Everyone knows the worst part of Episode III—the part where Darth Vader goes "Noooooo....!" This egregious use of a cinematic cliche only makes sense if you understand George Lucas' thinking. Coming from that modernist abstract-film-as-visual-music mentality, Lucas thinks of his films as musical structures. And as musical structures, there are repeats and refrains. So the "Nooooo...." in Ep. III echoes the "Nooooo...." in the other films (I forget where they were... wasn't there one in Episode V?)
Coming from a similar abstract visual mentality I find myself unconsciously thinking about our film in the same way. There are three discreet sections in the film. Each has repeating pattern—Ben makes a statement, the statement is heard/observed, the statement is answered with an aggressive response. Each of these statements occurs in a scene...
Statement 1: The workshop : Ben views crystals; the 'invisible hand' breaks the spinner
Statement 2: The laundry room : Ben pursues research about the spinner; a "warning shot" is fired
Statement 3: The red room : Ben decodes the message; the death sentence is triggered
The problem I've been writing about every time you see "v.4" in a post title, is how do we get statement 2, the laundry room scene to work? I've been thinking that maybe part of the problem is linking scenes to structure. In other words, I think the statement/response pattern is important to the film, but linking this structure to specific scenes is not. Maybe the problem isn't with the laundry room scene. Maybe it's the way it links to the desert scene. It might work to put the warning shot—whether it be a bird or whatever—in the desert. Maybe something happens to Ben's camera (that he uses to take a photo of the shrine interior). Maybe a bird whacks him in the head in the desert or whacks his car in the windshield. It's less clean structurally this way. Ben makes his statement (visiting the shrine) then the response occurs —a warning shot is fired. But instead of ending here, we go on to the clue-build in the laundry room. All of the other segments end with the response. That's the thing about the Star Wars films. Lucas generally goes for the cleaner structure, but I wonder if following your structure too religiously gets you into problems? Right about here, Ben and Erik are reading this and going "Nooooooo......" not another trip to the desert..." (This is just hypothetical you guys.)
Let's say that we did want to have a bird attack "warning shot" scene in the desert. How might that work? Pop in The Birds DVD. The first bird attack occurs when Tippi Hedrin is in the boat and the bird whacks her on the side of the head: Long build of Hedrin and Rod Taylor about to rendevouz. Hedrin is in the boat eye-flirting with Rod Taylor on the dock. Medium shot of a bird coming toward us (Hedrin POV). Shot of bird whacking Hedrin in the forehead, her hand covers her head reflexively. Bird flying away. Taylor on the dock wide leaps to attention. Medium of Hedrin looking at her hand with confusion. CU: hand with blood on finger. Taylor jumping down from dock.
It's always interesting to see how much information you need to make a scene comprehensible. It makes me recall the little bit I know about animation—that anticipation enables you to see things that occur too quickly otherwise. In my memory, the attack occurs in just one shot. In actuality, it's three—bird coming, bird hits, bird flies away. Without the shots bracketing the attack, there is probably not enough information to let the audience know what is going on. What makes the attack more surprising is the way it punctuates Taylor and Hedrin's meeting. We spend a long time building up this meeting and Hedrin is concentrating on Taylor at the moment of the attack which gives us the feeling that the bird comes out of nowhere.
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