The Indie's Turn The return of The Indie’s Turn takes us back more than fifty years, as we look at one of America’s first independently owned and operated labels, Chicago’s Chess Records, home of Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Howlin’ Wolf, and more!

Getting To Know... Although best known for films like M*A*S*H* and Nashville, Robert Altman has made a whole lot more, and continues to do so into his eighties.  This month, Lisa Hood-Anklewicz is our guide as we walk through the catalogue of Robert Altman.

Hello In There Zayne Reeves takes a closer look at some of the great films lurking below the pop culture radar.  This month, Simon of the Desert and The Ninth Configuration.

Couch Festival Too lazy to go to a real film festival? Try one of our couch festivals. This month: "The Kids Aren’t Alright"

I Wanna See The Nashville Lights Zayne Reeves' comic starring some familiar faces in country music.

Shot-By-Shot This month, Nathan Williams walks us through a pivotal scene in John Ford’s My Darling Clementine in a brand new column!

10 x 5 Our contributors pick five things they're digging this month.

Shot-by-Shot: My Darling Clementine
By Nathan Williams

Film critics in the popular press, even the very best of them, deal almost exclusively in generalities when it comes to the visual language of their subjects. They will passionately examine the specifics of writing, acting, editing, even the special effects, but they will rarely—unless they have some specific criticism—discuss the visual language except in vagaries: “Gorgeous, Baroque, Graceful, Gritty, Clinical, Flat, etc.”

For the most part, they do so with good reason. Most viewers don’t think about visual language any more than they think about chord progressions in a piece of music. If the musical press must speak of the vague “elevated grandeur” of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony, so then must Pauline Kael generalize the visuals of Fellini Satyricon as “tired.” The audience ought to emotionally experience a work of art, not tear it apart with the eye or ear of a technician.

Nevertheless, no filmmaker (except Welles) would tell you he or she enjoys cinema less for having an understanding of its construction. Just as an introductory course in music theory (not music appreciation) can deepen one’s enjoyment, so can a casual examination of visual language and scene construction in movies.

So, each month, what say we take a good hard look at a great sequence in a film and see what we can learn? What? This sounds drier than the Bob Newhart’s sense of humor? You don’t know if you haven’t tried…

On the examining table this month: a powerful sequence from John Ford’s masterpiece, My Darling Clementine.  Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) has moved into Tombstone only to find conflict with the town gambler, Doc Holliday (Victor Mature), and his badly accented Mexican floozy, Chihuahua (Linda Darnell). Also complicating matters, Doc’s old girlfriend, Clementine Carter (Cathy Downs), has rode into town, reminding everyone Doc used to be a respected Boston surgeon before he became a tubercular drunk. Doc doesn’t like the attention and generally pouts like a 15-year-old (albeit with a suicidal drinking habit). The bad guys—not really important who—frame Doc for murder using innocent lil’ Chihuahua as a pawn. When Chihuahua realizes her mistake and reveals their plot, she is shot in the stomach by one of the low-down, dirty cow thieves. Wyatt’s brother rides off to chase the bad man as Doc and Wyatt stay to help Chihuahua.

This sounds corny on paper and isn’t entirely un-corny on the screen. But Ford’s simplicity is deceptive, and he achieves greater emotional power than any of the intellectually complex, psychological films of the era. Ford understands that cinema is not literature and it certainly isn’t theatre. And his greatest strengths were his composition and his editing on set (shooting only exactly what he needed, rendering the studio unable to make significant changes in the editing room). The following scene is a marvelous example.

 

SHOT 1A

The sequence is initiated by Wyatt taking charge amidst confusion following the shooting. People burst in the door from the downstairs saloon to help. Doc sits very low in the frame, almost directly below Wyatt, emphasizing the great distance in relative strength between them. Indeed, the composition directs our attention to Wyatt, who is comfortably in command. Brightly lit—sourced from the two lamps in the foreground—Wyatt keeps order, gives direction, and provides the audience with a sense of comfort. He turns to his brother, “Morg, go over to the mansion house and get Miss Carter [who was once Doc’s nurse].” He turns to the men with lamps, “Mack, you and Buck go down and clean up the saloon.”

The men with lamps leave and shadows penetrate the frame.

 

SHOT 1B

The camera tracks forward as Doc rises to his feet, facing the expected challenge. Doc is effectively silhouetted, but he dominates the frame. Wyatt, sensing Doc is ready for the challenge, passes authority over to his sometime-rival. “Doc, you’re going to operate.”

 

SHOT 2

A dissolve into the next shot initiates the operating scene, as well as introducing the association of Doc with light source (note the placement of his head in 1B matching the foreground lamp in this shot). Wyatt stands larger in the frame, but Doc is centered, and the diagonal lines created by the placement of the characters lead the eye towards him. He is the central figure in this shot. Wyatt washes Doc’s hands with whiskey, the drink that Doc daily uses to destroy his own body. Irony aside, Wyatt is initiating Doc to take command and again become a real member of society. Clementine, foreground left, is the only figure not side-lit, but this is a studio requirement regarding glamour lighting on female stars rather than any deliberate attempt by Ford and his cinematographer to bestow additional emphasis on her. The fourth man has the weakest place in the frame and is obscured by Doc’s shadow, rendering him entirely unworthy of our attention.

While a low-angle shot can often signify strength, the conspicuous presence of the ceiling seems to press down on our characters rather than empower them.

SHOT 3

One lamp becomes three in the top of the frame. Wyatt’s brother, Morg, a faceless shadow-figure, stands foreground right and yells for Doc to enter the makeshift operating room. Our attention, however, is focused on the lit operating table in the center of the frame. Characters block our view of the patient while supporting players mill about nervously in the deep background, building tension and emphasizing that Doc is now on stage for the whole town to see.

