Sad Hill Cemetery

Film & Lesser Arts with Will Ross & Devan Scott

Jun 25, 2011

Go On Explaining the Game: Casino Royale (1954)


By Will Ross and Devan Scott

For the first part of our You Died Scratching My Balls retrospective, we'll be looking at a little-known television relic comprising the first screen adaptation of Ian Fleming's James Bond.

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Will

In 1954, the new anthology TV series Climax! aired a one hour episode detailing the gambling adventure of a dashing American secret agent named Jimmy Bond (if you’ve noticed two things that seem wrong already, you’re paying proper attention). The story was based on a modestly successful novel called Casino Royale by Ian Fleming. The program aired and went into obscurity until its rediscovery in the early 80s, after the world had fallen in love with the dashing British secret agent named James Bond. Whose movies, even at their worst, weren’t boring crap. Which 1954’s Casino Royale is.

In a way it’s unfortunate to start this retrospective with a film so utterly uninteresting when seen or thought of in a vacuum, but its utter ineffectuality serves us with a useful launching point from which to survey what it means to be Bond. Namely, by means of contrast with what isn’t Bond. With that in mind, let’s start with the most egregious departure from the 007 ethos made by Casino 54 (as I’ll be calling it throughout this retrospective to avoid inevitable confusions with the theatrical films): It is boring.

I'm not ignorant to the budgets and schedules of television, particularly not in a 50s one-hour series with 38 episodes in its first season. It is the resultant limit upon production control that makes television arguably more a writer’s medium than a director’s but the facts are the facts: Even the best writing requires skillful production to flourish, particularly in scenes filled with action, and Casino Royale simply doesn’t have those things. I don’t mean to be too disparaging to the direction of William H. Brown, who, as IMDB tells me, has only five TV episodes in 1954 and 1956 to his directorial credit. He was, as I mentioned, subject to the limits of television and in a few instances creates credible and even memorable shots. In the first shot, for instance, we see people entering a high-class casino, and when Bond (whose identity we don’t yet know) walks into frame, the silhouette of a pistol appears in the foreground and fires. It’s not ingenious, but it’s an effective way to create immediate mystery and tension. What Casino 54 more often suffers from is the kind of shot that follows, one of the pillar behind which Bond hides. The camera flatly films the pillar as three shots hit it. Bap – bap – bap. A far more interesting shot would obviously have been one of Bond’s face as he hid behind the pillar, reacting to the nearby bullet impacts, but the obviously tiny set was, no doubt, unpermissive. And though stylistic pretensions and camera movements occur often, they suffer from the same messy framing and staging as nearly every other shot.

All of which could have been somewhat salvaged by some ballsy potboiler writing, but fat chance there. The compression of the novel into a 50-minute TV episode necessitates far too much clumsy exposition and far too few moments of wit (though what is there barely passes for wit – the best of them is “Aren’t you the fella who was shot?” “No, I’m the fella who was missed.”) The plot: Bond enters the casino and receives instructions to play baccarat against an indebted criminal syndicate member, Le Chiffre, and to win a fortune from him, resulting in assassination by his debtors. The complicating factor: An old flame of Bond’s is also in the casino, Valerie Mathis (who will be known as Vesper Lynd in the later Royale adaptations). Unbeknownst to Bond, she is assisting Le Chiffre. I can’t help thinking it would have been better off without her, as she forms an entirely unconvincing and underdeveloped romance of betrayal and redemption with Bond, a fact exacerbated by the awful performance of Linda Christian.

The acting is rather lousy on all counts. Not only for premiere 007 Barry Nelson, who later said he didn’t know how to play the part because he had neither read the book nor heard of James Bond (he later had the good fortune of being cast as the hotel manager in The Shining), but more glaringly for Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre, a marked low point in a career that, since the late 40s, had been thrown into decline by typecasting and diminishing roles. The once great actor of M, The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca is now visibly uncommitted and sad, putting no discernible work into making dialogue like “Screwdriver? Where is – could he use a screwdriver – where – where could he use a screw – where did you use it!” sound any more convincing than it reads. Watching Casino 54 is a chore as it is, but seeing the fallen Lorre makes it downright depressing.

All of these criticisms, of course, aren’t all that much worse than those that could be leveled against many other Bond films, but the single most important missing element here is a sense of daring. No risks are taken in the 1954 Casino Royale – it has none of the go-for-broke attitude that defines each and every other James Bond adventure and makes them fun. Even in its most modest dialogue, set pieces, and procedural minutiae, not a moment passes when the franchise doesn’t aim for the sexy, the exotic. After this, Bond will make many mistakes, but he’ll never be boring again.

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Devan

There were really only two James Bond films to have the privilege of starting off on something resembling a clean slate. One of these, the de facto ‘first James Bond movie’, would have the fortune of sparking a cultural phenomenon, lifting the single most profitable franchise in film history off the ground. It introduced a new star – a new character - a new archetype to the masses; one Mr. James Bond.

Unfortunately, that is not this movie. Casino Royale, the de jure holder of the title ‘first James Bond film’, is about as far from what I picture when I think ‘James Bond film’ as I could conceivably imagine a James Bond film being.

Which makes perfect sense, actually. Casino Royale is but a one-hour episode of a short-lived American anthology series from the 1950s. Practically all of the film’s departures from the novels, dissimilarities from its successors, and crippling weaknesses stem from this single restriction. It’s quite unfair, then, to compare it unfavorably to a set of films not saddled with such a constraint. But did that ever stop me? Nope!

James Bond films are unique for their mixture of derring-do, carefree cheesiness, English sensibility, occasional brutality, and singularly magnetic starring character. Casino Royale has absolutely none of these things. The limitations of television circa 1954 as a medium dictate that the entire affair be played absolutely safe; there wasn’t enough production time, much less willpower, for any of the risks or hijinks that characterize the best Bond films. This is a strictly tied-down affair.

