ELUSIVE TERRORS
Horror Films and the Moving Frame
The moving frame enables two crucial tenets of the horror genre:
concealment of a presence (by using the “stalker shot”), and gradual
revelation (which allows narrative economy, and creates tension prior to the
moment of discovery). By making use of the subjective shot, the camera becomes
a monster hidden behind the bushes, quietly observing and following his
victims. It is an ethereal presence to which we can ascribe no definite
identity, but rather, only a nefarious intentionality. Moreover, by using the
mobile frame in an emulation of the monstrous POV (point of view), each
specific “stalker shot” selectively forwards only certain characteristics of the monster behind
the camera, often the most unnerving ones. When loose, on the other hand, the
camera becomes revelatory. It will draw attention to the slightest
manifestation of evil in order to imbue the viewer with a sense of impending
doom, or it will shock him with the sudden apparition of a dismembered corpse.
By drawing examples from Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977), Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead II (1987) and John
McTiernan’s Predator (1987) (1), I shall uncover the workings of the mobile frame,
with regards to both the “stalker shot” and the revelatory camera movement and thus appraise the moving frame’s ability to mask the visible and unmask the invisible.
If truly, the horror genre is a “cinema of affect”, like it is proposed by Anna Powell, drawing from the
Bergsonian/Deleuzian model, then narrative economy is crucial in exalting the experiential/visceral, rather than
intellectual (expository) quality of the filmic text. The opening sequence of Suspiria, where Suzy Banion (Jessica Harper) exits the airport, introduces
Argento’s concise style of storytelling
(through his use of the mobile frame), and thus, his preference for affect over
narration. The very first shot is a rightward tracking shot starting from the
board of arrivals (which informs us of the present time and of the protagonist’s origin) and going down and to the right to include the gate through
which Suzy emerges. The gate is flanked by two windows with a poster glued on
each one. The first depicts “The Black Forest”, setting of the film and obvious geographical landmark of Germany. The
second, although cropped by the rightmost side of the frame, shows a bucolic
landscape with a house by the mountainside and bears the caption “Allgäu…”. In a single shot, with the combined information gathered from the
board of arrivals and the posters flanking the gate, Argento situates the
action in nighttime Germany and introduces
the American protagonist of the film. From a purely narrative standpoint, there
was then no need to show Suzy’s progression through the airport hallway. After all, narrative exposition
would only resume once she hailed a cab outside the building and progressed
toward the dance academy. The remainder of the sequence thus merely showcases
Suzy’s “embodied thought process”(2), allowing the director to evade “representational” tactics (disseminating facts through representational devices such as
the board of arrivals and posters) and indulge in “affective” practices. By
using the mobile frame in the remainder of the sequence, Argento insures that “the movement-image in process replaces language-like symbolic
representations at the crux of the filmic event. Beauty is located not in
formal balance, but in the kinesthetics of perpetual motion”(3). The alternation of the following five tracking shots,
although bearing obvious Eisensteinian implications, rather elaborates a
dialectical relationship between the action of looking and the subjective look,
which is crucial in creating affect. The following five shots are as follows:
1. Frontal back-tracking shot of Suzy moving forward in the hallway with a
group of people in the background;
2. Frontal tracking shot from Suzy’s point of view as she advances toward the doors to the exterior (it is stormy outside, past the doors in the background)- the theme song is heard;
2. Frontal tracking shot from Suzy’s point of view as she advances toward the doors to the exterior (it is stormy outside, past the doors in the background)- the theme song is heard;
3. Frontal back-tracking shot of Suzy, scrutinizing the distance while walking
forward (she has spotted something we haven’t)- the theme song starts scant moments before the cut, as Suzy gazes
forward;
4. Frontal tracking shot from Suzy’s POV, she closes in on the door to the outside- the theme song is heard
throughout;
