| Page 1 2 SHOT-BY-SHOT: PAINT YOUR WAGON by Nathan WilliamsThis month: How to open a movie. Stanley Kubrick once said that the first shot of a film must be the most interesting thing the audience has seen since leaving home that night. To his credit, he usually managed to back it up. A great opening shot shocks the audience into attention, but unless it is a virtuoso long take (a la Touch of Evil) it usually isn’t enough to really hook them. At Shot-by-Shot we’ve learned that a great shot is nothing compared to a great sequence. So this month we examine a great opening sequence—one that sets the mood, hooks narrative interest, and, of course, entertains. And in doing so, we can wipe some tarnish off a much-maligned film, as well as late 60s studio filmmaking in general. The film under the knife? Paramount’s bizarre and wonderful Paint Your Wagon. The real opening of the film is a several minute montage of ultra-long lens wagon trains and painted images of foreign lands from whence these travelers came. The title song plays, as do the credits. Though some of the photography is real, none of the images have any specificity and don’t really count as the first shot of the film. Suddenly, as the song is building to an ostensible climax, the music suddenly cuts off mid-phrase, a loud crack is heard, and we abruptly cut to: SHOT 1  A disorienting POV shot of the camera moving rapidly and roughly downhill. We hear the sound of wagon wheels racing over broken ground. SHOT 2  A low angle long shot of a wagon careening down a steep hill, from left to right. We now know what we were experiencing in the previous shot, but we’re still not sure what’s going on. SHOT 3  A static full shot of Lee Marvin, a big star and one of our leads. He watches the mayhem off-screen with a grim but somewhat jaded expression. Correctly, he stands looking right. SHOT 4  The wagon POV again. This time the camera/wagon flips and careens with great violence in unexpected directions. SHOT 5A  A much closer low-angle shot of the wagon bouncing down the hill, again, from left to right. The screen action is now quite clear. What at first seemed to be disorientation is now revealed to be merely methodical rationing of information. Too many films today would push too far and make the entire crash sequence a flurry of intense and perplexing angles, each shot containing very little useful information. Instead, we pan with the wagon and settle… SHOT 5B  …on a pretty little river, letting the wagon roll out of the bottom of the frame. The sound of the wagon meeting its final resting place is heard off-screen. SHOT 6A  A medium shot of Marvin. “Farmers,” he deadpans and… SHOT 6B  …walks off-screen right, a direction we now intuitively feel to be in the direction of the wagon. SHOT 7  An extreme long shot from below. Other bystanders gather and react to the scene. They are clearly less important than Marvin. SHOT 8  The bystander’s POV. This is likely less an attempt to induce empathy with them and more likely one to show just how deadly a path the wagon took. SHOT 9  Marvin walks into a medium shot, letting his mule go. He is evidently on site of the smash-up and is looking grimly downward. He moves to kneel and on the action we cut… SHOT 10  …to a lower elevation shot of similar distance and lens length. Marvin bends over the bodies, his head out of frame. One of the brothers is shrouded in shadow and does not move. The other, Clint Eastwood, is on the left side of the frame in the bright sunlight and moves just enough to let us (but not Marvin) know he’s alive. Marvin sticks his hand in the brother’s shirt. It’s not clear if he’s checking for a heartbeat or robbing him. Page 1 2 |  |
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