to make it more dreamlike. He carries the suitcase inside as if it were light as a feather. Inside the hotel it becomes almost like a circus act as the doorman throws the trunk up and twirls it. By using these techniques to emphasize the talents of the doorman, it shows how much the doorman really cares about his job. The fact that he is dreaming about his job in a utopian world where everything goes right, shows us that it means everything to him. It has become his life thinking about it day and night. It also makes us sympathize with him that he lost his job because in his dream he is so talented and deserving of his job.
ReplyDeleteMurnau did an extremely incredible job of using simple high angle, straight-on, and low angle shots in order to convey emotion in The Last Laugh. The main character typically held two postures: completely upright and very hunched over. When he was standing tall, the combination of his physical stautre with the camera placed near the ground created a powerful image of a powerful man. When the character became hunched it gave the viewer a sense (especially when the camera was above him) that they would tower over the character and that he would cower in fear at merely the sight of a child. I also quite enjoyed the straight-on shot where the room was spinning when he was drunk. That shot effectively got the point across that he was drunk, and I think the straight-on shot was supposed to in a sense get you to be on "even-ground", get the viewer to say I know how that feels...assuming they know how that feels.
ReplyDeleteF.W. Murnau really captured the doorman's despair through his camera angles (cinematography) in the scene where the doorman's jacket is removed and hung in the closet. In the beginning of the scene, as the jacket is being taken off of the doorman, a metallic button is shown falling off the jacket as if to represent his life falling apart. The jacket is gone and falls apart as does the doorman's once happy life. Then the camera moves between the doorman's stunned face to the jacket, and then to the floor with the metallic button lying there, and then cycles thorough the three again and again. This cycle shows that his "dreams and happiness" are falling to the ground. He had his happiness and now it is lost on a dusty floor. The straight on camera angle followed by a high angles pointing downwards to a close up shot of the jacket and floor, we are able to see the doorman's true emotions regarding the lost jacket and what it means to him.
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