Captain Blood Part 3

This is my final entry about the classic film, Captain Blood. I could go on and on, but that would just be spoonfeeding you all the great imagery. Go look it up for yourself. You can find it on Netflix.

Anyway, act 2 of the story deals with the prisoners' revolt and how Dr. Blood becomes the pirate Captain Blood. The revolt is staged at night, creating lots of dramatic lighting. I think the prisoners were probably aiming for dramatic lighting to increase the effectiveness of their escape. Note this shot:

It could have been lit any number of ways.  The filmmakers could have created a full moon so as to fully illuminate the ship. But since a moonless night is better for a coup, the art director used that to his advantage. The main light source is from windows, but mostly from cannon fire. The cannons create a sheet of smoke and every subsequent blast lights it up, creating a beautiful sillouhette of the ship. The haze of the smoke also creates a nice separation of foreground & background layers.

Meanwhile in the town, Blood and his gang are escaping guards and soldiers at every turn. Note the use of shadow cast on the wall again (like in the early scene of Dr. Blood working on the patient). This composition keeps our hero in the foreground, and his enemy on a giant stage behind. But because it is a cast shadow, the bad guy is HUGE in the frame, putting our hero at a disadvantage (visually).
This is a nice subtle shot. Blood comes into an archway. He is rim lit so that his silhouette reads against the far wall...
But then he comes around the wall and steps into the light, his white shirt and fair skin standing out nicely against the gray wall.

The rest of these shots are random moments throughout the story. I pulled them out because I like the layering effect the cinematographer managed. Also there is an abundance of readability - characters standing out (dramatically at times) from their background. It;s all part of insuring that the audience is looking exactly where you want them to.

This is a beautiful moment. There are several planes of props and characters, creating deep space and extreme perspective. Notice that the light source (not the candles) is coming from below. It creates and uneasy feeling, and also casts those looming shadows on the wall. Those shadows create a darkened space for our two prominent actors to read against. See? There are 4 characters in the scene, but only two are significant to the moment. the others are just set dressing. You can see them, but you don't pay much attention to them.

Again, layered elements for drama. One character is lit fully so as to have the stage all to himself. He is small in the frame, so they used the candelabra to block off part of the frame so it wouldn't feel so empty. The frame is effectively split in half and the soldier fills his side of it like an el Greco painting.

This moment isn't terribly dramatic. However, I like the use of the low horizon (even though the top of the hills splits the frame almost perfectly in half). The Galley of the ship is the darkest element in the frame, and it is set against the lightest element - the clouds. That is where your eye goes first - to the point of greatest contrast. However, in this moment, there is another element that doesn't come across as well in a still. There are three rowboats mid frame. In motion, your eye will be attracted to movement. And if everything else in the frame is still, the greatest contrast will be whatever is moving.

This frame might be from early in the film, I don't quite remember. The downshot increases the perspective just a little, and puts Dr. Blood "above" the other character. If the camera were shooting level, Blood would have been smaller in the frame and his head would have been below the other guy's. Once again, it's got a nice dramatic foreground element (the lantern), and even though there are two characters in the shot, the lighting on Dr. Blood keeps our attention on him.

During one of the battle scenes, they increased the level of visual frenzy by putting the camera beneath the stairs. In this case, the foreground element blocks part of our view, which is disquieting. The camera is angled which puts more tension into the shot, too.
One particular trick they did in this film, which I can't show in stills, is that whenever we are on board a ship, the camera slow rocks forward and back, creating the subtle feeling that we are rocking on the water. In that it was all shot on a sound stage, it's a very effective touch.

I end on this shot of Olivia de Havilland in repose. It's not a dramatic shot by any means. It's a very sedate moment in the story. I point it out for its sophisticated use of values (the gray scale). This room is full of stuff: furniture, moulding, drapery, windowpanes... lots of shapes and lines that could interfere with the shot. But with careful use of lighting as well as set dressing, Miss de Havilland is perfectly the center of our attention. She is dressed in white surrounded by a white pillow and white sheets. Everything else in the frame is middle gray to black. The illumination outside the windowpanes fights a little, but not horribly. If they were any darker, this would look like a gothic romance.

I hope you've enjoyed my little exercise. Good night.

Captain Blood Part 2

Here are a few more frames from "Captain Blood". We pick up the story as Dr. Blood and all the other detainees are being lead into court:

This is another one of the moments in the film where they create an empty space then fill it. Notice on the frame above, the dominant imagery is the row of gallows awaiting their clientele. Then as soon as we absorb that image, the prisoners march in rank and file. It's very effective.
Once inside the court, we are greeted with this stark image of the judge. I love the swath of shadow creating an angle across the upper left corner of the screen.
They even cheat it a little closer to m'Lord on the close-up.As he reads the names of the accused, only Peter Blood maintains his innocence. But of course is sent away in irons just the same as the rest of the rabble.

