When I say a film is poetic,[br]what pops into your head?

Do you think it's slow?[br]Pretentious? Plotless?

"Is she gonna wake up and do something?"

These are the clichés.[br]-"No."

But to me, poetry in cinema is when[br]I can ignore the plot

and just appreciate the picture and[br]the sound doing something unique.

Scorsese: "The films that I constantly[br]revisited or saw repeatedly...

...held up longer for me over the years[br]not because of plot...

...but because of character...

and a very different approach to story."

"The Wrong Man, for example. I talked[br]about the paranoid camera moves

the feelings of threat, the fear,[br]the anxiety, the paranoia

it’s all done through the camera[br]and the person’s face."

-"It is the same."

Lynne Ramsay’s work[br]has this same quality.

Everything is conveyed through the[br]camera, the person’s face & the details

"Some things I shoot are very controlled[br]I know exactly why I want them...

...I will spend ages to get that exactly[br]right and it’s because for me...

...the details in that are saying[br]everything about the scene."

But what can we learn from a detail?

Here’s an example. In this scene, a son[br]taunts his mother by misbehaving

just before his father…

-"Hey guys."

-"Hey dad, how was work?[br]Take any cool pictures?"

Notice that the father is placed[br]just on the edge of the frame,

because while he’s around,[br]he doesn’t really pay attention.

Later on,[br]when he tries to ignore her fears

-"He’s a sweet little boy.[br]That’s what boys do."

We still don't see his face.[br]Instead, we get this shot.

What does this detail tell us? Literally[br]they haven’t cleaned up the mess

and it's gotten worse.[br]But what about metaphorically?

What does this say about[br]them and their son?

What’s interesting about[br]Lynne Ramsay’s work

is that the entire story is implied[br]through these detail shots.

And she doesn’t get this effect[br]by putting lots of stuff in the frame

but by taking things out, so that[br]you focus on one detail at a time.

"I think that Robert Bresson had a[br]really good quote about that...

It was something like...

'When the image is doing everything,[br]don’t have any sound.'

“And when the sound’s doing everything,[br]don’t have any image."

I mean, don’t do something[br]too fancy with image."

This is one thing film is great at:[br]evoking a state of mind

purely through image and sound.

When you work like this[br]everything depends

on the framing, the person’s face,[br]and the repetition of details.

So let's go one by one.[br]First, the framing.

Ramsay often frames so that important[br]information is cut off from the viewer.

Notice here,[br]we never see the woman’s eyes.

Meanwhile here, we have a character[br]who’s literally cut in half by a door.

In all of these shots,[br]you can guess what someone is feeling

but the frame doesn’t let you[br]see them in full.

"There's no place like home.[br]No place like home."

So as an audience, you’re never told[br]what to feel about these people.

There’s something mysterious about them.

Which brings us to #2: faces.

I don’t know why, but some people just[br]look right when you put them onscreen.

Even when they aren’t professionals.

In most of her work, Ramsay mixes[br]professional and non-professional actors

until the two are indistinguishable.

"The best actors for me are the people[br]who are like non-professional actors...

...You can’t tell where the film[br]ends or begins...

...As if they were the same offscreen.[br]They just feel real."

And she picks people who can convey[br]what’s going on inside their head

without any dialogue.

"He's the double of my Ryan, innit he?[br]The same eyes."

And #3, there’s[br]the repetition of certain details.

When you’re watching one of these films,[br]pay attention how & when images repeat

For instance, notice how mother and son[br]imitate each other’s body language.

And in the next shot, they do the[br]exact same thing, ten years later.

At one point, the son[br]does this with his fingernails

While later in the film, his mother[br]does the same thing with eggshells.

A more conventional film might[br]explain the meaning of this

but here, all we get is one image.[br]And then another.

And we have to work out[br]the connection for ourselves.

So let’s consider all this over[br]the course of a single short film.

This is Gasman, made in 1997.

I’m not going to tell you the[br]big plot point. I’m just going to show

some details from before and after.[br]See if you can guess what’s happening.

"Gonna lift me up, daddy?"

At the beginning of the film, Lynne and[br]her father meet a girl on the tracks.

A girl she doesn't know.

Before the event, they bond over[br]her dress and hold hands.

Notice this shot chops off their heads.

After the event, we see them[br]holding hands again, but this time...

-"What’s the matter?"[br]-"She’s hurting me."

To appease them, Lynne’s father[br]picks them up and does this.

Which mirrors the beginning of the film,[br]when he did the same with just Lynne.

At the end, the other girl[br]rejoins her mother.

And we’re left on the tracks,[br]watching the back of Lynne’s head.

Can you infer what’s going on?

What if I showed you this?

Get it now?

A film like this is basically a before[br]and after portrait of one kid’s mind

presented through parallel images[br]and situations.

In other words, it’s indirect.[br]Poetic filmmaking.

It might not hit you while you watch it[br]but it can linger long afterwards.

-"So then what you're saying,[br]it's the eye that's going to captivate-"

-"The vision, the vision that he puts[br]on the film, which I… the vision...

meaning the actual picture in the frame[br]and what he puts in the film."

-"Which is, I imagine,[br]the way a painter would...

...in terms of his aesthetic."[br]-"Exactly."

-"Ow!"

-"For God's sake,[br]look at the state of my curtain."

-"Because it opens up every possibility[br]for sound, for sight, for form."

Exactly.[br]There aren’t many films like this

and they teach us a very[br]different way of making movies.

Instead of going big, they go small.

They focus on details.

They show us less instead of more.

And through simplicity,[br]they find poetry.

And if anybody ever asks you[br]what poetry means…

I don’t know, make something up.

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