And what of Bond himself? He’s not even in the film. In his place is CIA agent extraordinaire Jimmy Bond, as portrayed by Barry Nelson: a veritable black hole of charisma. This is a character whose only truly memorable moment is his rambling, ludicrously drawn-out explanation of the finer points of the rules of Baccarat, a lesson that is free of any intrigue and practically dominates the screen time of the first act of the film. There comes a point where, after several minutes of this, Bond and his British friend Felix Leiter mercifully change the subject of the conversation to villain Le Chiffre and his Russian connections. Then, after a minute or so, Bond chimes in “Now, back to the rules of Baccarat…”, and they proceed to continue discussing the rules of Baccarat. I couldn’t make this up if I tried.

This scene, possibly the most brutally interminable in the film, is, for anyone aware of the Bond franchise, conspicuously devoid of any of the quips, double-entendres, or clever turns of phrase that characterize the dialogue in even the weaker Bond films. It’s a wasteland of a scene, a stretch of celluloid where attention spans go to die.

It’s interesting to note how self-serious Casino Royale really is. In fact, it might be the most consistently self-serious Bond film. This isn’t due to any of the sinister subject matter that characterizes entries like The Living Daylights or Quantum of Solace; even the considerably darker 2006 take on Casino Royale managed to pull a painfully funny moment out of its most sadistic scene. No, it’s the fact that the screenplay and performance ares so uniformly mirthless. There isn’t a single point where a character attempts to make light of the situation; I’ve seen nary a film more levity-starved than this one.

For years, Casino Royale stood as the last extant James Bond film that I had yet to see. And now that I’ve finally seen it, I can safely say that it is, in my humble opinion, the worst James Bond film in existence. Sorry, [Name redacted for the purposes of suspense], you've been dethroned.

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Theme Song:

There is none, really, but the Climax! opening is a shot that careens into a camera lens and moves through it as the starring credits appear, which, in a funny way, mirrors the famous gun barrel openings of the EON films.

We welcome guest pieces for the retrospective. Just let us know which film you'd like to write about and we'll discuss the possibility.

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Jun 24, 2011

You Died Scratching My Balls: A James Bond Retrospective

By Will Ross and Devan Scott
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Will

I needn’t explain to you the things for which James Bond is famous. But though an image of sophisticated machismo can be summoned simply by intoning his moniker (which Ian Fleming claimed he chose because he wanted the most boring name possible), there is no collective experience defining the series’ popularity. “May the Force be with you,” “I am your father” and the surrounding scenes and characters are easily traced back to their respective Star Wars installments, but the Bond films displace cultural memories by incorporating them into the formula. How wildly the film in which the words “Bond – James Bond,” were first heard must differ from person to person!

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It’s this quality, in all likelihood, that has allowed the series to continue as the most enduring film franchise in cinema history to date. With the simple promise of “007” a prospective audience will know exactly what is promised and that the filmmakers have the budget to deliver it with all necessary bombast. It is this branding that has – until recently – made the Bond archetype the unassailable commercial realm of EON films. A change in tone or format may occur to keep it current, but as long as sex, shooting, and exotic locations surround a suave hunk named James Bond for a couple hours, there will be seats filled.

The fact remains, however, that these films are very different and distinguishable from one another. There are 26 major James Bond films: 22 from EON, a one hour television adaptation (Casino Royale, 1954), a Columbia-produced satire (Casino Royale, 1967), and a Connery revival by Warner Bros. (Never Say Never Again, 1983). By their outlandish nature, they are all unique experiences; in some cases entertaining for their ineptitude, and in others for genuinely gripping storytelling. For this retrospective Devan and I will survey the films on such an individual basis, weighing the merits and issues of the craftsmanship of each, mainly on each film’s own terms, but also in context of the series as a whole. Though we’ll be forthright about enjoying Bond’s more batshit moments, we won’t pull any punches and will make clear whether we’re laughing at or with him. We’ll also discuss the theme songs of each film.

One more thing: Though each and every Bond film is hugely problematic sociologically, we won’t be pointing out each and every instance of sexism and unethical violence. Taken solely from that perspective the ideological feminist and pacifist in us would have to condemn the whole franchise outright, so let’s forgive and take it as a given for the time being, shall we?

Right, then. Settle down with your martinis and enjoy the retrospective.

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Devan

It must’ve been 1995 or 1996 that I had my first run-in with the most famous spy in modern history. I was at a family get-together at my cousins’ house. It was loud, there were about fifteen people there (a large number by our Scottish-Canadian standards), and I wasn’t enjoying myself in the least. At some point, I was invited to the basement to check out this one tank scene in this one movie. I’ll never quite forget what I saw: a guy driving a goddamn tank through a goddamn Russian city crushing goddamn Russian police cars. “Holy cow!”, my six-year-old self thought. I was informed that I was watching something called “James Bond”, which turned out to be the name of the rather dapper man at the helm of the aforementioned tank.

And so, after much confusion regarding the name of the movie, as my six-year-old mind was unable to parse out the idea that Goldeneye was merely an entry in a series known as “James Bond”, I was introduced to one of my first ‘grown-up’ cultural phenomena. Since then, thanks in part to the many Bond marathons that have cropped up on television over the years, the series has taken its rightful place as my most guilty of pleasures.

I can’t help feeling, however, that as the years have worn on, I’ve lost touch with the Bondster. Most of the Bond films occupy that hazy place in my memory where they’re inextricably connected to childhood experiences; I remember the fight on the Golden Gate bridge, the bit with the remote-controlled car, the mirror hall sequences, but they’re now more closely tied to episodes in my life than they are to the films themselves.