5. Frontal back-tracking shot on Suzy advancing toward the doors.
5. Frontal back-tracking shot on Suzy advancing toward the doors.
The next five shots, although they are mostly static, are crucial to our overall understanding of the scene. They are as follows:
6. Long shot from
behind Suzy as she closes in on the doors;
7. Close-up of the opening mechanism of the door as they slide open horizontally, much like the two sole teeth of a beast – the theme song starts and lasts until the end of the scene;
8. (as 6), LS from behind Suzy as she exits the airport;
7. Close-up of the opening mechanism of the door as they slide open horizontally, much like the two sole teeth of a beast – the theme song starts and lasts until the end of the scene;
8. (as 6), LS from behind Suzy as she exits the airport;
9. (as 7) CU of the opening mechanism closing;
10. Lateral tracking on Suzy from the door to the street, under the rainy skies of Germany.
10. Lateral tracking on Suzy from the door to the street, under the rainy skies of Germany.
Now, the
Deleuzian concept of the “perception-image” is similar to Mitry’s idea concerning the necessary objective association fueling the
subjective framing(4): “ The perception-image has two poles, subjective and objective
perception. Subjective perception is the point-of-view of a character within
the diegesis [and] objective camera consciousness by which the camera appears
to gain independence from the human viewpoint and moves by an agenda of its own”(5). In other words, we could say that this sequence consists
of either the strict application of Mitryan principles or the formation of the “perception-image” created by the alternation of the subjective (shots 3 and 5) and
objective (shots 2, 4, 6) poles of perception. By using the Deleuzian model,
however, with the importance it puts on both aural and visual elements in
creating affect, one discovers the importance of the soundtrack in affecting
perception. As Powell puts it: “Sound techniques with an exaggerated, hyper-real echo are deployed as
affective devices. […] Voices and music
are ultra-clear, with a hollow tonal quality, and stand out in isolation from
the broader sound mix. The electronic chords and discords of the rock band
Goblin create a rich sound texture. Whirrings, whisperings and tweeterings
without any diegetic source grate on the spectator’s aural nerves and stimulate anxiety”(6). Here, the presence of music only in the subjective shots
or once Suzy has crossed the door to the outside (she has been metaphorically
swallowed by the exterior through the chewing-like motion of the door in shots
8 through 10, creates a discrepancy between the “safe” world Suzy
previously inhabited and the “dark” world of the film.
Now, the concept of the fringe world lying past the edge of civilization is
crucial to the horror genre and, herein, the soundtrack represents the alien
(evil) nature of this world. The metric juxtaposition of both worlds also prompts a Deleuzian interpretation of
the sequence. As Powell puts if: “aesthetic techniques of repetition [as with music] are hypnotic and open
us to suggestion. They lull resistance and ‘bring us into a state of perfect responsiveness, in which we realize the
idea that is suggested to us and sympathize with the feeling that is expressed”(7). Here, it is the alternating appearance of the “safe” world (full of
people, closer to home, luminous, silent) and the “evil” world (devoid of
people, rainy, dark, full of unnerving sounds) that creates the “feeling” of alienation and
fright associated with the “idea” of leaving the
safe world. The glass door before Suzy thus serves as a valve between normal
life and the underlying chaos thereof, as discussed by Maitland McDonagh(8).
However, unlike the dual glass doors of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage that allow the film protagonist to merely gaze into the monstrous abyss
of murder, this one opens the path as well. There is even a later tracking shot
that conveys the idea of a split between normal life and the primordial chaos
repelled by civilization. It happens not long after this opening sequence, when
Suzy rides a cab from the city (civilization) to the dance academy (the dark
world). It is a leftward tracking shot taken from a moving vehicle entering a
tunnel. The resulting shot shows some buildings at street level gradually
disappearing as the cab descends into the bowels of the earth. The shot ends on
the dim-lit cement of the tunnel’s wall. Literally a descent to hell, this shot allows the shift from the
formal metaphor of the monstrous outside to that of the dark underbelly.
Beneath the respectable surface of the city, the film suggests, there lies a
dark underground.
