It's not so much that Welles "discovered" deep focus (and huge credit goes to Gregg Toland, his cinematographer, for its use in CITIZEN KANE), as it is a case of Welles using it so effectively in a narrative film at a time when it was not a standard approach. Very basically (and forgive me if I get too basic), "depth of field" defines which parts of a photograph are in sharp focus and which are soft. For narrative filmmakers, this is used as a compositional and expositional tool - I can focus the viewers attention by manipulating the focus of the image (a woman is on the phone in the foreground, her would-be killer is hiding behind the curtains in the background; at the beginning of the shot, we have the woman in focus, the background a blur. then, to heighten suspense, I rack the focus to set the focal plain to the background curtains, and suddenly the killer's hands on the curtain are shockingly clear, while the woman has become a hazy, out of focus image). It is also often an aesthetic, even a poetic, element. There's a lot to it that is technical - optics, aperture, light, all play a part in the Depth of Field equation - but that covers the essentials.
Deep focus allows objects at a very wide range of distances from the apparatus to be more or less equally in focus, which in turn allows Welles to create more complex compositions that, in a sense, keep more terms or people on our minds at once, which is nicely integrated into KANE's thematic and dramatic development, which is what makes it work so well in that film.
Deep focus is the norm in some moving image forms (sports, lots of documentaries, etc.) but it remains pretty infrequently used in feature films until the digital video age.
hope this is helpful and please, anyone, correct me if you think I have erred.
Eddy Von Mueller
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From: Film-Philosophy [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Haukur Már Helgason [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2011 11:36 AM
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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