This retrospective, then, is about much more than simply examining the most profitable film series of all time. It’s a chance for me to revisit an old standby in my life; to laugh at how spotty my judgment undoubtedly was back then; to bring back some good memories, and maybe some bad ones; to reflect on how one cultural phenomenon has shaped my worldview through the years.

That is, if we can get through the Roger Moore era with our sanities intact.


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Jun 16, 2011

Vancouver in Broo-ins.

by Devan Scott
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Camera in hand, I could have turned back. I chose not to.

In my attempts to convey what, exactly, happened in Vancouver on that Wednesday night, I’m tempted to use the old Macbeth quote: “It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. It was, to be sure, most definitely idiotic; a loud, destructive riot about nothing worth rioting over in particular.

It, however, signified a great deal.

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“A few idiots”; “Bandwagon fans”; “They weren’t really Canucks fans”: the most favoured defenses of the city’s self-immolation. Putting aside the obvious fallacies of such an assertion, I find myself at a fundamental disagreement with it; this unrest was, from my vantage point, all but inevitable.

Vancouver is an exceptional place. Numerous surveys rank it as one of the greatest cities on earth. The land is beautiful, the climate is moderate, and, for the most part, we’re filthy rich. And nothing ever happens.

“Aye, there’s the rub”, as some would say. Something very basic is lost in a state of such extreme comfort: reality. Around the world, events are taking place. Egypt, Lybia, Bahrain, Syria, Tunisia, and numerous other nations are undergoing social and political upheavals; over here, nothing. Norm Macdonald expressed it with more eloquence than I ever could hope to: “In Canada, politics are like this: one guy goes ‘I support the building of the bridge’ and then the other guy goes ‘I don’t much care for the bridge.’”

And so, a void is created in our lives. In exchange for an existence not defined by constant suffering and need, we’ve trapped ourselves in what could be accurately characterized as a gilded cage. This self-imposed repression lends itself to all sorts of phenomena that we’re all too aware of; chief among these is celebrity culture, specifically the constant grappling for fame and power inherent in it.

A similar phenomenon fuelled the downtown riots. Even if it wasn’t openly expressed, those who were downtown during game seven most likely had a good idea of what would occur if our city’s team were to lose; many came down to simply be a part of whatever was to transpire, one way or the other. Over one hundred thousand people showed up; such is the pull of the promise of history.

When the final horn blew, numerous people, most of whom lived what are generally considered to be perfectly normal western lives, began to act in profoundly irrational ways. Vancouver’s discontented heart, its underlying Id, was, for once, visible for all to see. Chaos followed.

And many watched. It’s hard not to, when history’s being made. It was a perfect expression of both our society’s aforementioned repressed desires and its voyeuristic tendencies.

And for my part, I cannot go guiltless. I provided an audience to the spectacle. Naturally, I told myself that I was there to document an important event, a cultural touchstone for Vancouver. Whether or not that is true is irrelevant; I stuck around because I, like virtually everyone else still there, could sense a happening. And for a happening-starved society, it was as complete a release as one could ask for. Like a particularly spectacular train wreck, nobody could look away; least of all me.

So let us not ignore the issue by passing off the blame, whether it be to anarchists, out-of-town hooligans, bandwagon “fans”, or bored drunkards. Let this be an opportunity for us, as a city, to confront our discontents and our inner struggles, our pride and our repressed needs.

Or we could just blame the Canucks.

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Mar 27, 2011

"He Is Here Again": Revisiting and Rethinking Bambi

By Will Ross
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Bambi is remembered today for one of the most shocking deaths in cinema history, a moment whose infamy and heartbreak is popularly attributed to it being ostensibly a film “for children”. However, Bambi had been conceived as the successor to Disney’s first feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937) at a time when the studio did not have children at the forefront of its thoughts, and was adopted from a popular Austrian novel aimed squarely at adults. Though production was forestalled until 1939 in order to develop an adaptation that would be palatable for a mass audience, Bambi is undeniably an often grim work, even more so than that most famously grim scene would suggest.

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Today, the film is most fondly remembered in the public consciousness for its first half, which portrays the titular deer in his formative days as a fawn. The bulk of this half is an unashamedly idealized and adorable portrayal of nature as a place of harmonized beauty, where inhabitants co-exist peacefully. In order to portray this world as faithfully as possible, the animators modeled the movements of the animals as close to reality as possible; Disney even brought live animals into the studio, which lead to some objections from his staff. The resulting animation is completely believable and charming, carefully balancing realistic motions and ticks with anthropomorphic gesture (the latter is particularly present in the owl and some of the rabbits). Of course, Bambi is hardly a realistic portrayal of the woods: There isn't an active predator in sight, and the level of interspecies socializing is obviously fantasy. Though this does not negate the film’s blatant environmentalism, it does suggest the realm of human civilization enough to give the film further allegorical underpinnings.

A scene of interspecies diversity and congregation

The original novel by Felix Salten, Bambi, a Life in the Woods, was first published in 1923 in Austria. Given the timing, it’s hardly a stretch to connect the story of a peaceful coexistence ruined by a faceless instigation of violence to the First World War. When Adolf Hitler took power, Salten, a Jew, saw his books banned by the Nazis (who feared their possible pro-Jewish allegorical implications) and immigrated to Switzerland in 1938. Though production of the animated Bambi began a month before the invasion of Poland by Germany, the animators would doubtlessly have had the stirrings of war in mind as they worked on the film, and some moments of Bambi, especially its infernal climax, suggest the holocaust (more on that later). Of course, it would be absurd to claim that Disney and his staff must have known or suspected that such a catastrophe was occurring, but it is safe to say that they knew of Salten’s Judaism and some of the persecution of the time. I leave further conclusions or interpretation to you.