Although it can be understood as an actualization of Suzy’s venture beyond the safe frontiers of the everyday, this opening
sequence could also be said to depict an exchange of glances between Suzy
and an invisible entity (Helena Markos).
As Nietzsche once said: “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a
monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into
thee”(9). In this particular case,
the abyss could be said to, indeed, gaze back. Starting from the premise that
one acknowledges the fact that Suzy has spotted something (shots 4 and 6) that
we haven’t (sharing her POV in shots 3 and 5),
one can propose that the frame contains an element invisible to us, but visible
to the protagonist. Using the theory of affect, Powell acknowledges Suzy’s clear-sightedness: “the witches emanate an aura of supernatural evil, which only the pianist’s dog and Suzy are able to see. Suzy has very wide staring eyes that
allow, or compel, her to witness and observe much more than she is meant to.”(10) Whether he calls it the latent content of the image or the
“image-secret”, there is a quality to such framings, according to Thoret, that is both
visible and invisible. “This image isn’t totally invisible, since something, perceptible by the viewer’s eye, is happening within it, nor totally visible because this thing
possesses no form, nor contour or body”(11). Using the discrepancy between the action of looking
enacted by the protagonist (Jessica Harper gazes off-frame) and the actual
content of this protagonist’s viewpoint (the subjective shot itself), Argento successfully
implements Thoret’s theory. That is,
we know, as a viewer that there is a distinctive element in this latter frame,
but cannot pinpoint what it is. Argento has found, according to Thoret, “how to postpone [the horrific element’s] apparition while fully taking profit of its effect”(12). Here, the
matter is successfully handled using the atmospheric score and alternation of
subjective tracking shots suggesting two moving presences, which, combined, vie to hide the bodily incarnation
of evil, but hint at its presence in the form of the witch’s ethereal influence.
What Thoret’s theory entails is
thus the postponement of what Mitry
calls “the objective association” of the subjective shot, wherein the viewer can ascribe shot
subjectivity through its association with a protagonist framed objectively(4).
Indeed, what the rest of the film will demonstrate is that Helena Markos is invisble and omniscient. Had she
been in the frame, we couldn’t have noticed her: this is what the climactic revelation of Markos to
Suzy proves. Delimited onscreen only by a silhouette of light, her body is
invisible without the aid of the convenient lightning bolts typical of the
genre. Her all-seeing eyes, depicted during the murder of Pat Hingle (see
below), can also selectively appear and vanish from sight. The postponement of
objective association through the use of the “image-secret” is in fact crucial
to the overall effectiveness of the “stalker shot”. The use of the
subjective mobile frame in those “stalker shots” is ideal to
sustain the suspenseful mood required by the genre because it only grants
partial information about the nature of the onlooker, thus hinting only at its
nastiest features. In effect, suspense is thus not drawn only through the
depiction of a presence, but through the specifically supernatural qualities of
the hidden beast. In turn, the suggested abilities of the monster will warp our
perception of it (usually an actor with makeup) once it has appeared onscreen.
