The Camera And Space

The Camera and Space

To say the camera 'creates' space may seem confusing to anyone not versed in film parlance, so my discussion of the camera in 'creating' space will begin by exploring just what is meant by 'space'. Throughout this work, 'space' can refer to two broadly different types of space, the first, which Richard Maltby calls 'representative space', "is the area that exists in front of the camera lens and is recorded by it." Imagine the camera as a window (as, indeed, Miran Bozovic does later.) The represented space is all that the spectator can see out of that window. This work will be concerned with how this represented space is created and interrogated by the camera. The second kind of space is what we shall refer to as the 'consuming' space, which is the space occupied by the spectator while watching or 'consuming' film. Watching a film in the cinema has its own 'type' of consuming space, that of the darkened auditorium, while watching the same film on a DVD at home constructs a completely different figuration of consuming space, i.e. the private living room. This chapter will not focus on the consuming space of the home because it's focus is on how the camera creates space, but the overall aim of this chapter will be to begin to figure the spectator not only as a space constructed by the camera, but, through analysis of Metz, as a consuming space constructed by the camera, a construction that figures the spectator "as a second screen" , as Metz argues. This will create an opportunity for a more detailed analysis of how the spectator is constructed by the camera. To begin with, we shall analyse the Shakespeare text of Hamlet, and discover how space is created through the text Hamlet. Hamlet's use of language is a good point to begin this analysis of space because of Yury Tynyanov's equation of the word with the shot. For Tynyanov, this is possible because a word can invoke a single idea, much in the same way as the single shot can. It is the way they are put together that creates meaning. He goes on to say that "when shot B replaces shot A, there is a jump like that occurring between lines in verse" , or, it is possible to extrapolate, lines in a play. Though Tynyanov here is talking about the process of editing, when he says one shot replaces another he is also referring to a construction of space - how one shot or word placed after another creates and interrogates space. Take, for instance, the word 'arm' and the word 'chair'. Put the first in front of the second, and you have described an 'armchair'. That is a creation of space. However, take the second and put it in front of the first and you have 'chair arm' - a completely different descri ption of space. This is a simple example of something which I argue is happening in Shakespeare's Hamlet, except that where film has the shot, Hamlet has lines and words in a play. In Act II, Scene II of Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet asks "Am I a coward?" The question focuses it as a 'close-up' on Hamlet, because Hamlet is questioning himself, while simultaneously figuring it as a single idea - a single shot. The next line, "Who calls me villain, breaks my pate across" is equally as rhetorical and suggests a different idea - a different shot. The line immediately following that, "Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face," follows the same pattern, new idea, new shot. What is different about these latter two lines is that they describe things happening to Hamlet as opposed to Hamlet questioning himself with "Am I a coward?" Where we have a close-up perspective with the latter, a medium close-up is conjured in the former so we can 'see' all these things happening to Hamlet. In applying Tynyanov's theory to Shakespeare's Hamlet, a reading presents itself that very much reinforces the idea of the word as synonymous with the shot, and it is this discovery that suggests the possibility of a link, certainly in this reading of Hamlet, between the camera and the word. I argue that in Shakespeare's play the word is very much an organ with which Hamlet thinks, operating on much the same lines as the camera in Zupancic's argument that "the decisive break between film and theatre occurred within film itself.when the camera stopped being a mere mediator.and became an 'organ' with which the filmmaker thinks." For Zupancic, the camera stops being a mere 'recorder' of the action, it in fact becomes the action itself, a reading that further develops our comparison of the word with the camera. In analysing Zupancic, we will take the same scene as previously studied, Act II, Scene II of Shakespeare's Hamlet, and see how the camera is used in Tennant's production to interrogate the same ideas of space as posited by Tynyanov. In Tennant's production, Hamlet looks down the lens in close-up when he asks "Am I a coward?" in a manner similar to that of Shakespeare's text. For the next two lines, however, something different happens. Where in Shakespeare's text we have two lines expressing two different ideas and, in accordance with Tynyanov, two different shots, in Tennant's production the camera creates a different sense of space in that it is one shot, not cutting until Tennant's Hamlet cries "Oh! Vengeance!" The very same scene in Branagh's production is handled in the same way, in one very long shot. Neither of these readings offers a figuration of space that is in any way wrong, but they do illustrate the different ways in which space can be created by the camera, not only in juxtaposing two different 'shots' of space as in Shakespeare's text, but in how one long shot can create space just by its very length of time on screen. To take an example from a completely unrelated, though Shakespeare-based text, in her analysis of Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, Judith Buchanan finds that "using theatrical space as the ante-chamber and rehearsal space for the unfettered cinematographic hedonism of the party.establishes a clear hierarchical relationship between the two performance areas." Buchanan clearly identifies the theatrical performance space as the stepping-off area for the explicitly cinematic space of the Capulet party, and, equally as clearly, finds the cinematographic style of the party to be the key in this escape from theatrical space. This precise moment, the moment of rupture between the two, returns to Zupancic's assertion of the moment "when the camera stopped being a mere mediator." At the Capulet party, the camera does not merely show the action, it becomes the action. The dizzying pans, tilts and zooms create the party. What we have discovered is the power of the camera in creating space - indeed, Zupancic's and Buchanan's analysis figures the camera as 'the' action. Buchanan's analysis of the previous paragraph clearly outlines the potential for the camera to create space, not only in the literal sense as in capturing whatever is placed in front of it, but also in the way it can juxtapose two different spaces in the edit. It can also, I argue, threaten to disrupt and destroy space. I refer here to Richard Maltby`s ideas of `unsafe` space, the idea that the camera can be used to create unease in the spectator`s idea of their secure consuming space and the security offered by the film screen. Maltby gives