However, before I get too far ahead of myself, I must stress that for the bulk of its 70-minute running time Bambi is immensely joyous; in fact for its first half-hour it is even carefree. The film has no plot to speak of. Instead, it predominantly presents a series of minor events illustrating the formative years of its characters. Besides Bambi, the chief figure in these events is Thumper, a rabbit who plays with and teaches Bambi as he explores his world, and as lighthearted and innocently mischievous a supporting character as Disney’s ever had. Given an excellent vocal performance by four-year-old Peter Behn, he is conspicuously absent from any moments of real danger or conflict, but dominates each of the more whimsical scenes he appears in. These and other early scenes rely on the charm of their vignettes and characters in lieu of overarching conflict.

After the first twenty minutes, Bambi and his mother travel from the woods to the meadow. That, despite a grave warning from Bambi’s mother to never rush onto it in case of danger, is the site of the film’s most idyllic ten minutes, culminating in a majestic shot of a stag standing nobly and listening just within the woods. However, as the shot tracks forward (making breathtaking use of the multiplane camera), the stag notices birds fleeing and crowing overhead, and rushes to warn the others in the meadow. In the first of the film’s genius scenes of fright and panic, the warm, lush colours and compositions previously adorning the characters and backgrounds are quickly changed for expressionistic stylization to heighten the sense of alarm: Characters move rapidly in and out of sunlight, creating a flashing effect; long bands of harsh, yellow light appear on their rims; and Bambi is isolated in the frame as the other deer first vault across the screen and disappear from sight. The effect is distressing.

Confusion and flight from an unnatural menace. Up to this point, the colour red and such pointed right to left motion have been absent from the film.

Bambi is alone, poised above a red, thorny looking patch of grass. The meadow is no longer a safe or innocent place.

With this scene, the film’s villain and chief problem are established, as Bambi’s mother explains to him: “Man,” she pauses here, as if this might be explanation enough, “was in the forest.” Such a statement can be taken as nothing less than an indictment of human violence and needless destruction of peace. One of the film's most overt conceits is that no single person or image is readily identifiable as the villain. Instead, the governing threat is an idea, a reflection of humanity’s evils identified simply as “Man.” That no incarnation of Man is seen on screen adds immeasurably to his fearsomeness, because he is a threat that cannot be directly confronted. The only diegetic indication of Man is the sound of his gunshots and the fear and death of those afflicted by him. This makes it impossible to identify the evils of Man with any given person or figure, though there are those that act on its behalf, specifically the dogs. Though for all the fear created by the limited sounds (gunshots) and forces (dogs) of Man, its most frightening representation exists extra-diegetically, in the haunting three note theme that cues its presence. Indeed, when Bambi’s mother becomes aware of Man’s presence, she seems to be reacting to the music.

That theme is the high point of an exemplary score by Frank Churchill and Edward H. Plumb. Bambi, like other Golden Age Disney films, is heavily scored; scarcely a moment goes by without music. And it’s fitting that this, the last of the four originally scored Golden Age films, would prove the most musically accomplished yet, deftly evoking character and tone, interweaving and reconfiguring themes and arrangements without a moment of purposelessness. Though Plumb was responsible for much of the score, including the Man theme that amounts to its zenith, Churchill, who had worked on all three previous Disney feature scores, was responsible for the composition of the songs, including “Love Is a Song” and “Little April Showers.” That latter song forms the sound in one of the film’s most spectacular scenes, an early one in which light rain falls through the forest leaves while animals take shelter. As the rainfall intensifies into a lightning storm, so too does the music. Throughout, bells and cymbals stand in for the sounds of water drops and lightning. It is perhaps the single greatest fusion of music and animation in the Disney canon – excepting The Band Concert (1935) and, of course, Fantasia (1940) – and would serve as a final career peak for Churchill, who shot and killed himself during the film’s production.

In fact, the production in general was marked by some stress and turmoil. In 1941, when Walt Disney Animation was at the peak of their work on Dumbo (1941) but Bambi was still in production, the animation staff went on strike, citing too little pay for too much work. Partially contributing to this were the studio’s unfortunate financial circumstances: World War II had eliminated much of the European market and the draft had claimed much of the staff. Bambi was the end of the Golden Age of Disney, a streak from 1937 to 1942 when a lack of rules and Walt Disney’s endless artistic ambition and ineptitude as a businessman lead to the finances, talent, and independence to make adventurous animation. The five resultant films stand as titans of design and technical innovation, but after Bambi, the studio’s financial straits and commitment to World War II propaganda would lead to six “package” films that would merely combine technically unchallenging animated shorts into a feature-length product. Bambi was, in this sense, the final Disney film to resist succumbing to animation governed by necessity, and that there were storyboarded sequences cut for budgetary reasons may hint that their audacious survival did not come easily.

That audacity is especially clear in Bambi’s third act, which, I think it’s safe to say, has the most adult depiction of sex and violence in Disney animation history. After the pivotal death scene concludes with its foggy snowfall and paternal realignment, we see a fully-grown Bambi, now a healthy stag. After a brief reintroduction to his forest friends, the film dives headlong into visual euphemism in the “twitterpated” scene: In succession, Bambi and his two companions meet their mates. When kissed, Flower the skunk goes ramrod straight, turns red, and falls over like a block of wood, and Thumper furiously thumps his foot before going blissfully limp. Such frank depiction of sex was not only unheard of in animated films (and still is), but in 1942 was a major aberration from the Hayes Code, which governed the content of all Hollywood films. To thicken the sexual intrigue, the film next provides us with intimations of rape: When Bambi meets his new mate, Faline, another deer suddenly appears and tries to force her away, blocking Bambi. In a clear re-appropriation of animalistic ritual as human rescue, Bambi comes to her aid in a fight scene that is “lit” almost entirely by multi-colored rims of light on the characters. Naturally, Bambi wins the day and Faline’s heart, and, in an ironic piece of foreshadowing, his rival tumbles into a pool of water.

Bambi fights his rival; the faceless violence and watery dismissal presage the devastating climax.