In Suspiria, soon after Suzy’s arrival to the dance academy, we meet Pat Hingle, running away scared
and taking refuge in an apartment building. The uneasy feeling that she has
been followed fills the screen. Soon after, the window to her bedroom (situated
in the upper floors of the building) swings open. As the tenant comes and
closes the window, we are treated to what appears to be a subjective shot from
outside taken from the viewpoint of an entity that the tenant has failed to
notice (despite her extreme proximity to it). Indeed, as she turns her back to
the camera after closing the window, there is a slight track backward (the
monstrous recoil) as if an invisible flying entity had landed on the rooftop by
the window and was observing them, toying with the window so that Pat will be
drawn to it. The subsequent zoom-in on Pat at the window from the adjacent
rooftop further conveys the idea of a perched enemy, quietly awaiting the
moment to strike at her. The specificity of the framing suggests the presence
of the legendary witch, which possesses both the flying capacities necessary to
reach the rooftop and the power of clairvoyance. Indeed, the actual revelation
of the witch and of her murderous avatar, is done succinctly soon after. As Pat
points a lamp at the window, a pair of feline eyes flashes onscreen (those of
the witch), followed by an hairy arm (either hers or that of a
remotely-controlled henchman), which breaks the leftmost glass of the window,
grabs Pat by the hair and pushes her head against the rightmost glass,
eventually breaking it. Using a framing similar to that of the “monstrous recoil” shot, Argento conveys the witch’s viewpoint as she crushes Pat’s face against the glass. The presence of the hairy arm, extruding from
an unseen entity in this shot suggests that it is actually tied to the
onlooker, making this a subjective shot by association, a technique obviously reminiscent of Lady in the Lake (1947) wherein the disembodied arm of Marlowe extruding onscreen confirms
his offscreen presence. By thus confirming the spatial position of Markos and
revealing her metamorphic nature (her eyes appear, then disappear), we can
retroactively ascribe her the rooftop subjective shots, as well as the airport
subjective shots. In fact, since the objective presentation of her total,
invisible body is relegated to the climax, we can propose that she is the
source of all un-ascribable subjective tracking shots in the film: the airport
back-tracking shots, the tracking shot forward from a balcony overlooking the
pool where Suzy and Sara are bathing, the aerial tracking shot from above the
plaza where Daniel is murdered…
This fragmentation of her viewpoint is consistent with the helpful
Foucauldian lecture of the film proposed by Thoret. By drawing from the concept
of panopticism, he likewise describes Argento’s cinema: “one enters an
Argento film like one enters the gaze of someone. This permanent sensation of
being scrutinized, of feeling upon oneself a menacing gaze, is one of the
distinctive features of his cinema: being framed is being scrutinized. But, as
we know, there is no possible dialogue with a voyeur. His gaze is irreversible.
And trying to gaze through the surface to see what lies beneath is to expose
oneself to the worst […] The absence of exteriority, the suspicion of a general complicity
between the elements, situations and individuals, transforms each shot in a
prison-space cut from the world by a one-way mirror: opacity on one side,
transparency on the other. […] The dance academy [from Suspiria] evokes the Panopticon described by
Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish”(13). Now, the idea of the one-way mirror is crucial to our
understanding of this opening sequence from Suspiria, wherein one looks at Suzy (Helena Markos, the spectator) without being
seen (this presence is invisible in the frame). The major effect of the
Panopticon, Jeremy Bentham’s architectural model wherein an inmate in his individual cell is open
to the look of a guard in a central observation tower, is likewise described by
Foucault: “to induce in the
inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic
functioning of power”(14), i.e.
the functioning of the disciplinary apparatus that regiments rebellious bodies.
Suzy, as suggested by Powell, can feel the weight of the witches’ gaze at any moment, secretly knowing that the backlash to her defiance
of power (her looking back at the monster) is impending. Indeed, “exceptions to her omniscience occur when she is given drugged wine and
when she is temporarily dazzled by a shard of mirror in a maid’s hand. Magnified light is harnessed by evil forces to blind Suzy’s clear-sighted investigations”(15). In fact, the mirror shard incident likewise described by
Powell occurs during a dialectic of subjective tracking shots similar to that
in the opening sequence, and wherein it is Albert and the East-European maid
who “borrow” Markos’ panoptic look.
The
waltz-like exchange of gazes between Suzy and Miss Tanner in the following
scene (where the moving frame conveys subjectivity, as well as the excruciating
dance moves she is forced to execute while “dazzled”) is another
example of how the panoptic look is “shared” by the members of
the convent. Indeed, the universality of the Panopticon is as follows: “It does not matter who exercises power. Any individual, taken almost at
random, can operate the machine: in the absence of the director [Markos], his
family, his friends [Miss Tanner], his visitors, even his servants [the
East-European maid]. Similarly, it does not matter what motive animates him:
the curiosity of the indiscreet [the spectator], the malice of a child
[Albert], the thirst for knowledge of a philosopher who wishes to visit the
museum of human nature, or the perversity of those who take pleasure in spying
and punishing [Markos again]. The more numerous those anonymous and temporary
observers are, the greater the risk for the inmate of being surprised and the
greater his anxious awareness of being observed. The Panopticon is a marvelous
machine which, whatever use one may wish to put it to, produces homogeneous
effects of power”(16).
