King Vidor, United States, 1948, Swashbuckler Films
Comment
In this clip we see the characters separated by both spatial and societal means before we see them brought together in a romantic encounter. The scene is cut between two locations, the first being her grand Hollywood style apartment, where she lives in luxury, roaming around in fancy clothing, the second being a massive stone building site where the man, an avant-garde architect who refuses to compromise on any of his artistic endeavours, has chosen to find employment as an anonymous worker - someone who she would normally ignore. The knowledge that they have of each other’s situation is unbalanced. These two separate locations, seemingly independent of each other are brought together in real space by an explosion in the quarry, which rouses the woman from her bed.
She visits the building site twice and experiences a strong attraction to this gentleman who she presumes to be a construction worker. Their first meeting happens at a distance where she moves around above the site with the sky at her back, while he works below, pecking the rock apart with his pneumatic hammer. The visual structure of the of the shots is constructed around the distance between them and the difference in their spatial and social levels. The woman literally looks down over all the men working on the site, including the fellow who has piqued her desires so profoundly on first sight. The shots are rigorously constructed to feature sharp edges, using the contrasting nature of black and white filmstock, often split in two by the diagonal line of the frame which separates them, she high up in light side, he down below in counterpoint in the dark and grey. The glances between the two of them leave us with no doubt of the romantic impulse that has overwhelmed them both at a distance.
A foreman serves as a means to reduce the gap between them both. They find themselves on the same level, but without coming into direct contact or without talking to each other.
Back at home, in front of her dressing table, she reduces the gap between them with her imagination.
The next morning when she returns to the site they stand alone in the frame, her on high, he below, and we see a sharp exchange of dialogue where he stands his ground against her, not displaying any sense of social inferiority, hinting that knows exactly where they stand with each other romantically.
Comment
In this clip we see the characters separated by both spatial and societal means before we see them brought together in a romantic encounter. The scene is cut between two locations, the first being her grand Hollywood style apartment, where she lives in luxury, roaming around in fancy clothing, the second being a massive stone building site where the man, an avant-garde architect who refuses to compromise on any of his artistic endeavours, has chosen to find employment as an anonymous worker - someone who she would normally ignore. The knowledge that they have of each other’s situation is unbalanced. These two separate locations, seemingly independent of each other are brought together in real space by an explosion in the quarry, which rouses the woman from her bed.
She visits the building site twice and experiences a strong attraction to this gentleman who she presumes to be a construction worker. Their first meeting happens at a distance where she moves around above the site with the sky at her back, while he works below, pecking the rock apart with his pneumatic hammer. The visual structure of the of the shots is constructed around the distance between them and the difference in their spatial and social levels. The woman literally looks down over all the men working on the site, including the fellow who has piqued her desires so profoundly on first sight. The shots are rigorously constructed to feature sharp edges, using the contrasting nature of black and white filmstock, often split in two by the diagonal line of the frame which separates them, she high up in light side, he down below in counterpoint in the dark and grey. The glances between the two of them leave us with no doubt of the romantic impulse that has overwhelmed them both at a distance.
A foreman serves as a means to reduce the gap between them both. They find themselves on the same level, but without coming into direct contact or without talking to each other.
Back at home, in front of her dressing table, she reduces the gap between them with her imagination.
The next morning when she returns to the site they stand alone in the frame, her on high, he below, and we see a sharp exchange of dialogue where he stands his ground against her, not displaying any sense of social inferiority, hinting that knows exactly where they stand with each other romantically.