Hi Haukur
For starters it should be Welles' cinematographer Gregg Toland who gets the credit for the beautiful depth of field in these films. There are some great on-line sites that discuss his work from both a technical and aesthetic point of view. Also, as you suggest with the quote marks, it is not really a discovery so much as a possibility brought about by faster film stock and better lightining which allowied for the increased detail. Others were also experimenting with it. In particular look at the films of Jean Renoir who also favoured long take and depth of field. As for what it achieves just watch Renoir's Regle du jeu/Rules of the Game and consider what it would be like if we couldn't focus on all the background goings on. However in the end the split between montagists and long take/deepth of field realists as identified by Bazin (it is discussed in 'what is Cinenam?) is less a hard and fast binary but two poles or styles of filmmaking. You don't need or want depth for the sort of kinetic pleasures offered by the Bourne films but sometimes you don't want to be hit over the head by edits and want to enjoy something more contemplative like the long takes in Tarkovsky.
Regards
Greg
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From: Film-Philosophy [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Haukur Már Helgason [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 24 January 2011 16:36
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [FILM-PHILOSOPHY] Depth of field – the very elementary question
OK, hi everyone, and thanks for keeping this great discussion board going.
I have a terribly elementary question to ask … and yet something
that's been haunting me for years. Orson Welles' reputation depends to
a large extent on his 'discovery' of depth-of-field and its
application. I've both seen the relevant films, of course, and read
about the importance of this element at the birth of modern cinema all
over – texts where it is explained, but more frequently where it's
simply presumed. And it just doesn't stick. What is so significant,
really, about depth-of-field or deep focus? Would any narrative, or
anything that cinema has revealed to us since that time, be
unthinkable without it? What would be the most remarkable examples of
its consequences?
Kindly yours,
Haukur Már Helgason.
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