Carol Reed - An influence on welles?

[Ecnerwal]

Watching 'Confidential Report' and 'Othello' recently, I noticed that Welles used several tilted shots (ie with the camera angled away from the horizontal) - most notably in the port in 'Confidential Report' and just after Desdemona's murder in 'Othello'. Both these films were made after Carol Reed's 'The Third Man', and I don't remember such shots in his earlier films.

Did Welles pick up this technique from Carol Reed (adapting it of course to use in his own way)? It certainly wasn't the other way round since Reed uses the same technique in earlier films like 'Fallen Idol' and 'Odd Man Out'.

[Cole]

I think I know what you mean. Until Welles moved to Europe, we really don't see any shots where the camera is twisted to the left or right. It's just tilted forward or back to create low angles (mostly) or a few high angle shots. I don't remember any shots tilted from the horizontal line in Othello, but besides the scenes on the docks in Mr. Arkadin you can see shots like that when Van Straten first visits Arkadin and the two are sitting at a table. I haven't read anything indicating that Welles was trying to mimic Reed's style, and I personally doubt that he was. I think the bold cinematography we see in Othello and Mr. Arkadin was primarily the result of Welles' new freedom of action. In the three films he made in the late 40's, Welles cramped his style to produce relatively conventional looking films. When he moved to Europe, his creativity was unleashed and you see the wild, dramatic cinematography that you do in Othello and Mr. Arkadin. If you watch the surviving footage of "Four Men on a Raft," made well before the Reed films mentioned above, you'll see the same dramatic cinematography that you later see in Othello and Mr. Arkadin. I think it was a continuation of Welles' own personal style.

[Sir Bygber Brown]

I think there were many other marvellous elements to Reed's style other than the tilted shot, but they certainly do look great in Third Man. Watching Trapeze the other day, i was struck by what a master he was, and what a great cinematic eye he had. I love the shot looking down at Burt Lancaster from the swinging lamp. That's fantastic! What was incredible about Trapeze was, i was watching the damn thing dubbed in italian without subtitles (and i don't speak italian) and i found it captivating. Now THAT's good storytelling. What impressed me most about it was he took what was a potentially banal premise for a movie (the circus, unless dealt with by Fellini or Chaplin, is not always interesting), including the most cliche of plot tricks, a love triangle - and made a beautiful looking movie.

I'm not sure about Othello, (and haven't seen Arkadin) but i did notice Hitch either paying homage to Reed or just plain using that tilted shot in Strangers on a Train, in THE glasses scene (a f**cking excellent movie from Hitchcock, i think - this one really had me biting my nails, i was really impressed).

[blunted by community]

to dutch or not to dutch. or, who dutched first?

those tilted shots are called dutch angles.

they have been around since the silent days and i think it was the germans that dutched first. maybe that is why they were coined dutch angles.

i remember seeing a carol reed film, THE IDOL, and finding none of the visual brilliance of THE THIRD MAN. will have to check out TRAPEZE.

welles, and the batman tv series raised dutch angles to a high art.

you can almost picture some pompous director that looks like truman capote, "listen, baby, have him come down the mountain, then dutch it, dutch it when he hits botton, ok sweetheart? lets do it!" the director claps his hands and swishes off to the diretor chair.

the cinematographer lumbers off grumbling under his breath, "f*cking f*g."

[Glenn Anders]

Dear Kubed: Thought I had already posted this note.

There seems so much contradictory information about the making of THE THIRD MAN that perhaps it is wise not to make any definitive statements because someone will come up with the opposite from some other source. The term "dutch tilt" is one of the common mistransliterations of "deutch tilt," referring to a camera technique developed by Expressionist cameramen in the 1920's. And so, for Carol Reed, his experience may begin with the German directors and production or art designers, like A.E.Dupont, Alfred Junge, and others, who came to England on the breakup of Ufa in the late 1920's. No one can overestimate the influence of German technicians on European black and white films in the 1920's and 1930's.