After some frolicking and intimated coitus between the new couple, the film’s climax begins. The content of this climax is so intense and horrific that it should give any parents pause before showing the film to small children; it amounts to no less than a depiction of massacre, and I question the ability of toddlers to comprehend the implications of it. We are shown pheasants hiding in bushes. As the tempo of the Man theme rises, one of them becomes increasingly hysterical. Her insistence that they should fly is greeted with protests by her friends, “Whatever you do, don’t fly!” Eventually she screeches in terror and flies away. Gunshot. A limp bird plummets to the ground, and animals flee in chaos. While the only further visual confirmations of death are clouds of feathers bursting into the frame from off-screen, the pandemonium suggests wholesale slaughter, which is made further likely (though never explicit) by the appearance of the hunting dogs. The dogs are a mindless, howling horde whose purpose is to tear their enemies to shreds. They are a mob, a military force; they are whatever organized system of violence you like, and they seem to multiply in each consecutive shot. Major characters are attacked and even shot, and soon a man-made fire consumes the entire forest. The surviving animals swim to a small islet in the middle of a lake. Wet and tired refugees huddle with each other among other displaced survivors, looking out at their ruined home. I’m sure that at this point you don’t need me to explain the genocidal implications, but this may be the most grisly sequence in Disney’s history. Children may have better remembered the first death of the film (which should be understandable to anyone familiar with it), but adults must shudder at the ominous punctuation of the sequence’s culminating shot, the forest inferno looming over the little islet. Though the final scene shows the ruined forest beginning to recover and suggests the capability of love to endure, the sheer loss of the climax leaves one with a sense of unease. What is gone is gone forever, and Man remains unchallenged and unchanged, just as sure to continue his cycle as the animals are to continue theirs. That Bambi acknowledges the seeming intractability of humanity’s evil while honestly appealing for it to be put to an end is what makes it so mature, so noble. The film creates a hypothetical world of splendor and unleashes humankind’s darkest impulses upon it.

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Mar 26, 2011

Guest Piece: A Guide to the Bolex Camera by Aerlan Barrett

Acquainting one's self to the physical medium of film (as opposed to tape or digital video) can be a confusing and intimidating process. Thankfully, our fellow film student Aerlan Barrett has written what we feel to be a comprehensive and easily understood introduction and guide to using the Bolex camera. Though your particular model or circumstance may be unique, this guide will surely be of help.
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Over View
-The Bolex is a completely mechanical camera, powered by a hand-cranked motor that can run for up to 30 seconds. It uses 16mm film and can be converted to shoot Super 16. It was first manufactured in the 1930s, with new models still being released.

Exposure
-This guide is specifically for understanding the Bolex. However, before you understand the mechanics of the camera, you must understand the mechanics of light and exposure.
A properly exposed image is variable and subjective, something that takes years of practice and creativity to master, but the concepts and basics of exposure are simple. An exposure refers to the amount of light that strikes a piece of film for a period of time, and then leaves an image. If you let the light strike for too long the film becomes white, or overexposed. If it strikes the film for too little time the film stays black, or underexposed. Proper exposure requires the correct amount of light to strike the film for the correct length of time.

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There are 3 primary camera elements that affect the camera’s exposure. Aperture, ISO/ASA, and Shutter Speed. Aperture is the width of the opening of the lens that allows light to enter the camera, which is measured in F-stops. ISO/ASA is the sensitivity of the film to light; higher ISO stocks like 400 or 800 have larger grain/particles that are more sensitive to light. Because it takes less time to expose them, high ISO film is referred to as fast film. Slower film, or film with lower ISO, has smaller particles/grain and takes more light to expose. Finally, shutter speed refers to the length of time that light is allowed to burn its image onto the film. It is measured by fractions of a second. In motion pictures this can typically only be adjusted by going faster, because the camera must photograph at 24fps to create a filmic look. This rule can be broken, however, if you decide to photograph at less than 24fps, allowing a slower shutter speed.

The best analogy for imagining exposure is filling a bathtub with water, the bathtub being your film and the water being light. You need to fill the bathtub up near the very top without overflowing, but while still putting enough water into the tub. The amount of water that can flow in at once is determined by the size of the nozzle that the water comes out of (this is like the aperture on a lens). With a wider nozzle (or smaller F-stop) it allows more water to rush through the pipe (or lens) and into the tub; with a smaller nozzle (or larger F-stop), less water/light will be able to enter into the tub. The length of time you allow the water to pour into the tub influences this as well. If you have a small nozzle (or smaller F-stop), the water must be given more time to fill the tub (like using a longer shutter speed), but if you have a large nozzle you might only need to turn it on for a short period of time (a faster shutter speed.) The ISO/ASA (or sensitivity to light) would be the size of the bathtub. A large bathtub takes longer to fill (like a smaller ISO or slower film), and a smaller bathtub fills much quicker (higher ISO or faster film).

Exposure becomes tricky when you have highly contrasting light in the same frame; a good example of this is shooting from indoors out of a window. In this case there’s often no right answer for exposure because exposing for the bright light outside of the window will make the inside of the room darker (or underexposed) while exposing for the inside of the room will make the windows blown out (or over exposed.) In circumstances like these other factors like filters, gels, and lights become critical to obtaining a desired exposure. Once you master the mechanics of the camera, the settings become much less critical. What becomes more important is the manipulation of light being photographed.

Angular Shutter
-The camera has an angular shutter, which has a number of functions.