Using this theory in the context of a concerted scheme elaborated by the
witches, Thoret depicts the convent as a minutely organized hierarchal
structure with far-reaching disciplinary devices. Sharon Russell’s contention that the witch’s power in film is generally lessened in favor of that of a male deity(17) is thus challenged: the matriarchal organization of the convent (there are two
males therein: the frail child Albert and the dumb manservant Pavlo, whom Miss
Tanner ridicules in an early scene) using the panoptic model, reinstates
tremendous power within femininity. The convent, as a societal model, is a
remnant of the matriarchal religions predating the Middle Ages, and which “masculine” Christianity had
vowed to destroy. Its radical effectiveness offers a refreshing twist on the
generalized patriarchal model of witchcraft.
The panoptic look is in fact, almost synonymous to the “stalker shot”, wherein the act
of looking is done under the veil of secrecy. In Predator as in Suspiria, the monster is
initially invisible to the naked eye. Only later, as his cloaking device
experiences failings, will he be objectively presented. Early in the film, the
military squadron led by Dutch (governor Schwarzenegger) comes across a group
of U.S. soldiers, skinned and hung from a tree. They immediately ascribe this
dirty deed to the ragtag band of Communists, which they’ve come to annihilate. Blain (governor Ventura) thus cocks his mini-gun
and claims: “Payback time!” He is ready to make Communist mince meat, despite the fact that the
skinning job is the work of the titular extraterrestrial hunter, to whom we’re introduced in the shots following that of Blain and his mini-gun. The
objective/subjective poles of Mitryan representation are combined in a
shot/counter-shot alternation soon after. There is a combined panning/zooming
shot from a fern at ground level toward the treetops. The following shot is a
subjective “thermal visor” shot from the predator perched in the trees. There are numerous other
sequences wherein an “empty” frame complements
the subjective “stalker” shots taken from the predator’s viewpoint. While walking in the jungle toward the Communist camp,
Dutch seemingly notices a presence in the trees:
1. Subjective shot of Dutch
from the predator’s viewpoint atop
the trees;
2. Medium shot of Dutch stopping, turning around and looking
offscreen left;
3. Subjective shot of the treetops from Dutch’s viewpoint (we see nothing);
4. Subjective shot of Dutch from the
predator’s viewpoint (he is there!);
5. Medium
shot of Dutch turning around, then pursuing his progression across the jungle.
Dutch has failed to notice the presence of the monster because the content of
shot 3 is deceitful. The cut between shots 3 and 4 is much like the one-way
mirror of police investigation or the Panopticon, allowing only one gaze to see
through. Later, Dutch and Billy scrutinize the jungle:
1. Subjective zoom-in on
the depths of the jungle (emulating the protagonists’ close scrutiny of the area);
2. Subjective “thermal visor” shot of the
predator looking at them from beside the treetops;
3-11. 9 shots of unrelated action
(Anna engineers her escape),
12. Closer (medium shot) subjective “thermal visor” shot of the
protagonists;
13. Closer (close-up) subjective “thermal visor” shot of the
protagonists;
14. Lateral close-up of the protagonists avowing “seeing nothing”.
This provides yet another example of the “invisible objective presence” (shot 1) that nonetheless enables a subjective shot (shots 2, 12 and
13): although we see nothing in the trees, we understand that a creature is
hidden there only through retroactive association of the POV (when the monster
is finally revealed) and the specificity of
the subjective framing. There is a voyeur in the trees whom is able to move
among the foliage and possesses either restricted military gear or alien
technology enabling the appearance of heat signatures within the frame. In
other words, it is not a general, authorist point of view, but one specific to the onlooker. There are further indicators of monstrosity comprised
in later subjective shots: alien symbols appear in the left side of the frame
as if it was data being displayed; the beastly hand of the hunter appears
onscreen and grasps the discarded carcass of a scorpion, as if vowing revenge
on the humans who have killed his insect brethren.
