See-through films

Most people remember Peter Yates’ 1968 film Bullitt for its famous San Francisco car chase that wrecked two Dodge Chargers and one Mustang, and thoroughly banged up another Mustang.

I remember it for shots through things.

The film begins with: a reflection in a car’s rearview mirror, a reflection in a light fixture, a shot through the window of a store, a guy peering from behind a TV, a crime happening behind a smoke bomb...You get the (obscured) picture.

By shooting much of the movie through obstructions, Yates and well-known cinematographer William A. Fraker (who also did Rosemary’s Baby and other stylishly photographed films) create an atmosphere where nothing is obvious, truth is elusive, and motivations are murky.

One thing I really like about Bullitt is how it prominently features a black brain surgeon. Blacks rarely appeared as professionals in 1960s American TV shows and films. The other thing I like, of course, is Steve McQueen.

The absolute queen and king of see-through movies are New Zealand director Jane Campion (now lives in Australia) and her British-born cinematographer, Stuart Dryburgh (director of photography for HBO’s TV series Sex and the City as well as many movies). Their collaboration on The Piano (1993) produced the most twisted, viny, muddy, murky, watery movie ever.

Everything is seen through stuff, lots of stuff.

An initial shot looks at the world through a girl’s intertwined fingers and the next looks back through her fingers to her eyes. The two shots introduce the movie’s theme: the relationship between people’s hidden thoughts and the observable, but obscured, environment.

From then on the movie’s characters carry on behind objects, windows, trees, vines, other people, tents, rain, curtains, and tightly controlled emotional facades. A church entertainment features a shadow play where actions are not what they seem. The lead character, Ada (Holly Hunter), refuses to speak and uses sign language to communicate. She wears restrictive clothing and her hair is twisted into tightly-braided knots. As she and her daughter travel from Scotland to New Zealand, we view their travel from the bottom of the boat, underwater.

These shots produce a feeling of claustrophobic entrapment as Ada suffers through an arranged marriage to an unknown man, Alistair Stewart (Sam Neill), in a strange land. She plays the piano and peels off her clothing as she discovers passion with George Baines (Harvey Keitel), a white-man-gone-native-Maori. Alistair watches Ada’s infidelity through a room’s floorboards.

The makers of Bullitt and The Piano may have been influenced by one of the earliest “talking” movies, The Blue Angel (1930).

German-American director Josef von Sternberg and his accomplished German cinematographer Gunther Rittau didn’t shoot their characters through things but, rather, enveloped them in shadows, nets, curtains, smoke, people, furniture, and stuff hanging from ceilings. These devices emphasize how Professor Immanuel Rath (Emil Jannings) gets trapped by nightclub singer Lola (Marlene Dietrich).

Rath searches for the Blue Angel nightclub through twisting, shadowy, narrow little lanes while ships blow their fog horns. He enters the club and immediately is ensnared by nets hanging from the ceiling. He makes his way through various obstructions and soon is caught in a floodlight directed by Lola.

An authoritarian man used to controlling students and servants, Rath marries Lola with an expectation of order. On their wedding night she undresses behind curtains, only popping her head out now and then, an indication that she cannot be fully known or possessed.

During the next few years Lola becomes increasingly attractive while the Professor deteriorates into a dirty, drunk old man. While he is playing a clown in front of his former students, he sees Lola and her new lover kissing behind a curtain. At the film’s end she masterfully belts out her theme song “Falling in Love Again” and flaunts her legs, partially covered by sheer stockings, while the Professor dies clutching the desk in his old classroom.

The Blue Angel launched Marlene Dietrich’s career and is a Top 100 film. It is available through the Deschutes County Library or you can rent it online from outfits like Netflix. Be sure to watch the subtitled German disk. The shorter English language version is ruined by incoherent accents and incomprehensible scenes.