It allows the operator to change the shutter speed of each image that is being photographed. Since motion pictures usually must photograph at 24 frames per second (fps), exposure time becomes limited. Unlike still photography, where one could photograph anywhere from 1/5000 of a second to 30 minutes, motion picture (specifically and especially the Bolex’s) shutter speed can only be measured in increments of degrees. This is because in order to mechanically photograph anywhere from 8-64 fps, the mechanism works as a spinning wheel. Every 360 degree rotation of the wheel constitutes one frame. So the rate of rotation changes for the desired number of frames (spins) per second. Therefore, if the camera photographs at 24 fps, then the wheel rotates 24 times. A portion of the wheel is exposed to allow light to touch the film, and exposure is calculated by the degree of circle that is open to allow light in. As you can see above, with a 180 degree shutter half the time the circle is open allowing light to enter. Whereas a 90 degree shutter lets light in for a quarter of the time during its 360 degree rotation on each frame.

These values are measured in degrees because, depending on how many frames per second are being photographed, the shutter speed in seconds changes. For example, a 180-degree shutter at 24 fps has an exposure time of 1/48 of a second, however, a 180-degree shutter at 12 fps is 1/24 and a 180-degree shutter at 48fps has an exposure time of 1/96. As you can see, simply referring to exposure by its seconds value becomes confusing,

When calculating unusual angles, and/or fps, use this formula:
Exposure time (shutter speed) = (1/speed in fps) x (Angle of shutter opening/360)

The Bolex’s Variable shutter allows for the operator to photograph with a variety of exposure lengths, but also allows for the operator to fade to black in camera. This is achieved simply by closing the shutter completely (zero degree shutter) while photographing.


Bolex’s Problem
-Although it has an angular shutter, the Bolex doesn’t actually photograph 1/48th of a second with a 180* shutter (or if the lever on the side was completely up).

This is for a few reasons. The first is because the Bolex doesn’t actually have an exact 180 degree shutter; it is in fact more like a 170 degree shutter. The Bolex is a reflex camera, which means that the viewfinder reflects through a prism an image the goes straight through the lens into the viewfinder.

The principles of reflex photography are best explained with those of still photography, which can then be applied to the Bolex. In still photography, reflex cameras are the most common because while photographing the subject it is best to look through the lens for composition, focus, and depth of field. However, when the film is being exposed to light the still camera’s viewfinder is blocked so no light from the viewfinder clouds the film. When it comes to still photography this is rarely a problem and is only a slight irritation during long exposures.




*if the dotted line is the light entering through the lens from the left, you can see how the viewfinder is seeing a reflection of the light through the lens, but when the shutter opens how the viewfinder is blocked so light isn’t lost.

However with motion picture this would remove the point of the viewfinder, because an image would not be seen if the viewfinder was blocked while every frame is exposed. The solution for the Bolex is to allow for a certain amount of light to be lost through the viewfinder in order to be able to see what is being composed. As a result of the light loss through the viewfinder. the 180 degree shutter, or rather 170 degree, is in effect much closer to 110 degrees.

*As you can see, the Bolex viewfinder is much more complicated, but works off of the same principle.

Besides this loss of a stop of light in speed, viewfinder light loss produces a few other results. The first is that when the aperture of the lens is stopped down and light is reduced, it is also reduced in the viewfinder. This means that darker exposures can be difficult to see through the viewfinder. However, this can be helpful: If you feel like the viewfinder is looking especially dark, check your exposures because there may be something wrong. The other issue with having a reflex viewfinder is that light can leak in through the viewfinder and cloud the film. The solution to this is to either block off the viewfinder with a small lever on the camera, or to make sure your eye doesn’t leave the viewfinder so that no light can get through.

With all of these factors taken into account, a Bolex at 24fps photographs at a shutter speed of 1/80th of a second.

Frames Per Second
-The Bolex can photograph anywhere from 8 fps to 64 fps.

This is effective because it allows the operator to photograph slow motion as well as fast motion. Since a projector will always project the image at 24 fps, filming more or less than 24fps will either compress or expand the action on screen. For example, if one were to photograph 48 frames per second then every second of action would have double the number of photos (frames) taken. When projected at 24 frames per second, the 1 second of action would be prolonged to 2 seconds, making each second appear to occur in slow motion. The opposite is also true: if one were to photograph 12 fps, then project at 24 fps, the 2 seconds of real time would occur in one second of projection, making it appear in fast motion.

When calculating exposure with the Bolex just remember that doubling/halving the Frame rate doubles/halves the amount of light let into the camera. This means that it is as simple as adjusting by a stop of light. If your aperture is 2.8 at 24 fps, then at 48 fps it should equal 2.0 and at 12 fps should equal 4.0. You can also calculate half stops if photographing at 18 fps, or 36 fps.

The easiest way to work is to calculate your exposure always at 1/80th and then adjust from there.

Single frame
-The Bolex is able to photograph a single frame at a time.

This can come in handy for animation or time lapse photography. For example, you can record a frame every 15 minutes throughout the day and on film the sun will rise and set within 4 seconds.

The automatic single frame exposure for the Bolex records it at what would be 12fps. The exposure time, in seconds, is 1/40th.

Note: it is advised to close your viewfinder when photographing single frames since it is not as necessary and risks clouding your film.

Exposing for Angular Shutter
-The same principle as exposing for varying frame rates applies to shutter.

If you desire to photograph at 90 degree shutter, expose it first for 1/80th and then adjust mathematically. If you were to record 5.6 at 180 degree shutter or (1/80 th), then 90 degree shutter or (1/160th) is 4.0.

On the lever the bolex reads ½, and then red. The red line is the 90 degree line (a full stop) and the ½ is the 135 degree line (a half stop).

Multiple Exposures
-Two of the main benefits of the camera are its frame counter and the ability to rewind the camera. This allows you to do multiple exposures.

Practically, it is very simple: You read the frame counter, which is on the top right of the side of the camera, and prepare your shot by spinning it to zero. Shoot your shot. First, make sure to pull your shutter down to zero degrees (or the lever completely down) to make sure you don’t re-expose your film as you rewind it. Write down the number of frames your at on your counter. Turn off the motor (with the lever on the centre of the bolex), initiate the motor, which should do nothing because you’ve turned it off, then insert your rewinder and manually rewind the film back to the zero mark (which should be the beginning of your shot that you set with the counter). Then, photograph your second exposure up to the number of frames you recorded at the end of your first shot.