In Evil Dead II, the “stalker shot” completely evades the need for objective association, with great
results. Once the dreaded words from the Necronomicon have been uttered, there
is an evil presence in the woods that is freed. This force is represented by an
objectively unattached subjective tracking shot rushing through the woods at
breakneck speed. In other words, the tension therein created is not tied to the
objective revelation of the beast, but with the unnerving specificity of the
subjective framing. The loud humming noise associated with these shots produces
similar affective effects as the soundtrack from Suspiria. Yet, it is the sheer speed (it closely matches that of Ash’s car as the latter tries to escape past nightfall) and strength (it
breaks windows, doors, splits tree trunks apart in pursuit of the protagonists)
of the hinted presence that induces fear and a feeling of helplessness in the
viewer. The fact that we never actually ascribe these subjective shots to a
definite entity helps sustain an illusion of great power that is never
compromised by the appearance of a man in makeup. Moreover, it allows “free association”. In the Evil Dead series, it is in
turn an evil possessive force (Ash becomes possessed by it early in Evil
Dead II) after being pushed by it for several
meters), a witch (in Army of Darkness (1993)) or a powerful demon (at the end of Evil Dead II). In fact, if one believes the tape at the beginning of Evil Dead II, these subjective shots simply represent “ a spiritual presence, a thing of evil that roams the forests and the
dark bowers of man’s domain”. The very indeterminacy of those shots, although it is also due to
budget limitations, stems mostly from the indeterminacy of the monster itself,
which in turn, stimulates the viewer’s imagination more than it tries to shock him.
Although concealment is crucial to the genre, revelation constitutes its
necessary counterpart. That said, the moving camera is a perfect device to
convey the feeling of a shocking revelation. “The Americans call ‘revelation pan’ the figure that consists in panning […] toward a revelatory object hidden offscreen, which is the goal of its
movement: in general, a horror, a corpse, a clue, a picture that reveals
everything”(18). This
device allows the spectatorial shock to build from the expectative mood created
by the carefully delayed moment of revelation. In Predator, the corpse of Hawkins (first onscreen victim of the predator) is
revealed through a lengthy (47 seconds) upward tracking shot alongside a tree
trunk. Initially, this shot focuses on a detail unseen by Dutch, looking for
the corpse in the background: there is liquid continually dripping on a branch
in the foreground. The camera starts tracking upward, pushing Dutch offscreen
and quickly shows a bloodied leaf dripping as drumbeats are heard on the
soundtrack. The camera pursues its progression upward, following the trail of
blood on the leaf, on the trunk, all the way to the bloody, naked corpse of
Hawkins, hung upside down near the top of the tree. This shot is articulated
around the importance of expectation, rather than shock, as well as the
dramatic implications of the predator’s modus operandi. Given the
narrative information disseminated prior to this killing (we have seen skinned
corpses likewise hung from trees, we have seen some of the bloody remnants of
Hawkins and witnessed his bloody slaying…), we would have expected to see a badly battered corpse. Thus, it is
those prior images that imprint our mind during the tracking motion and the
uneasy expectation of unbearable horror that sets in. The revelatory moment
does not create shock (as the corpse itself is not irremediably butchered);
rather, it confirms suspicions regarding the nature of the predator: he is the
killer of Jim Hopper (as Dillon had just suggested), whom we had seen hung to a
tree early in the film and whose murder was pinned on the Communists. Alas, the
ritualistic killer, slayer of Hopper, is still on the loose, and his total kill
count is rising. Moreover, the sheer height at which Hawkins is hung (and which
is emphasized by the slow tracking upward) demonstrates the predator’s acrobatic proficiency and strength (for having dragged the corpse up
there), and his ritualistic/fetishistic habit of gathering trophies of his foes
and making them unavailable for pickup. In Suspiria, the opening double murder sequence likewise uses the revelation pan to
postpone one’s awareness of both