As for THE THIRD MAN, in her biographical essay on Carol Reed, Deirdre Feehan says the film was criticized for its cynicism and melodrama, but ". . . Yet the film's eerie Dutch tilts camera work produced the necessary tension and irony of the tale, as it had in Welles' CITIZEN KANE (1941)."

For Welles, we may be back, as he said, to "John Ford, John Ford, John Ford" (and Gregg Toland), if not Erich von Stroheim and Fritz Lang. (I also note that Robert Wise's THE HAUNTING makes significant use of the Dutch tilt or Dutch angle technique.) It comes down, I suppose, not to the camera shot but to how effectively it is used.

I hope that the above information is on the topic and goes to your question.

Glenn

[Cole]

I’ve also read that the Germans were responsible for introducing dramatic low-angle shots to cinema, and I’ve seen a few German films from the 1920’s, but none that used unusual camera angles. If anyone can cite examples of German silent films where that style of cinematography was used, please post. I'd love to see them if I can find them.

[blunted by community]

there is a tremendous documentary about UFA, it shows now and then on TCM, i think it's called, CINE EUROPE? it shows you clips of the most cutting edge silent films that came from the german silent era.

you will find oblique, dutch angles in MAD LOVE, early 30s?, directed by karl freund. or is it fruend? karl is a german but i don't know if he worked in germany. that style in only 1 or 2 scenes in MAD LOVE, and the lighting in freund's THE MUMMY, they call german expressionist ifluenced.

[blunted by community]

also considered expressionist influenced are STANGER ON THE THIRD FLOOR, BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, and a bunch more i can't remember.

[blunted by community]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115134/

here is a link to the cine europe documentary. imdb gave it 8.9 out of 10

it's a brownlow documentary. kind of hard to go wrong with brownlow

[Ecnerwal]

I'm pretty sure there are some dutch angles in Lang's Metropolis, and maybe in M as well. A lot of the more extreme expressionist films (Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) feel as if they use dutch angles because of the non-realistic sets, with sloping floors and angled walls.

Dovzhenko, a lyrical Russian director of the 20s and 30s, uses dutch angles quite frequently, notably in Arsenal, though not nearly to the extent of Reed. Also in more recent films, Danny Boyle uses dutch angles very effectively.

[Harvey Chartrand]

Maybe they should call it the "French tilt" because Louis Feuillade and Abel Gance were doing this kind of thing back in 1915-16 (see Judex and La Folie du Dr Tube).

Of course, in the current political climate, I guess you'd probably call that a "Freedom tilt" nowadays.

[blunted by community]

glenn, THE HAUNTING was made in 1963, how does that relate?

i have 5 or 6 von stroheim films, and i can't specifically remember any dutch angles, and i can't remember any dutch angles in M, but i was not searching for them.

abel gance was a great director and did stuff in NAPOLEON that no one was doing. i think if the germans got it from gance, the americans probably got it from the UFA guys that came to hollywood (lang, murnau, lubitch).

[Glenn Anders]

Yes, Blunted, you are right about Karl Freund. It is a valuable contribution. As I think you must know, he was the cinematographer on Murnau's THE LAST LAUGH (1924), Lang's METROPOLIS (1926), and Dupont's VARIETY (1926), three of the most innovative German Expressionist films ever made. Wherever Freund got the "Dutch Tilts," he brought them to Hollywood, as you point out, in THE MUMMY (1931). Not to be slavishly schematic, but the line goes to Gregg Toland, who was his photographer on MAD LOVE (1935). And then, we are back at Ford and Welles.

I mention THE HAUNTING, Blunted, to suggest that Robert Wise, years earlier, might have concurred with Toland in advising Welles on CITIZEN KANE.

Glenn

[blunted by community]

" I mention THE HAUNTING, Blunted, to suggest that Robert Wise, years earlier, might have concurred with Toland in advising Welles on CITIZEN KANE."

wise was an assistant editor on kane in 1941, and used the angle in 1963. that's a long stretch, glenn.

[blunted by community]

i was not aware of freund's german work. i became a fan of his when i discovered THE MUMMY, and KEY LARGO.