Multiple exposures, or superimpositions, work by laying one layer of light on top of another. If you were to take two perfectly exposed shots and expose them over the same strip of film, they would combine to make one over exposed image. Because of this, when you make a double exposure you need to photograph each image with half the normal amount of light, so together they make a properly exposed image. Luckily, each stop works to halve or double the amount of light, so all one needs to do is under expose each image by one stop. The simplest way to do this, and the one often suggested, is to instead adjust the shutter to be 90 degrees and simple measure each exposure properly at 1/80th, and then do the multiple exposures.

Other effects

Hand crank
You can also photograph with the hand crank, and not use it just as a rewind effect. You can turn off the motor; pull the trigger and hand crank your film for an early-era movie effect.

Matte box/split screen
You can use a matte box to create a split screen effect with the same principles as a multiple exposure, but instead of layering two full images, block half the frame, photograph at a normal exposure, rewind, and place the screen on the opposite side.

On set check list
Because so much can go wrong here’s a checklist of things to do before every shot. Get someone to remind you of these regardless of whether you know you’ve already done it; you’ll be surprised at what you’ll forget in the heat of the moment and these are the things you must, must check.

1. Aperture
Did you set it for this shot already, or do you still have the old one? Is it set for the right point in the frame? If the light is changing, then do an extra reading right before you do the shot.

2. Focus
Is your eye right? Check to make sure what you want to be in focus is in focus, and check your diopter before shooting/switching cameramen. More importantly, measure! Use measuring tape to measure from the subject of the shot to the line on the camera where it is being photographed, not to the front of the lens (there is an indicator for the correct place to measure to for that reason). Also, check your depth of field with a chart to see how accurate you need to be. Remember that the farther the object is away from the camera the less accurate you need to be with focus, however if they’re close to the camera it is absolutely necessary!

3. Shutter
Is your shutter down? Is it at 90 degrees? One quick way to check is visible in the viewfinder: a pin that will point up when the shutter is completely down. If you see that, fix it! Remember that the lever should always be pointing up. Also remember to lock it by pushing it into the camera so it doesn’t accidentally get bumped down while shooting.

4. FPS
Are you photographing at 24 frames per second? Do you want it to be different? Make sure to check this, especially if you’re shooting slow motion for some of the shoot.

5. Eye on the viewfinder
Make sure your eye doesn’t come off of the viewfinder; one glance off of the finder can cloud and ruin a beautiful shot. Keep light out of that viewfinder.

-Aerlan Barrett

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Jan 9, 2011

The Fall of Man: Nine Lessons From the Life of Devan A.G. Scott, Part Two

by Devan Scott
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If you haven't read it yet, here's Part One. Now, for the thrilling conclusion.

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4. Reflect.

Self-reflection is vital to creative growth; that much I knew. What I couldn’t predict was how quickly it could descend into pointless wheel-spinning. The Twilight Saga Part 3: Eclipse was, more than anything, the demented product of my attempts to break the cycle of self-undercutting and indecision that had crippled my ability to realize my ideas in a post-Fall of Man world.

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5. Know when to stop reflecting.

I came up with dozens of concepts for experimental films over the months following my first screening. All were doomed to failure, as I flatly rejected each idea for various reasons, real or imagined. Self-indulgence. Gimmickry. Gross self-indulgence. Obtuseness. Extreme gross self-indulgence. A few of them even made it to the script stage before being rejected; consigned to my personal vault, only to be pilfered in fifty years when I’ve run out of ideas and desperately need a concept for a quick buck. The most any of them amounted to was a few lines of chicken scratch on a notepad.

I was falling into a self-defeating cycle of the highest order, and I needed an out. So I went back to the root of the problem: The Fall of Man. I did something I had been consciously avoiding for the longest time. I asked my father what his ‘artist’s opinion’ of my film was.

One of the challenges of having an artist of the father is parsing out the two opinions they’ll inevitably have of your work: their opinion as a dad, and their opinion as an artist. When The Fall of Man first screened, I heard the former. I wanted the latter. So I asked for it. What I got was the most insightful piece of criticism I’ve ever received: “It doesn’t feel like it’s yours.”

6. Make it personal.

I had made a film, but it wasn’t my film. It didn’t express anything that I held any convictions about; I had played it safe, and suffered the consequences. Why? I remembered my film in the context of everyone else’s, and saw a blindingly obvious commonality: they were all, mine included, exercises in inscrutability under the guise of experimentalism. I had found my muse: me and my fellow film students.

Eclipse, as yet unnamed, was now to be a satire about the process film students go through in the creation of their works. My own failed ideas would serve as the vehicle. I would shoot them and incorporate them into a work that would serve to undercut each one. But that wasn’t enough. An exercise in pure self-flagellation did not interest me. So I integrated the ideas of my colleague’s previous films into my own. I borrowed elements that I felt were ripe for satire; a clock motif here, a conceited truism scrawled on a surface there. In its own warped way, the film became a communal effort.

7. Have fun.

Filming Eclipse was one of the more joyous experiences of my life. I invited my friend and co-writer Will to take part. I’ve scarcely had a more creatively liberating experience than the twelve hours we spent shooting the required footage. We worked entirely from rough descriptions of each segment; details, shotlists, et al were worked out on the fly. While shooting The Fall of Man, I spent every moment worried about failure. I spent the shoot of Eclipse not caring.

The editing process was both unusual and highly protracted. Editing one experimental short film took time. Editing what amounted to five experimental short films of wildly diverging styles took considerably more time. Tied together by Will’s narration, for which I instructed him to “do an impression of me doing an impression of Woody Allen”, the final product was an unapologetically blunt, confrontational evisceration of myself and my peers.