the example of Mrs Bates tearing at the screen in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. In the screenplay of Psycho, the murder scene is described as "the slashing. An impression of a knife slashing, as if tearing at the very screen, ripping the film." This action is mirrored almost perfectly in Act II, Scene II of Tennant's Hamlet. As Hamlet cries "Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain" , he clasps his hands as though holding an imaginary knife and holds them above his head ready to tear through the screen and attack the audience. What Maltby ultimately underlines is the camera's power in creating space and destroying it, but the idea of `unsafe space` also recognises the spectator`s gaze as in some way identifying with the camera and as being in some way cooperative with its creation of space. Christian Metz argues that "it is true that as [the spectator] identifies with himself as looker, the spectator can do no other than identify with the camera too." For Metz, the spectator is the camera which may seem obvious because the spectator can only see what the camera sees. However, Metz furthers this by adding that "when I say `I see` the film, I mean thereby a unique mixture of two contrary currents: the film is what I receive and it is also what I release since it does not pre-exist my entering the auditorium and I need only close my eyes to suppress it. Releasing it, I am the projector, receiving it, I am the screen." Where before Metz finds the spectator must identify with the camera, he also finds that the spectator just as much `creates` the film as the camera does - for Metz the spectator is the projector, literally releasing the film. What is key to Metz`s identification of the spectator with the camera is that he finds the camera to create the spectator as a `third` space. Where we had the represented and consuming spaces outlined at the open of this chapter, Metz has the camera create the spectator as a new space where film can be the performer. In discussing the spectators `knowledge` of their role as this 'third' space, Metz finds that "I [the spectator] also know that it is I who am perceiving...that this perceiving imaginary material is deposited in me as on a second screen, that it is in me that it forms up into an organised sequence." What is key to the spectator as a 'third' space created by the camera is the fact that the spectator performs the film in a passive sense i.e. by being the `screen` on which film is projected but also that the spectator performs the action of `organising` the film - to Metz, the film is an unintelligible disjointed mass without the spectator there to make sense of it. What Metz identifies that is crucial to my thesis at this stage is that because of the spectator's compulsory identification with the camera, they simultaneously adopt the role of the spectator of film as well as 'producer' of film. It is a discovery that makes possible the figuration of the spectator as created as a 'third' space by the camera, which in turn will develop into Metz's ideas of the mirror in spectator construction later. Miran Bozovic picks up on Metz's idea of the spectator as the 'second screen'. In his analysis of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, Bozovic finds that "the film opens with the camera directly approaching [a] windowsill.this is a moment of complete identification between the view from the room and the view from the audience: we see all that can be seen from the room; whoever was in the room is now, as it were, in the audience and we have, as it were, entered his room." Bozovic identifies this moment as key in the formation of the spectator as a third space because "observed and observer, actor and spectator" are blurred into inconsequence - at this moment in film, the spectator is simultaneously the actor because s/he occupies the represented space while simultaneously the spectator because s/he knows they are perceiving the action. I argue the exact sensation is replicated in the "to be or not to be" scene in Act III, Scene I of Branagh's adaptation of Hamlet. As Hamlet contemplates his reflection in one of the mirrors lining Elsinore's main hallway, the camera slowly zooms in in a shot identical to that described by Bozovic. As the mirror slowly fills the frame, Hamlet's "contemplation of his reflected image is, importantly, also a contemplation of Claudius.Branagh chose to focus on this pair, blurring the boundaries.we are not sure who is looking at who." In this shot, Hamlet contemplates his reflection, while Claudius, concealed behind the mirror, watches Hamlet. The use of the mirror enables a 'third' space reading like that proposed by Metz because it portrays Hamlet as the spectator but his reflected image is the actor - his reflection is performing for the perceiving Hamlet. Let us take time to unpack this. Metz argues that the camera creates the spectator as a third space, a 'second screen' upon which film performs, but simultaneously performs the action of organising film into an understandable sequence. I argue that, via Bozovic, the mirror is utilised in Branagh's Hamlet to visualise Metz's metaphor. Hamlet stands before the mirror. This Hamlet looks at his reflection - he is the spectator. The reflected Hamlet is the actor because he is perceived by the spectating Hamlet. This analysis is made yet more complicated because of the presence of Claudius (with his striking resemblance to Hamlet) behind the mirror. His resemblance to Hamlet is critical here - Hamlet is doubly reflected, firstly in the actual mirror and secondly by Claudius in the void space behind the mirror. But Claudius is present as the spectator of Hamlet - Hamlet is not aware of Claudius's presence. The Hamlet before the mirror therefore occupies both the roles of spectator and actor - he perceives his reflection in the mirror while he is simultaneously perceived by Claudius. What this complex analysis unlocks is the role of the mirror in creating the spectator as the third space. Our analysis of Act III, Scene I in Branagh's adaptation enabled this because the use of the mirror figures Hamlet as simultaneously spectator as well as actor - the reflection creates Hamlet in both of these roles. More broadly, however, our analysis of the mirror in creating the spectator as the 'second screen' points more clearly toward the role the mirror plays in spectator construction, which shall be analysed in the following chapter. We have come thus far in my discussion of the camera in creating space and its effects on the relationship between space, the spectator and time. What this chapter has discovered is a link between Hamlet's language and the shot via Tynyanov's analysis of the cut between shots in film as being similar to the jump between lines of verse. This introduced a broader analysis of how the camera can be used to create space which in turn led onto Metz's discussion of the camera in spectator identification. Metz's figuration of the spectator as the third space in film led me to an analysis of the mirror in Branagh's Hamlet as visualising Metz's metaphor. The mirror is interesting because it unlocks and crystallises Metz's analysis of spectator identification and because it forms the opening argument for the following chapter, namely, the camera and the spectator.