In The Cut (2003)
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In The Cut, sadly did not manage to finish it, I lasted 53 minutes. I have never seen a Jane Campion film, but I know she’ s a celebreated director (at...
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Is it fair to dismiss a director for one film? I guess I see it like this: if you have a doctor whose idea of curing a headache is cutting off the head, I am not going to book any appointments, regardless of how great people assure me he is when it comes to other ailments. There’s something very, very wrong.

Here, the film is not a first film by the director. I tend to give directors a big break for a first film, because people grow and just starting out, they may still have potential. There are a number of good directors whose first films were poor or outright bad. But this is not a first film for Jane Campion, rather it seems she should’ve been in the full bloom of her talent.

I can understand a new director, or relatively unknown director getting bad performances from famous actors - because they may not trust an unknown. And, as pointed out, a director may be saddled with actors by a studio. But in this case the caliber of actors was nothing to complain about - Ruffalo is usually an excellent actor, so is Jennifer Jason Leigh, Bacon and so on. How are you getting indifferent performances from them and an outright awful one from Meg Ryan? Why can’t you give Meg direction? It can’t be because you are not respected as a director - you are a celebrated feminist director, women fight to be in her films and trust her fully, I assume. Yet look at the result - a more fake looking acting I have never seen from Meg Ryan. Does Jane Campion have no eyes? If she signed off on this - and clearly she did - then I think she has very poor judgment in a key area for a director, being able to handle actors.

As far as the camera work - why is there constant unmotivated movement, and very unpleasant movement, very jittery, with ridiculous framing where objects are intentionally obstructing the view, suddenly very shallow focus popping up, again for no reason. If there is a reason, let us see - but there wasn’t. This was so bad, my wife complained about the camera work and it making it difficult for her to see what’s going on and making her dizzy… when my wife, who ordinarily never pays attention to the camera COMPLAINS about the camera work, you know you’ve come across a bonehead director who made it their mission to get the camera noticed… not my favorite move - and noticed for WHAT? No good effect that I can see - sometimes directors show off with the camera, but in this case there was nothing that was impressive other than super irritating. Have I provided enough detail about the camera? If you have so little understanding or care about your camera work, you are an abysmal director in my book. You do this - in effect cutting off the head to cure a headache - I have zero faith in your somehow miraculously becoming a master in another film. You displayed atrocious judgment, so bad, it’s licence revoking, just as the doctor’s licence would be pulled based on such a grossly bad judgment as cutting off the head to cure a headache.

The rest of the flaws here are all down to poor judgment in my opinion. I was bored, but persisted to minute 53 (my wife bailed minute 10 - we watch some of these movies while eating dinner, so unless it’s super bad, I don’t interrupt my dinner to look for another movie… in this case I had to, it was so unbearable). Choice of material, the way the material was handled, what she thought was an interesting scene, what she thought was interesting dialogue, all awful. Maybe one could claim it’s subjective, but to me the pacing had obvious problems. Even if it’s subjective it tells me that my mentality just doesn’t mesh with hers - this is not an intellect I want to interact with… what she thinks is interesting I find numbingly boring.

Those are the grounds for taking a film that is so deeply flawed as evidence that it’s not a director whose work will do anything for me. She has no skills and I don’t like her mentality/artistic judgment - what’s left? Because I am quite willing to watch a movie that’s remarkable technically, even if the content is of no interest to me (my wife is NOT willing to do this - to her the content is king, as for most audiences) - I think I’m fairly broad minded that way (same for music - there are performers who are so gifted vocally or as instrumentalists that I’ll listen to them performing material that I have no interest in otherwise). And of course, if the content is amazing, I’ll forgive almost any technical flaws. But someone who does nothing for me on either count (as Jane Campion here), I try to avoid on account of life being too short to waste it on torture for no reason (torture for a reason: right after writing this post, I’m going off to jog for 4 miles; I find exercise very boring and unpleasant, in fact, pure torture - but I do it because it’s necessary for good health; in other words, necessary torture). Jane Campion - to me - is not necessary torture, it’s just pointless torture - I’ll come back from my run, grumbling “oh well, I guess it has to be done”, but to tie myself to a chair and be assaulted by stupidity, incompetence and bad taste, well, I can’t grumble anything else than “that was a total waste of time, never again”. YMMV, all IMHO.

Other than the jitteriness, I felt Dune had a lot of these issues. Unmotivated camera moves and shallow DoF trying to hide off kilter composition. Not sure exactly if Greig Fraser enjoys riding the horse hanging half off the saddle or if there was something else going on. But overall his broad strokes are gorgeous and rich. Like he is always swinging for big one. Also, with Villenueve, it is hard to see his blocking change so wildly with each cinematographer, meaning he could give a lot of freedom to the Cinematographer. Fine for Deakins, and exploratory with Young, but a little aimless and overly aesthetic down beats with Greig Fraser.

I'll have to watch "in the Cut". I almost learn more from films that falter a little.

Also, not that the show is all that relevant any more, but "House of Cards" season 1 has superb camera movement, but season 2 was complete garbage.

I think there are ways to move or frame the cameras in ways that are not directly motivated, but there is still a logic to them, a certain way in which the lingering or meandering can bring appreciation. In the Mood for Love had a few shots that could almost be gratuitous, but still fit so well to a sense of design within the story.

Well, that’s sometimes a problem with judging the work fo a director - he may not be responsible for any number of things that affect the film from casting to camera placement. In fact, when I lambasted Vilenueve in the Sicario thread about his camera work, I put in a disclaimer that I don’t know if it was actually him who did all the blocking, framing and so on. There are any number of directors who focus their attention on f.ex. working with actors and leave the camera or lighting to the DP and so on. Many don’t even edit. Or work with the script. It takes all kinds. Personally, I think as a director it’s on you to be aware fo all those areas, but I think it’s possible to be a good director and still leave room for your collaborators. So how can I hold Villeneuve (or Campion!) responsible for the camera work?

Very simple. You as the director bear the ultimate responsibility for the overall effect of the film. The buck stops here. You are in charge. If you leave the cameral work and lighting to the DP 100%, and the result is bad, that’s on you. Instead, it is your responsibility to say to the DP - or any of your collaborators, such as music composers! - “stop! this is going badly off the rails! I want this effect, not that effect”. You may not be technically knowledgeable enough to say which lens to use or whatnot, but you have eyes - and ears - and you must work with your collaborators - you can still say “this looks wrong!” or “I want such and such an effect” and the technically knowledgeable DP will know just what to do to achieve that effect. Some directors are more hands on when it comes to the camera and lighting - Hitchcock, Polanski etc. - and some are hands off. But it’s never “hands off” AND “brain off, judgment off, eyes and ears off”. So I can still say, regardless of why the camera work sucks in Dune or In The Cut, I blame the director, for s/he is ultimately responsible.

And yes, there are a million ways “to move the camera” as James says. But it still must contribute to the overall effect. If the effect sucks, then I don’t care why and what, it’s a failure. You have eyes. Use them.

This abdication of artistic judgment is anathema to me wrt. the role of the director. Collaboration means leaving room for your collaborators to *exceed* your design, but not to fall below. I can say, wow, I leave camera placement to Gordon Willis, because he can think of things I can’t - but it can never be, gee Mr. DP decided this, and that’s fine with me. You still have to use your artistic judgment to see if the goals have been reached. It’s give AND take.