These are my two favorite holiday films. They may not seem to have much in common at first glance (or 2nd or 3rd for that matter) but alas, this is my blog so we’ll run with it. Both of these films were directed by the same man: Porky’s director, Bob Clark.
The first film, “Black Christmas” (1974) is one of my favorite horror films of the 70’s. It takes place at a sorority house over Christmas break in which a strange caller is terrorizing the sorority sisters. I really love the voyeuristic camera work in this film as we see through the killer’s eyes as he navigates around the house to his next victim. The twist ending is great and only undercut by the fact that we have by now seen countless reincarnations of the same surprise.
The next film, “A Christmas Story” (1983) or as I like to call it: “Black Christmas Zero: A Prequel” is an undeniable classic. We follow Ralphie Parker in the weeks leading up to a mid-west American Christmas. Try as he might, Ralphie can’t seem to convince anyone, be it his parents, his teacher or even Santa himself that a Red Rider BB gun is an appropriate gift. This film might actually be more terrifying that the latter. As a child, I watched this movie constantly. I recall many nights waking in a cold sweat, my mind flooded with visions of my tongue frozen to a light pole; the result of a triple-dog-dare. Children with this type of upbringing could only mature into one type of adult. Sorority house murder was in the cards from the beginning. Just look at that face........
These two films have something in common with each other. Both films have relatively simple, although maybe unusual premises which unfold for the audience in moments of extreme tension. More specifically, with these two films I feel that the tension never needs to be forced because it is so inherent to the premise of the plot.
The first film, “The Wages of Fear” (1953) from director Georges-Clouzot is a simple story about 4 men trapped in a small South American town unable to raise enough money to purchase the plane ticket out. They are soon presented with a job opportunity when one of the mines explodes. Four men, two trucks full of highly volatile explosives and 1 narrow, bumpy and winding road provide all the tension this film could ask for. It’s no secret why Clouzot was referred to as the “French Hitchcock”. This flick is full of good old fashion, white-knuckle, edge of your seat nerve.
Our next film from Indian filmmaker Santosh Sivan is “The Terrorist” (1998). This is quite frankly an amazing film about a guerilla fighter (played by the beautiful Ayesha Dharker) who is training for the very prestigious position of suicide bomber. We watch as she prepares for her last days, meticulously counting them down, all the while learning what value life can hold. I picked this movie up completely blind about ten years ago on VHS and have loved it ever since.
For some strange reason, certain contemporaries have and continue to debate the legitimacy of film as its own art form.Many have argued that a movie is nothing more than a filmed play and that entertainment, not art is the only true value of the industry that I love so dearly. Others constantly and snobbishly compare the literature that the film was based on or inspired from. “The book was better” and “The book is always better” are dismissive phrases I’ve heard many times. I doubt any of these people have ever read Peter Benchley’s “Jaws”. Unfortunately, in spite of the many strides the medium has made, there have always been films that I feel give very good clout to these arguments. But before I get into those examples, I think that I should make an attempt at explaining what I think legitimizes film as an art form and what separates it from other mediums.
So let’s see, what are some of the aspects of filmmaking that are specific to film? A screenplay is written but that’s not all that different than writing a book. Plays have a director that orchestrates everything that being shown and they similarly have sets, costumes and less we forget actors. So there you have it, all you really do to make a movie is point a camera at a play where actors a reading some sort of cliff-notes version of a book and presto! There’s your movie….. Or is there more?
The answer of course is yes there’s more to making a film. The first part of filmmaking that dignifies it is my personal favorite thing to talk about, cinematography. In short, it is the collaborative effort of the director and the cinematographer that establishes and maintains the look of the film. The cinematographer serves not only as a technical consultant for camera equipment and lighting, but as an integral artistic voice of the film. He often will be even more capable than the director to answer things like what type and how much lighting is needed to set a certain tone, how an audience will subconsciously react to certain color palettes and why flashbacks sequences are shot in sepia tone. I was a shutterbug in junior high and through high school and it’s that love of captured images that drew me into movies in the first place.
What Vittorio Storaro does in ten seconds of footage in a film like “The Conformist” is just as poetic as anything from Frost, Poe or Shakespeare even.
The combination of lighting and colors on screen in the Christopher Doyle shot film “In The Mood For Love” would have taken Monet’s breath away. And I would also go a step further to point out that Conrad Hall’s camera work in “American Beauty” was the only thing that made that film watchable.
Artistic camera work is nothing new to motion pictures. The great Dutch silent film “The Passion of Joan of Arc” proved this in 1928. Cinematography, the art and science of creating and capturing moving images is not only a craft that requires the workmanship of a Quaker but an art that requires the vision of a Renaissance painter.
So now we’ve looked at just about everything it takes to shoot a film. Unfortunately, all we’re left with after that a piles and piles (or in this age files and files) of uncut footage. This will segway nicely into my next point. The other aspect of filmmaking, specific to the industry and very potentially artistic is editing. Granted, editing a film together could be a process a simple as putting all the scenes together chronologically and throwing out the stuff that seems to negatively affect the tone and pacing the director was going for. But more often than not, the editor of a film is yet one more artist who is there to help the director add more of his or her own personal touches to the finished product. The editing of a film can drastically affect its pace. For instance Darren Aronofsky’s “Requiem for a Dream”, edited by Jay Rabinowitz contained more than 2000 cuts in 102 minutes (the average film contains only 600 – 700 cuts per 100 minutes).
This brought the film to a feverish pace. Aronofsky called his style “hip-hop montage.” Contrast that with the editing of a film like David Fincher’s “Zodiac” cut by Angus Wall. This film was cut together in order to establish and maintain a much slower pace and add tension.
Again, artistic post production is nothing new. The “Odessa steps sequence” of the 1925 Russian silent film “The Battleship Potemkin” is widely regarded as the first use of artistic editing in which the scene is chopped together to build tension.
Well then, 800 words later and I actually haven’t once yet mentioned the film in the title of this article. I guess now is as good a time as any to get to the point. “The Night of the Hunter” (1955) was directed by long time stage actor and director, Charles Laughton. In fact, “The Night of the Hunter” was the only film he ever directed. This film has many of things a great film should have. It’s a great story translated into a very good screenplay and acted out wonderfully by Robert Mitchum, Shelly Winters and Lillian Gish. Some would say its Mitchum’s best performance……. Those people are correct. But wait, a great story told very well with phenomenal acting does not make a great film. It makes a great play.
Notice how, in over two minutes, the camera moves all of once.
Go ahead; look up some more clips of this film. Count the movements per scene. There isn’t much to speak of.
Contrast that with this scene from “Touch of Evil” directed by Orson Welles just three years later. As I mentioned before, artistic camera work is nothing new.
Also notice how painfully obvious it is that Laughton’s film was shot almost entirely on a sound set. I’ll admit, shooting on location was much more challenging back then but directors like Bergman and Kurosawa had been doing it successfully for years.
See this clip from Ingmar Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal” (1957)
And this one from Akira Kurosawa’s “Stray Dog” (1949)
So I guess I’ll start to wrap this up. It took a bit more than I thought to explain why I dislike this very good film and many others like it. In summary, the reason for my indifference is simple: Although “The Night of the Hunter” is (I admit) a very good film, there is nothing inherently cinematic about it. The camera and post production are used merely as stage props.