8. Unforeseen consequences. Prepare for them.

It seems that the initial screening of Eclipse has become a minor tall tale within the Simon Fraser University film student community. I still find myself asked somewhat regularly about what actually happened. “It really caused an uproar, didn’t it?” “I heard they gave a standing ovation.” “Didn’t a brawl break out?”

The screening was undeniably contentious. I was showing a film that, on top of stylistically flying in the face of what was implicitly expected, actively satirized my colleagues and their works. To make matters worse, I incorporated elements of performance art; prior to the film being shown, I scrawled a reference to another element of performance art that had been incorporated into one of my colleague’s films during the previous screening. What happened immediately following the film’s end was something that, while in hindsight inevitable, I had nonetheless utterly failed to predict. Dead silence. Then, at least twenty minutes of heated debate ensued over my film’s intent, its merit, and whether or not I hated everything ever made by anyone.

Despite the notoriety of the initial screening, it is undoubtedly the second screening which for I’ll reserve the fondest place in my memory. The first screening was a private affair that took place in a classroom with a grand total of around 25 attendees; the second took place in a lecture hall, and was attended by far more. I had retooled the performance art aspects of the film to suit the larger venue; a paint-splattered suit, a megaphone, and two overhead projectors were thrown into the equation.

The reaction from those attending this screening was, to understate the matter, different. They laughed. They applauded. Some cheered. In those moments, I felt, for the first time, the immense satisfaction of having created a work of art which had connected, however briefly, with a few people.

9. Failure is sometimes necessary.

I believed The Fall of Man a failure almost as soon as I’d finished it. I consider Eclipse an unqualified personal success; it expressed something I deeply wished to express at the time, and stands as the first time I’ve managed to create a work that is representative of my artistic idiom. This has caused something of a paradox; can the former work be considered a true failure when it directly led to the success of the latter work?

That leads me to my conclusion: if The Fall of Man is a a failure, it must be considered an utterly necessary one. To create a work I was satisfied with, it was crucial for me to experience that failure and the resultant crisis of confidence. For that, I’m thankful for having made The Fall of Man; I would almost certainly be a different person today if I hadn’t.

Note: Segments in which I personally interact with the film have been substituted with intertitles.

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Jan 4, 2011

The Fall of Man: Nine Lessons from the Life of Devan A.G. Scott, Part One

by Devan Scott
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It’s very illuminating looking back on what I’ve always felt was something of a failed experiment later only to realize that, yes, it was a failed experiment after all. The Fall of Man stands as my first and, with any luck, last foray into outrageously obtuse film student experimentalism. However, despite the fact that the piece remains nothing short of an abject failure in my eyes, the creation of The Fall of Man set in motion a very singular chain of events in my life from which I feel I’ve gained what may very well be something resembling wisdom.

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1. Examine your influences.

The thought process that led to the creation of The Fall of Man was, like the finished product, short and exceedingly simple. I had just experienced (“listened to” would be a gross misrepresentation) Lou Reed’s 1975 album Metal Machine Music. It was, as promised, sixty-four minutes of unbearable sonic torture. Though thoroughly shell-shocked, two things about the work greatly impressed me; firstly, sheer guts it took to release such an unbearable piece of sonic torture; and secondly, the incredible ability of the album to evoke such a powerful negative reaction in the listener. I thought to myself: “Hell, I’d like to try that.”

2. Work with your medium, not against it.

When given a reel of film in our first film laboratory of the year, we were encouraged to embrace the physicality of the medium and alter it through whatever means necessary; ink, bleach, tearing, whatever you could think of. I took this to its logical extreme, which meant smashing the film, shredding and re-assembling it, biting it, attempting to burn it. When it was run through the projector, the projector broke after about three seconds. According to various sources, it took a few days before that unfortunate piece of equipment was up and running again.

I had rarely been so inspired; “Oh look, I’ve created autodestructive art! I’ll be Pete Townshend in no time!” Naturally, I had to apply this newfound proclivity for destruction to whatever my next project was. Three weeks later, I shot my first honest-to-god Student Film.

I’ve scarcely had a more frightening experience than the one I had shooting The Fall of Man. Like virtually every other student who had taken a film course in the past decade, I had no experience with film as a medium to speak of past developing black-and-white stills in a makeshift darkroom as a teenager. So I played it safe: no actors, no shots that couldn’t be disposed of if a complete foul-up were to occur, no concrete narrative to speak of.

3. You are going to fail at least once. Accept it.

The premise for The Fall of Man was simple: I wanted to create a film that contrasted pastoral scenes of gritty beauty with unexpectedly painful segments of harsh unpleasantness, both visually and sonically. The film has no other reason for existence other than as a means of manipulating an audience between states of serenity and pain. That, and a whole ton of single-frame edits inserted to the film with the express purpose of causing a possible projector breakdown during the screening. I was laughing in the editing room, but I don’t think I quite understood why. Looking back, I think The Fall of Man can be best described as a fun little joke on the audience; more than anything, the ‘pastoral’ segments strike me as amusing, and the painful segments as mocking.

It was a fun little film to screen. The absurdly loud burst of Metal Machine Music (what else?) at the fifty second mark caused, much to my pleasure, a nice shock in the classroom, and the crescendo at the end had ears all around covered. The film broke the projector, naturally. It was a sight to behold; the bad splices caused the projector’s lens to come flying loose, showering the room with beams of light. After the film unspooled, someone shouted “Goddamnit, Devan! Not again!” It took our local equipment wizard a good three days to fish the film out, legend has it.

Despite my plans to terrorize my fellow first-year students going off without a hitch, it wasn’t all peaches and honey; something about the whole affair didn’t sit right with me.

To be continued in Part Two.

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