Dear Dan,
Apologies for taking so long to reply.
It is an interesting question and was one that I asked myself as I walked out of the theatre... think a lot of it has to do with rhythm. Denis set the "mood" of her film quite early on. If you recall, there was a slow pan towards the beginning of the
film, when the camera panned from screen left to screen right, surveying a twilight scape of a huge block of apartments, where a lit window could be seen, this light then switches off and the camera pans slowly, finally, capturing the image of the street
scene adjacent to the building. What a shock it was to see this...we see the lights of the busy Parisian traffic in fast motion. The extraordinarily slow-pan metamorphises into one which allows us to gain a different perspective, we are entering into a
different "world". It is as if the camera which is to capture the rhythms of it's herione, Laure is already operating at a different speed, and thereby existing in a different rhythm from that of the lives of Friday night Parisians -- racing to head
home, or out for dinner.
Then, the waiting. I never thought that a traffic jam could be so absorbing to look at. Aesthetised to a point of senuousness. (Very different from eg Godard's Weekend or Fellini's 8 1/2) Here, we enter into a kind of "physical" space of Laure. She is
tired, her body is slow, there is time for observation, and imagination.
Without going through the entire film section by section. i feel that whatever tension there was which existed between Laure and Jean, were smoothed over, or rather, made "elastic" during their walk to the hotel. The way their love scenes are shot --
mainly with close-ups, very little soundtrack, there's definitely none of the gratuitous orchestral ensemble and slick silhouette-type framing (typical of some Hollywood films). There's no extra or non-diegetic lighting, so there's minimal light, which
gives the grainy texture of these sceenes. The rhythm of the editing is so smooth that you hardly notice it, it's edited in with their rhythms, slow, passionate, embracing, intimate. The movt of the camera is also in sync with the couple, there's no
static shots (as I recall). Also the treatment of the bodies tends to be unbiased, almost banal.
I guess these and the subsequent scenes, when she walks down the hallway -- when the viewer is left to guess whether she's been betrayed, maybe Jean has gone without goodbye -- but no, we hear the gurgling of water. And also the editing in the last 10
minutes or so of the film, I feel makes this a very intimate love story.
Sorry for the hasty last paragraph. But I'm gonna be late for something. Better run.
Looking forward to your reply
Janice
"Shaw, Dan" wrote:
> Dear Janice:
>
> I am interested in your description of a love scene from Denis' film as "non-voyeuristic". I think I know what you mean, but can you articulate what about the scene made it "non-voyeuristic" and intimate rather than titillating and exploitative?
>
> Dan
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Janice Tong
Cinema Studies
Department of Art History and Theory
University of Sydney
Sydney NSW 2006
Australia
Ph: 61 2 9351 7324
Fx: 61 2 9351 7323
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