I've recently been looking into making a Snorricam for use in my final year film and before doing so I thought it would be a good idea to look at some examples of its use in contemporary cinema. My aim for this being to examine the use of the device in context with the scene it was used in. Also I would like to deconstruct how the device influences the mise-en-scene of a scene and in particular what message this sends to the audience.
The first example I have chosen is from the 1973 Martin Scorsese film Mean Streets. In this scene, Charlie, played by a young Harvey Keitel has been heavily drinking with the effects of which beginning to show. However Scorsese doesn't opt for showing Charlie in a wider shot, instead he stays in close up in the characters personnel space. Also in playing close attention to the performance you notice that Harvey Keitel isn't trying to over play the fact that his character is drunk, in fact he is underplaying this as someone who was really drunk would.
Michael Kane addresses this idea in an interview I watched recently:
In this clip he discusses coming into a role as a young actor to play a drunk man where he began his performance in which he was slurring his words. He was then stopped when one of the producers asked what he was doing? He replied by saying he was acting drunk to which the producer retorted that he was an actor trying to walk crocked and speak slurred, whereas a drunk is a man trying to walk straight and talk properly. Scorsese realizes this and instead uses the Snorricam to highlight how Keitel's character is really feeling inside as opposed to the way he is trying to appear on the outside. By using the Snorricam for this sequence Scorsese is able to manipulate the mise-en-scene, and with the use of the song Rubber Biscuit by The Chips he fever extenuates the feeling of unease in the characters mind.
In this second clip from Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, Marion played by Jennifer Connelly has just had sex for money in order to feed her heroin addiction. After this she feels very uncomfortable and is uneasy to her surroundings. Marion has also not had her regular fix that in itself would cause paranoia. In the use of close up and a very wide angle lens Aronofsky has created a large depth of field, which gives the appearance of there being never ending hallways. Although they still appear to be rather narrow it gives a really strong felling of claustrophobia throughout the sequence. This only heightens as she enters an elevator already occupied by two men, giving the viewer an uncomfortable feeling as though these men surround us to. With the Snorricam in use being intercut from both in front and from behind. We are forced as an audience to engage with both the closed confinement of the lift doors and the disparaging stares from the men behind her. We are relieved as the doors open, with Marion anxiously rushing out of the doors and exiting the building. It is as though all of her emotions are suddenly coming to a front, as though they are about to explode. To which as she turns to leave the building she is unable to retain her emotions and shame culminating in her vomiting.
Lastly is a more lighthearted example of the Snorricam in use. The following is a short comic film directed by Patrick Eggert in what starts out in a dream like desert landscape. A young man is lay there alone as he slowly wakes in a Snorricam shot. Standing dazed he slowly begins to look around. But as he walks forward we see the surreal sight of a gorilla swinging a golf club around in the distance as though it were on a driving range. The music continues with an air of eastern mysticism, until the still dazed man spots the Gorilla in the background. As he does so the music stops, as though the orchestra saw what was happening and like the actor did a double take. Its at this moment the man runs away which causes the music to change to a banjo playing what can only be described as redneck getaway music.
With this example we see a more postmodern surreal take on the Snorricam. Through previous examples we have seen how the device is often used in dramas to bring the audience into the emotions of a character in a time of strain. The film begins by playing on this pre-known information of the Snorricam and gradually progresses into the complete opposite of the stylized realism of the previous examples. Instead it suddenly transforms into a surreal comedy.
Concluding I must note that one of the key components that repeatedly cropped up in the following examples was the use of emotional presentation. By using a Snorricam shot the director can bring the audience into the face of an actor and unlike a tripod close up we are able to travel with the actor though out different stages of an actors movement. Whereas the tripod close-up can capture a section or a part of a static sequence the Snorricam allows the audience to travel with a character thorough out a moment even to the extent as to which the audience feels as though they are in that moment themselves.
In Mean Streets we feel the atmosphere, the mise-en-scene of Charlie drunkenly maneuvering through the bar. In Requiem for a Dream we feel the self-conscious anxieties and paranoia of the long overdrawn corridors. We feel the nausea, we feel the sickness, we feel as the character feels and that I believe is the true reason of use for a Snorricam. As it allows the director to manipulate an audience into a position of anxiousness similar to that of the character portrayed on screen.
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