Swedish master director and screenwriter Ingmar Bergman is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. In 1953 he directed "Summer with Monika" (Sommaren med Monika) and gave a lesson (as he often did) on how to shoot a scene.
In this video essay we'll analyze a short scene from the film to understand what's so special about it. Basically, it's a perfect example of three principles of composition in film: blocking, camera movement and camera angle.
Blocking: actors move constantly in the scene, to the left, to the right, forward and backward. Protagonist Harry has a vague task to perform and it involves moving up and down repeatedly. Everything the actors do helps to keep the scene dynamic and visually interesting.
Camera movement: the steady camera only moves to follow characters. If we need to look at an actor who is offsceen, Bergman makes the camera follow a character who is moving to that part of the set. This is unobtrusive camerawork at its best.
Camera angle: there are two or three distinct angles (a couple very similar) and all of them show a great deal of the set and give the actors room to move around and position themselves in perfectly visible ways that make use of the screen's height, width and depth. Also, every element shown onscreen (a door, a window, glasses) is used at one point or another, revealing that all visual elements were planned from the start.
Every single detail about how this scene is shot is right. And this is just one shot out of many in this movie, which is just one movie out of many in Bergman’s career.
This is how classical directors were masters of staging and framing. Something you seldom see today.
#videoessay #ingmarbergman #directing #framing #blocking #filmmaking