Comfort in Solitude (my film)- https://youtu.be/_iS2nkoCBvI
Antonioni, Michelangelo- La Notte (1961)
The massing of tall, unfamiliar buildings in the city.
Use of perspective: Scene on left focuses on a huge, plain white building and the main character walking across in the corner while scene on right follows the main character's point of view by panning the camera upwards to where she is looking at- This places emphasis on how tall the buildings around her are and how she is almost engulfed by the surrounding buildings around her.
The loneliness experienced while walking through the streets of the city.
Use of space: The scene brings the viewer's attention to the background despite facing the foreground, where the reflection off the window depicts the main character walking through the empty city streets. This technique highlights the lack of people everywhere around her, almost as if the place had been abandoned, giving the scene a lonely atmosphere as the main character walks through the city.
Use of sound: The scenes do not have any background music and contains raw sounds from the scene itself. It is quiet and we are only able to hear the footsteps of the character walking. The purposeful omitting of any music highlights the silence in the city and shows how there is nobody around the city other than the main character.
Following of the character from behind: Rather than conventionally showing the character in front, Antonioni chooses to focus on showing scenes of the character walking away from the character from behind her. This unconventional method of filming is effective in showing the empty streets the character is walking in and also how there is nobody around her, both in front and behind.
Understanding the scene from different perspectives.
Use of perspective: The scene first shows us the character, before showing us the scene from the point of view of the character. Antonioni uses this technique to show us different perspectives of the same scene through different angles throughout the movie. This technique allows us to understand how there are different elements that make up the whole story, instead of just focusing on one perspective.
A night of encounters wandering in the streets.
Wandering- Travelling aimlessly from place to place
Encounters- An unexpected or casual meeting with someone or something
Use of perspective: Showing of different angles in the same space. I first show the close up of the water in the river before showing a zoomed out perspective of the same area, where it depicts a completely different atmosphere. I wanted to convey the serene feeling before showing how there is no one around, to try to ease the viewers into the feeling of loneliness.
Following of a shadow: I chose to insert scenes of a shadow walking in front or past the camera angle instead of a real person, to try to encapsulate the light, airy feeling of wandering around aimlessly. I decided not to add an actual person as I wanted the focus to be on the mostly empty scenes of the city, rather than how the person looked or walked.
Use of perspective: In order to create the effect of the main character standing near the river without directly showing him standing there, I decided to take the reflection of him to still create the desired mysterious effect of the "main character" that we see throughout the film. I split the focus between the reflection of the character and what he is looking at, so viewers can see where the character standing, whilst being able to understand that I am showing them what the character is looking at.
Use of perspective: Following Antonioni's method of aiming the camera to show perspective of the main character, since I decided to not follow an actual person for my video, I panned the camera myself to make it seem as if we are looking up. This also effectively shows how large the buildings in front of us are, which is what I wanted to show at the start of the video.
Conveying of time: I used the reflection of the city in the water to show the passing of time. I placed an emphasis on showing how the time passed by from day to night to depict how things progressed around me but I was still wandering around aimlessly in the city. The water is an effective medium to show this progress and creates a reflective atmosphere while still showing how time passed by around me.
Overall, I attempted to create a piece that feels lonely in a city with huge buildings, emulating the concept shown in "La Notte", while portraying it so that viewers get the feeling of loneliness, nostalgia and perhaps even comfort all at once. Through the deliberate use of certain techniques, such as sound and perspective, I wanted to exaggerate the feeling of solitude that the character feels while wandering around the streets of the city.
ESSAY:
Michelangelo Antonioni was an Italian film director who is recognized for his use of architecture and landscape to convey a message or mood in his films. He is known for his focus on “character’s perception and the thought it provokes” (Haaland, 2013) using his filming of architectural spaces.
“La Notte” is a movie depicting the progression of a couple’s relationship that was falling apart, with the main character, Lidia, being the only one who seemed aware of their failing relationship, leaving her partner oblivious. I focused on a part of the movie where I felt was paramount to the story as it depicts the main character’s inner conflict and feelings while she wanders through the city. Antonioni often films the character walking away from the camera, allowing us to see the emptiness of the city around her. This scene continues for around twenty minutes, where he captures Lidia walking down the empty streets from different perspectives that shows how she is a tiny speck walking between these huge buildings surrounding her, exaggerating her feeling of loneliness and solitude in the movie. There is also purposeful omission of any soundtrack in this scene, her footsteps being the only thing we can hear, allowing us to understand how truly alone she is walking through the deserted streets of the city.
I used Antonioni’s techniques to create my film, where I aimed to convey a similar feeling of solitude and nostalgia that one might feel while walking through the city especially because of Covid. Instead of filming an actual person, I chose to film the shadow of a person. Like Antonioni, I filmed the shadow of the person wandering through the streets where I briefly show the shadow “walking forward” where he is always shown alone. I also used different camera angles to capture the shadow, such as through the reflection off a seat. I felt like the use of the shadow to represent the main character was an apt way to create the feeling of loneliness, because of the versatility of the mysterious grey shadow and how the shadow is a weightless medium to truly capture the idea of wandering through the city. I experimented with the use of sound in my film where I tried to capture the ambient sound around me, such as bird noises and church bells instead of adding in any music to create a nostalgic feeling and a more immersive experience.
Using Antonioni’s techniques and through my own experimentation, I attempted to create a video that conveys the feeling of wandering about in the city yet feeling lonely. I also wanted to create this sense of odd nostalgia for what has been, despite being in an unfamiliar space.
Reference list:
HAALAND, T. (2013). "Flânerie", Spatial Practices and Nomadic Thought in Antonioni's "La notte". Italica, 90(4), 596-619. Retrieved July 12, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24368405
