[Filmmaking] Prompt 4

Let’s dig deeper in our editing analysis. Choose a sequence from a film of your choice and analyze the Graphic, Rhythmic, Spatial or Temporal relationship between shots. Choose one and connect this approach to its impact on the dramatic moment and overall story.

00:00~05:33

The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) depicts a dramatic inner-self change of an agent of East-German secret police, Wiesler, after he conducted surveillance on a famous drama writer, Dreyman, and his lover, which later impacted their respective lives.

I choose the sequence of inciting moment when Wiesler starts to become increasingly absorbed in Dreyman’s life and his frozen heart starts thawing. At the first half of sequence, Wiesler sneaks into Dreyman’s apartment. The editing in writer’s apartment conceals the information. Audience can’t realize why he breaks into the apartment until Dreyman is searching his Brecht volume, followed by crosscutting (edit 2 events happening at the same time) of the close-up long take of Wiesler reading Brecht and getting moved, with internal diegetic sound (sound coming from role’s mind) of reciting Brecht’s poems. Moreover, director uses wide shots for Wiesler in Dreyman’s apartment, showing he is always alone in the spacious frame. Only when he reads Brecht is the close-ups exploited. Director wishes us to capture the moment that something is changing in Wiesler’s mind, while Wiesler is remote from us in previous shots.

In the rest of sequence, Dreyman’s friend reveals Jerska’s death via phone. The scene of Wiesler overhearing the call is perfectly crosscut into the scene which Dreyman can’t bear the grief. Both of them are shot in consistent 180 degree. Dreyman faces left, while Wiesler faces right. Although they are in two distinct rooms, by intercutting and spatial arrangement, it looks like Wiesler directly talks to Dreyman and shares the unbearable sorrow over a great artist’s death. Dreyman slowly stumbles to the piano, and then it is a close-up of the piano book, die Sonate vom Guten Menschen, the birthday present from Jerska. Meanwhile, music of the Sonate starts flowing off screen to bridge the crosscutting scenes of Dreyman playing the Sonate and of Wiesler listening to this elegy with full heart. Director decides to shot the Wiesler’s back first, and then cut to shot his face, with a drop of tear streaming down. This 360 degree circular shot destroys the 180 degree rule. With the balance of editing breaking down, we all knows the previous life of Wiesler also breaks down for good. It is then cut to the scene which Dreyman shares the anecdote of Lenin about “Guten Menschen” with his lover. Wiesler is then, from this inciting moment, implicitly turning into a “Guten Menschen” (a good man). The final scene of the sequence is the chat between Wiesler and a kid in the elevator. Wiesler decides not to ask the kid’s name at the end with a sense of humanity already planted in his heart. Also, different from the previous and repeated composition which Wiesler is alone in the elevator, a wide shot is used to include both Wiesler and the kid, to eliminate the distance between him and others. Director ends the sequence with this seemingly irrelevant but actually profound shot.

In conclusion, by skillful editing, including crosscutting, establishment and destroy of 180 degree rule, usage of sounds, and spatial relationship in frames, director conceals and reveals the storyline gradually. With the full emotion slowly and powerfully escalating, Wiesler, a cold-hearted secret police comes to shed the chains of the crucial communist system and to pursue the genuine humanity. 


倒數第二次的prompt，本來很希望能把長度限在300字內，這個sequence反覆凝視許久，也做了很多功課，但感覺我的英文無法全部包含我想講的東西，我只是很認真很認真的分享一部我深愛的電影，如此而已。