Once on board the ship, we get more prison style images (remember Blood's intro in the previous post?). Here they shot this poor soul through the grating of the ship's deck.
Then cut to the reverse angle, as he's beaten back down. Many of the shots in this film make use of layers and foreground elements. And notice those angled lines across the frame. It really adds to the drama. Remember, this is an era when cutting was slower, and camera movement was much more subdued than today, so they had to work with different tools to create tension within a shot, or scene.
Shots like this one make use of the "frame within a frame" concept. Unlike paintings or comic books, you can't alter the size and shape of your frame. It's a constant shape (either a 16:9, or 1:1.85, or in this case a 4:3 ratio). So sometimes we need to create smaller openings within the field of view, making a frame within the frame. Sure they could've pushed in for a close up, and Mr. Flynn wouldn't have minded that, but the emotion of this shot didn't warrant a close up, plus they would have lost the imagery of the character behind bars.
Once they get to the islands, we meet the villain, the girl and her father (the current Governor).

I chose to include this shot, not because of any dramatic staging, but for the very subtle use of the parasol to highlight our lady fair. If she had chosen to keep the bumbershoot closed, the background would have been busier and she wouldn't have read as well against it.
As it is, her face is the object of our attention no matter who is talking. Her face sits there like a jewel on a pillow, and ultimately framed by the two other actors. No question who is the highest paid performer in this shot.

Later, we enter the prison camp. I love this shot where this fellow is banging the bell/gong. It's an empty circle, a perfect frame waiting to be filled. 
And wouldn't you know it... here comes the villain, riding into the shot, right into that circle frame. 

Immediately, they cut to a close up of the bay guy. It's a great edit.

Captain Blood

One of my favorite very old films is "Captain Blood" starring Errol Flynn, Olivia deHavilland and Basil Rathbone. It's the story of an English doctor who is arrested for saving the life of a rebel to the Crown and gets sent to a penal colony in the Caribbean. He leads a prisoner rebellion, becomes a pirate and eventually becomes the Governor of Jamaica. Oh, and he gets the girl.

(Trivia: This was the first pairing of Flynn and Rathbone. They would go on to have more sword fights in the classic "The Adventures of Robin Hood" with Olivia de Havilland as Maid Marian). Flynn was an unknown at the time, and despite his goofy haircut, this film set him on his way to stardom.)

It's a very moody film, and like many movies of the 30's its art direction is very stage driven, many of the compositions are based on traditional painting conventions. I supposed some of that tendency comes from the fact that the bulky cameras of the day were much less mobile than modern cameras, so most of the visual drama depended more on composition.

This is one of the opening shots where a messenger arrives at the door of Doctor Peter Blood (cool name, huh?). Notice the warped perspective:

This shot is a bit on the nose, but cool nonetheless:
Here we get one of the first shots of Errol Flynn as he looks through the window in the door. We see him behind bars. It's not his entrance shot, but close enough to make a statement.
The Dr. Blood goes to get dressed, while the messenger turns around to tell the lady across the street what's going on. It's a fairly lame set-up for exposition. We all know he's really talking to us. But the screen composition is still very cool. Note how they made sure there are foreground elements to enhance the feeling of depth.

Soon the patient is brought in (near death) and the good Doctor works in very dramatic lighting:

And once he saves the poor chap, the authorities enter right across that huge space left open in the frame for them.

This motif of creating a space in a shot, then filling it with character entrances is used a lot in this film. It's a cool style. They create a composition that doesn't look empty, yet use that open space for dramatic purposes.

I'm going to post some more frames later. This is such a great old film to watch. Every shot is very beautiful. (Yes, the storytelling is a bit stilted and slow by today's standards, but it's still a good yarn).

Weirdest Interview Ever

Andy Warhol & Bianca Jagger have a conversation with Steven Speilberg (circa 1982).

I tried to embed the video but I'm having trouble. Click HERE instead.

Old Men

I saw "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" recently and thought of (among other things) these two drawings I did in a meeting a few years ago.

I am fascinated at how skin sags all over the face as one ages, yet remains taught and shiny on the scalp. I enjoyed drawing that sternocleidomastoid. It's one of my favorite muscles.

I know what I thought of the movie. What did you think? I also started reading the original F. Scott Fitzgerald story. It's different. Very different.