Focalization, Narration and Perspective in Cinema

 

Focalization is the perspective through which a narrative is presented. The style of focalization produces different styles of narrative and different conceptions of character. Hitchcock’s use of focalization ensured a sense of suspense and drama was produced. Hitchcock explained that a ‘Superior range of knowledge creates suspense [the essence of drama] because we can anticipate effects that the character cannot.’¹ Essentially this is dramatic irony. Suspense and drama is produced when the audience knows the outcome or some alternative knowledge concerning the action on the screen. The perspective through which narrative is presented is important in the production of this superior range of knowledge. In the film Psycho (1960) when Lila is upstairs searching we are allowed the knowledge that Bates is downstairs. Lila doesn’t know this but we do. We hold our breath hoping that Lila gets out in time and every slow movement that Lila makes intensifies this panic. Hitchcock uses a objective, distant perspective to produce suspense and drama.

The range of knowledge and information we receive concerning that which affects the characters of a film is controlled by the type of narration and the style of focalization. In The Big Sleep (1946) we are given a fixed viewing position. An objective and closed-off focus on the protagonist Marlowe. We don’t get the same form of suspense as in Hitchcock’s Psycho because we never see more than Marlowe. We also rarely let into his thoughts or rationalizations. This can be explained by the attempt to make the film and Marlowe ‘more mysterious …[and interesting because] we do not know his inferences and deductions before he reveals them at the end.’² However I personally believe this is the incorrect style for the film. I would assert that the The Big Sleep‘s style is incorrect because Chandler’s book and his Marlowe is interesting because of his continuously rationalizing and editorializing narrative.

Another similar film but one with a different style to The Big Sleep is Double Indemnity (1944). In this film we are given both the objective distance of The Big Sleep and a subjective style of focalization. We are also allowed the position of knowledge that Hitchcock utilized in Psycho. The beginning of the film we see a stumbling shot Walter Neff, we are given important information concerning his fate. The film proceeds by telling us how Neff comes to be shot through the technique of analepsis (flashback). What this does is create a marked reading of the events that follow. Our understanding of the chain of events that led to Neff’s destruction are coloured by our privileged position of knowledge. Although I dislike the production of The Big Sleep and its style of focalization it is not because the technique is flawed but rather because the style of the original text, Chandler’s novel, would lead itself to be more subjective and to contain the same style of rationalizing focalizer or voice of the novel.

 

1David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction, London: McGraw-Hill Publishing, (1990), p. 66.

2David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction, p. 67.

Clint Eastwood on Dirty Harry

This is an excerpt from an interview with Clint Eastwood, this concerns what he thought about Dirty Harry. I thought it was interesting that he wanted to communicate that Dirty Harry was not political. The introduction question seems to be a bit leading however that is the nature of the beast concerning interviews.

Gentry: All that business years ago, about Harry being a right winger or a neofascist, as some critics said, it seems to me that they were failing to see Harry in the larger context, this pattern where conventional references for morality is rather obscured.

Eastwood : Well, yeah, there were no conservative over- tones. Actually, it was just critical people who took everything in political terms at that time. We weren’t telling a conservative story. We were just doing a story that involved victims, victims of violent crime. Harry asks the authorities, How come you let the guy go? And they say, Because that’s the law. And Harry answers, Then the law is wrong. That doesn’t mean you’re a fascist. If fascism is blind obedience to authority, then Harry was really the opposite of fascist. He differs with the law in this case. And a lot of people differ with the law, have questions about it. We read about decisions every day that make us ask, How could they do that? There must be some kind of balance there where you can pre- vent a psychopath from going back out on the street and potentially committing another violent crime, which in the story he does. The times have caught up with Harry to an extent. Nowadays there’re organizations for the victims and the families of victims of violent crime. But in those days, when Dirty Harry was first released in theatres, there wasn’t any of that. The tendency was to look at it in terms of the rights of the accused, Miranda and all that. We were merely suggesting that this was a case, an extreme case, where no one was taking the victim into consideration, and there was a serious time factor pertaining to her survival. I don’t think anybody really believes a police officer would go that far for somebody in trouble. I mean, that’s kind of going overboard. Most of the time you figure, Well, you’re off the case. It’s closed. But here was this guy who lived alone and was obsessed with following it through. That was the romance, I think, be- cause who believes there’s some guy out there with that kind of tenacity? I don’t know necessarily agree with Dirty Harry’s philosophy all the way down the line. I don’t disagree with the importance of rights for the accused, either. But we were telling a story, an incident in one man’s life. It was a story worth telling. But that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t turn around and do a story about someone who’s been falsely accused or something.1

 

 

1. Ric Gentry, ‘Clint Eastwood: An Interview’, Film Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Spring, 1989), pp. 12-23. p. 23.