 

SHOT 4A

On the other side of the room, Wyatt enters first, only a silhouette. He quickly steps aside into the corner, allowing doctor and nurse to pass and staying in the background for the remainder of the scene. He has passed authority to Doc and remains only a nervous observer.

 

SHOT 4B

Interestingly, Clementine enters first, strikingly lit fully as Wyatt remains in the shadows and Doc enters through the door still silhouetted. Her entry first might seem to signal her primacy in the scene but…

 

SHOT 4C

…she quickly turns towards the background becoming a smaller in the frame as she exits left, while Doc…

 

SHOT 4D

…emerges from the shadows barking orders for illumination (“Mack, light!”) and moving towards the camera, dominating the frame in a way that no character has yet done so in this shot.

 

SHOT 4E

Indeed, we pan with him as he walks over to the operating table and looms over it, head next to the lamps. And if he wasn’t enough associated enough with a source of light, Mack walks over to place another lamp near him. Note also Wyatt quietly slipping into the background next to Clementine and the careful placement of extras in the deep background. Just before we cut, an older woman says to Doc, “She’s been right brave.”

 

SHOT 5

From a high-angle camera position, emphasizing (to risk sounding obvious) her helplessness, Chihuahua gazes up at Doc, a mixture of fear and regret on her face.

 

SHOT 6

From a low-angle, Doc tries to look reassuring. Note the unbalanced placement of both him and the lamp on the right side of the frame, continually associating Doc with light source. No words are spoken in this shot or the previous. The low-angle here is different than the hand-washing shot in its noticeable lack of an evident ceiling. Doc appears the much stronger figure than before.

 

SHOT 7

The same high angle shot of Chihuahua. She nervously swallows. “Sorry, Doc.” She winks. “Still mad?”

 

SHOT 8

“No honey,” Doc says, but in a sign of his newfound (or rediscovered) maturity moves matter-of-factly to the grim business at hand. “Look, I haven’t got anything to put you to sleep, so this is going to hurt like blazes.”

 

SHOT 9

Clementine watches transfixed, seeing a glimpse of the noble man she once knew emerge from the misanthropic, drunken gambler. The shadowy figure next to her is Wyatt, emphasizing that we are really observing this whole scene (Clementine’s current observing included) through him.

 

SHOT 10

 “Tell me when you’re ready.” Doc is the pivotal figure of the scene, commanding attention and directing action.

 

SHOT 11

Chihuahua thinks for a moment, steels herself, and then nods as the older woman places a rolled up piece of cloth in her mouth.

 

SHOT 12

The older woman tells Chihuahua “Bite on it. Bite hard.” Note that even though she is interacting directly with Chihuahua on the table just as Doc is, she is not shot from as low an angle.

Both the older woman and Chihuahua are shot noticeably closer than Doc in this exchange. This seems to counter Ford’s ostensible aim, but in fact, the distancing from Doc is helpful. Wyatt is still our hero, and though Doc is clearly the man of action in this sequence, we actually find ourselves unable to fully identify with him. Rather than a method of increasing association with Chihuahua (who, at best, we can only pity) or this nameless secondary character, the close-ups keep us, like everyone else, at an admiring distance from Doc.

 

SHOT 13

Chihuahua bites on the cloth and prepares for abdominal surgery with no anaesthetic. Like Clementine, she is bathed in soft light for no reason other than studio restrictions placed on Ford with respect to lighting young actresses.

 

SHOT 14

Doc leans down in the frame to begin operating. As if the motif had not been fully established, Mack brings a light next to Doc’s head. Doc turns right and calls for Clementine, “Miss Carter!” Note that the lamp provides no extra light to that side of Doc’s head. The practical light sources in the frame are never actual sources of illumination.

 

 

SHOT 15A 

In close-up, Clementine dutifully responds. “Yes, doctor.” Recall that Doc looked right to address her, and, yet, she looks the same direction to answer him. This is a clear violation of basic Hollywood screen direction (the 180 degree rule), but it is not jarring when employed as carefully as it is here by Ford. Whereas someone like Hawks would maintain the geographical logic of the scene above all else, Ford lets us forget about it (Where exactly in the room is Clementine standing? It doesn’t really matter.) and find ourselves concentrating on the emotional geography of the characters.

 

 

SHOT 15B 

In the same shot, Clementine walks right towards the table as the camera pans with her momentarily. However, she quickly moves out of focus, signaling a change of our attention. Upon centering on Wyatt in the background, the pan is halted…

 

 

SHOT 15C

 …allowing Clementine to walk out of frame right. This leaves our hero, face entirely darkened, as our emotional anchor of the scene—like us, a powerless observer. Emphasizing the painful nature of the proceedings…

 

 

SHOT 15D
 
…Wyatt turns his face left, away from the operating table. On the soundtrack, whooping cowboys and piano dance music from the bar next door counterpoint with Chihuahua’s moans of pain.

 

 

SHOT 16
 

The beautiful composition that ends the sequence obscures the center of action—the operating table—with nervous, darkened figures in the foreground. Note also the oppressive, black ceiling space that increases the claustrophobia of the makeshift operating room. Meanwhile, the carefully edge-lit (and clearly waxed beyond necessity) bar gives us a diagonal that leads the eye to a small figure in the left of the frame, the only face actually visible in the shot. Upon inspection, we see that it is Wyatt, his face leaning on his hand and now well-lit (in complete contrast with the previous shot). He faces away from the operation, feeling small and powerless, a complete about-face from his position at the very beginning of the sequence.

 

In sixteen shots, a handful of functional lines, and almost no real screen action, Ford has deepened our understanding of the characters, their relationships, and their resonance with our own world.

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