the radical efficiency of the killer and the narrative implications of the
crime. The shock value of the moment of revelation, however, is therein
tremendous, as it reveals a crucial information unknown to the viewer. The
murder of Pat Hingle is shown in graphic details (close-up of her heart being
stabbed, close-up of her head smashed through glass…) as she is killed, then thrown through a glass ceiling lying between
the rooftop (where the murder is perpetrated) and the main hall of the building
(from where the screaming landlady witnesses the killing) and hung by a cable
fastened around her neck. Soon after, the camera tracks on the physical
aftermath of the murder: it tracks down from the bloodied legs and shredded
dress of Pat (hanging a few feet above ground) to a pool of blood composed of
the thick drops falling from her naked feet. Then (within the same shot), it
starts tracking rightward toward glass shards lying on the ground and the lifeless body of the landlady (revealing her arm first, the glass
shard wound therein, then various lethal wounds: a steel girder pierces her lap
and chest, a large glass shard is stuck deeply in her face). The death of the
landlady, likewise revealed, is both shocking (the surprise of her death is
only subservient to the suddenness and rawness of the imagery revealed by the
camera) and narratively crucial: the double murder is perfectly orchestrated by
the killer (who offs both women with a single action) so as to leave no
witness of the events, save for Suzy, who thus
becomes the last person to have seen Pat Hingle alive. Her importance in the
investigation becomes crucial from this point on, because the witches’ convent has a radical tendency of eliminating everyone who could eventually
come in its way.
What I call the “revelation zoom” is a further device used in horror when the proximity of the camera to
an horrendous element disables the slow process of revelation through tracking.
The zoom effectively becomes “a substitution of the tracking shot”(19) in order to reveal a shocking element swiftly, before the viewer has decoded the image onscreen. In Suspiria, this device is used to convey the shocking origin of the falling
maggots. While brushing her hair, Suzy feels maggots falling on her head, then
realizes that her comb is full of squirming white worms. She looks up as the
camera swiftly tracks upward. Instead of pursuing this camera movement and thus
revealing the content of the ceiling, Argento cuts to a quick zoom-in (2 seconds)
on some of the hundreds of maggots covering the wooden ceiling. Although this
cut is prompted mostly by the gravitational limitations of his enterprise (he
probably shot a floor full of maggots and passed it off, through the prior
tracking upward, as a ceiling), this nonetheless demonstrates the utility of
the zoom in creating instantaneous shock, where a tracking shot would have been
ineffective. In other words, it is not the expectative nervousness tied to the “revelation pan” that Argento aims to create, but the instantaneous spectatorial shock
before the sheer number of maggots covering the ceiling, instantly squirming in
glorious close-up. In Predator, McTiernan
likewise draws from the inadequacy of the tracking shot to justify the use of
the “revelation zoom”. When Billy initially discovers the skinned corpses of his American
compatriots, the zoom becomes the privileged medium to convey his own state of
shock because he (along with the camera) is uncomfortably close to the
horrendous element that is revealed (the corpses themselves). The shot wherein
the zoom is used has Billy framed in close-up from behind his shoulder as he
pushes vegetation aside with his left hand. In the upper left corner of the
frame, there is a red element, which will turn out to be the skinned head of a
soldier. The camera slowly zooms-in on this red element, which will thus appear
clearer to the viewer. Once the ideal framing is achieved, the disembodied hand
of Billy brushes leaves aside to reveal the top half of a bloody corpse hanging
upside down. By allowing the cameraman to focus on a specific element in the
frame, while at the same time conveying the close scrutiny exercised by Billy,
the zoom is herein ideal for the depiction of discovery in this particular
scene. Moreover, the zoom allows Billy to disappear from the frame despite his
close proximity to the camera: the camera effectively singles out the horrendous element as in
the “revelation pan”.
