Three Colours: Blue - Krzysztof Kieslowski - 1993

Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colours Trilogy was created to show his ideals or visions of what colours on the French flag are representing; Blue being freedom, White representing equality and Red representing fraternity.

Three Colours: Blue opens with a static shot of the camera placed behind a tyre of car being driven on the motorway. The lighting has ambient soft fill showing the audience that it is early dawn and probably at winter from the mist and the cold blue lighting that lays over everything. It then cuts to the daughter Anna looking through the rear window of the car then cuts to her point of view at the traffic and tunnel lights which are purposefully distorted and out of focus into streaks of colour from the camera.

It then cuts to a static shot from beneath the car again this time the camera focusing on thick fluid substance dripping from the brake cables of the car, there is an out of focus image of the daughter Anna in the background running back into the car after making a toilet stop. This imagery along with the cold blue lighting create the emotion of an overhanging emotion of melancholy from which cinematographer Slawomir Idziak gives hint that something tragic may happen to this family in the car, which is then revealed when it cuts to a static long shot of the car crashing into a tree.

 

After the crash it cuts to a first person shot of the protagonist Julie's (Juliette Binoche) point of view, which is a long take of an extreme close up of her breathing onto a white feather with the sides of the frame is distorted and out of focus. The colour of the white feather could be used to represent life and freedom as Julie has survived and awoken from the crash. The surrounding fill key light is no longer a cold blue but also a dim white glowing in the background. A doctor in the background then emerges on screen from the right out of focus and then places his hand close to her eyesight, only the close finger tips in focus. It cuts to an extreme close up of Julie’s eye as you can see the doctor in the eye’s reflection as he informs her of the death of her daughter and husband. The cinematography for this scene I believe successfully portrays to the audience Julie’s emotions of disorientation and confusion. Director of Photography Slawomir Idziak achieves this with the use of extreme close ups and out of focus edges around the frame.

When the Julie hears the tragic news of the death of her family it cuts to a close up of Julie’s face, in the background there is a blue almost green tint that could represent her sadness and frustration at the tragic news. The colours are also rippling around Julie that I believe could be placed to also represent her disorientation and anger.

From this I researched what Kieslowski and Idziak’s meaning and message they were portraying for the colour of blue for this picture and how it represented freedom.

“It is clear that Kieslowski has made blue to be about personal freedom rather than political notions of freedom. It is about Julie’s struggle to find freedom in the realm of emotions as she struggles to achieve a sense of stability and independence after the death of her husband and daughter…Throughout the film the colour blue is not used as a symbol of “freedom”, but to create moods of melancholy and coldness, and to draw attention to the resonant emotional associations conjured up by objects and places in Julie’s mind”. Andrews. (1998). Pg 25.

The shot of Anna’s view of streaks of colour and blurred out of focus shots of passing vehicles during the opening sequence give hint that Kieslowski’s use of extreme close up’s and blurred use of focus represent his protagonist’s mental state. I also understood the use or lack of dialogue Kieslowski has used, instead he captures raw  emotion portrayed by the actor, he creates a powerful effect to tell the narrative and the protagonist's emotions. Something Andrew's I found agree's on:-

"Kieslowski focuses so closely and precisely on julie within the frame that the audience is constantly aware, without her needing to verbalise her feelings, of her intensely private responses to the world around her". Andrews. (1998). pg  27.

Most definitely going to experiment and try to capture this same effect to see if I can make it successful for my film.

In her shattered emotional state Julie attempts for a suicidal overdose but cannot swallow the pills as her will to survive is so strong. When Julie watches her husband and daughter’s funeral service on a miniature television we the audience discover that her husband was a famous and well respected music composer.

It then cuts to Julie sleeping on a hospital ground floor balcony. Julie is awoken suddenly by unexplained music and a blue lighting which shines on her and dominates the screen. The camera also moves away on a track and then returns to a close up of Julie, who in a startled state follows the movement of the camera. As the music and the blue lighting fades out Julie is then visited by a journalist who enquires whether it is true that Julie was really the writer of her deceased husband’s music. The ‘supernatural’ visit of the music and the blue lighting over Julie suggests that she may well have written the music for her husband, and that she cannot control her creativeness just as much as her melancholy emotional state.

