Скачать или смотреть Hal Ashby and the Long Shot - Take One

(This is the first of two takes on this project. See Take Two here:    • Hal Ashby and the Long Shot - Take Two  )

I've long been fascinated by the way Hal Ashby's films often use the long shot during moments of emotional intensity, when another filmmaker may have gone with a closeup (I cover this briefly in my book on Ashby). I thought I'd put together a video essay on the topic, and ended up with two fairly different takes.

Take One is without voiceover. I’ve already made a few such video essays, so I thought it would be “easier.” I assembled clips that I’d written about before and cut them together in a way that seemed to flow best. For a frame, I thought I’d use something Ashby said in an interview near the end of his career. When he’s asked about the influence of director William Wyler, one of his first mentors, on his own career, he mentions a particular long shot from The Best Years of Our Lives. I remember first coming across this interview in the Ashby archives in LA and being really pleased because it seemed to imply that Ashby had been thinking about the power of the long shot since early in his career.

I ended up intercutting text of the quotation with the shot itself. I’m not sure how effective it is – it might be too long an intro – but Ashby’s right that it’s a powerful shot.

The other decision I made that affected Take One was the music. I considered using something upbeat, some rock – after all, Ashby’s films are loaded with ‘60s and ‘70s rock music. But even the folkier rock I tried didn’t seem to fit. In the end, I went with Johnny Mandel’s sparse piano theme from Being There, which seemed like a restrained, but elegant piece that might reinforce the power of the shots. This created a few restraints. The major one being the music lasts just a little over two minutes, and I had about three and a half minutes of clips. This provided a fantastic opportunity to practice “trimming the fat,” and really paring each clip down to its essential few moments.

The second, less vital restraint comes from the way Mandel’s piece, as short and reserved as it is, includes a few moments of more dramatic intensity. I spent more time than I probably should have trying to get these moments to correspond with what was happening on screen.

In the end, while I’m not sure how well Take One conveys what I find so intriguing about Ashby’s use of the long shot, it’s a short, reflective piece that, at the least, is nice to look at.