The moving frame, insofar as it emulates human perception, is crucial to
the horror genre. The effectiveness of the genre is indeed conventionally
measured by its ability to stimulate the perceptual apparatus of the viewer
(inducing fear and shock through purely visual and aural elements). The
expository quality of the moving frame, on the other hand, allows quicker
narrative exposition, which itself does not contribute to the stimulation of sense organs. The moving frame is thus
a device permitting the erosion of the narrative in favor of the visceral shock
provided by horrendous elements within the narrative. Truly, thus, horror
cinema becomes “affective” and not “representational”, transforming the intellectual experience of “film watching” into the visceral “film experience”, subsequently situating the spectator within the grasp of the monster,
and away from the psychoanalyst’s chair that the theater seat has become under the academic appraisal of
horror.
Notes
1. Predator,
although some neophytes will describe it as a science-fiction film, is in fact
an action/horror film (not unlike James Cameron’s Aliens
(1986)) drawing from both the traditions of the war film (unrestrained
machismo, gunfights, pursuits, nuclear explosions…) and the
slasher film (the “stalker shot”, the
monster, skinned corpses, folkloric tales surrounding the beast…).
The alien label applied to the monster has no mythological, nor sociological
implications in the narrative: it is purely a signifier
of monstrosity. Pathetically perhaps, the closer the Alien
or Predator series have gotten to the science-fiction
genre is with AVP: Alien Vs. Predator (2004),
wherein one actually learns about some of the cultural
practices of the aliens and witnesses intelligible exchanges between humans and
aliens (offering of the spear at the end).
2. Anna
POWELL, Deleuze and Horror Film (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2005), p. 2
3. Ibid,
p. 10. By “language-like
symbolic representations”, Powell refers to the psychoanalytical theories
embedded in academic discourse surrounding the horror genre, wherein the
monster is likened to a sexual, national or otherwise ideological “Other”.
Personally, I prefer to use the distinction between purely narrative elements (“representational
devices”)
and visceral elements (“affective devices”), such as
the use of the moving frame in an emulation of the protagonist’s
perceptual organs.
4. Jean
MITRY, “La
Caméra
Subjective”
See also: Christian METZ, “On Jean
Mitry’s
‘L’Esthétique
et Psychologie du Cinéma’”
5. Anna
POWELL, Deleuze and Horror Film (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2005), p. 117
6. Ibid,
p. 144
7. Ibid,
p. 112
8. Maitland
McDONAGH, “An
introduction to the dark dreams of Dario Argento” from Broken
Mirrors/Broken Minds- The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento
(New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1994), pp. 7-38
9. Friedrich
NIETZSCHE, Beyond Good and Evil
10. Anna
POWELL, Deleuze and Horror Film (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2005), p. 143
11. Jean-Baptiste
THORET, Dario Argento – Magicien de la Peur
(Paris: Cahiers du Cinéma, 2002), p. 58
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid,
p. 140
14. Michel
FOUCAULT, Discipline and Punish – The
Birth of the Prison, translated by Alan Sheridan (New
York: Vintage Books, 1995), p. 201
15. Anna
POWELL, Deleuze and Horror Film (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2005), p. 143
16. Michel
FOUCAULT, Discipline and Punish – The
Birth of the Prison, translated by Alan Sheridan (New
York: Vintage Books, 1995), p. 202
17. Sharon
RUSSELL, “The
Witch in Film: Myth and Reality” from Planks of Reason,
edited by Barry Grant and Christopher Sharrett (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2004),
pp. 63-71
18. Michel
CHION, “La
Maison où
il Pleut”
from Les Cahiers du Cinéma,
#358, p. 39
19. Stuart
KAMINSKY, “The
Use and Abuse of the Zoom Lens”