Julie being visited by brief musical fragments accompanied visually by the extreme blue lighting could be seen as the obstacles to her quest for personal freedom and how she cannot escape her emotions of sadness, grief and depression. During this scene as well the glass balcony screen is the colour blue, which could also symbolise Julie’s melancholy constantly shadowing over her.

Kieslowski’s Three Colours of Red, White and Blue has for many years been one of my favourite trilogies. I highly admire the way he uses extreme close ups to portray/capture emotion to tell the narrative rather than the use of dialogue. I also admire the use of dramatic flashes/attacks of colour to also portray emotion of the characters and the mood of the atmosphere. I hope to use these techniques in my film and use them successfully.


Bibliography
Andrew, G. (1998). The 'Three Colours' Trilogy. Great Britain. British Film Institute.

Rear Window - Alfred Hitchcock - 1954

Rear Window's opening credits is with a static shot of a window from the inside of a room and the blinds on the window are going up one by one.

The camera then tracks towards the window as though it is going to leave the room, however the camera pans down and stops tracking when it reaches the window sill. Rear Window's opening credits are with the static image of a window from inside an apartment. As the opening credits finish the camera tracks down towards the window but stops just before it leaves the apartment. It then cuts to a long take in long shot of a cat walking on the ground floor path below the apartment. Using a crane the camera then tracks upwards along with a pan upwards to reveal an urban city setting. The camera then continues to pan left to reveal the setting to the audience. It is as though cinematographer Robert Burks is creating the effect that it is a first person point of view shot from the eyes of the main protagonist. However it tricks the audience when the camera pans fully left back into the apartment to stop in a close up shot of the protagonist face sleeping next to the window.

It then cuts to a close up shot of a thermometer revealing really hot temperature showing to the audience that it is summer, backed up by the sweat on the main characters forehead. The camera then pans left followed by a pull focus to show a man shaving in the apartment outside on the right and then followed by another cut to reveal a couple waking up from having slept outside on the fire exit. The camera then begins to track down to reveal a young female getting ready for breakfast in her apartment, followed by another pan down to the left and a track backwards into the apartment of the protagonist. We know he is the protagonist as the shots of him are close up whereas all the other shots of the characters in their apartments have been long shots taken from inside the apartment. Here, it also tricks the audience again into believing the long takes are meant to be first person point of view from the protagonist (the use of the pans can reflect the characters eye movement). However when the camera tracks back into the apartment he is still resting on his sofa next to the window revealing to be a third person point of view. Here cinematographer Robert Burks is creating the effect of making the audience become voyeur, succeeded by the track allowing the audience to peer into the neighbours of the protagonist windows unaware and into their personal lives.

The camera pans down to reveal that the protagonist's leg is in a cast and here the audience discover the name of the protagonist as someone has written on the cast "here lie the broken bones of L.B. Jefferies". There is then a quick track back which eventually allows the audience to look into the flat of Jefferies followed by a fast pan left with the camera focuses on a broken photography camera then followed by a pull focus of photography from what seem to be taken from dangerous events. This reveals to the audience that Jefferies profession could be that he is a journalistic photographer and he has injured himself while out doing a job for his profession. All within the first three minutes of Rear Window with the use of cinematography alone the setting has been revealed to the audience, which is important as the film is always based in the same set. Also the protagonist, his profession and possible characteristics have as well been revealed.

It then cuts to show Jefferies actual point of view in first person when he is awake on the phone. Here there is no trick of the camera and is shown in a more obvious way, it cuts to show James Stewarts character Jefferies physically look at the other characters actions in their apartments and then cuts to a first person camera shot to show what he is looking at. The camera also allows the audience to know that it is a first person point of view shot as it is a static long shot from within the apartment with only the use of some pans and tilts.  There is use of high-key soft lighting making the overall lighting to be natural defending that it is a summers day, on Rear Window this was created with toplights as it was filmed in a built set in a studio. Inside of Jefferies apartment the soft fill coming from outside of the apartment shining on Jefferies allows shadowed corners of the room and the frame, this defends that it a bright day as it seems no lighting is coming from within the apartment.
What highly interested my with the cinematography in Rear Window was use of manipulation and false point of view's that tricked the audience into who's view point the camera was showing, or if it was from an 'actual being' within the narrative at all. I'm going to research and find more interesting examples in which this technique has been used, I might yet develop an idea to produce into my film.