Edit: here’s the link to the video.
I watched the French film Tell No One via Netflix this past summer and was enraptured by its excellent directing by Guillaume Canet. The premise is this: eight years after the murder of his wife, doctor Alexandre Beck is slowly recovering until one day, he is implicated in the murder of two people - a case he is not familiar with at all; his situation becomes additionally more complicated when he receives a mysterious email which appears to be from his deceased wife. As with many thrillers, Beck finds himself on the run to prove his own innocence and to unravel the mystery surrounding his wife and beyond.
One scene particularly caught my attention, most distinctly for Canet’s directing choice on subject focus and framing. It takes place when Beck goes to confront a man associated with his wife; at the moment, he is being helped by Bruno, a gangster who feels indebted to Beck (as I’ll show and narrate below with pictures).
For most thrillers, the directors tend to make the film protagonist-centric, where the central character tends to dominate the screen whenever a scene involves him. However, Canet deviates from such tendencies in this particular sequence: while small, its a significantly different directing choice that even now, I find it interesting to look at consider. Here goes:
We first see Bruno’s friend go out, establishing where the scene is taking place. There is a distinctly observational POV since we are seeing movement taking place from afar; that is, Canet chooses to frame the scene from afar instead of closer up.
The camera switches focus to the interior of the car, specifically the sound system/radio where the time is clearly displayed. This further establishes the context of the situation with regards to location, space, and time.
We now see Bruno and Beck. Beck is the main focus, but Bruno does the most speaking in this frame (in fact, Beck only says “no” in response to Bruno’s question).
Both spring to action at the sound of whistle, most likely sounded off by Bruno’s friend. The whistle is off screen, which adds to the unexpectedness and sudden springing of events.
The camera focuses again on the group of people, now conglomerated into a distinct circle. Again this from the POV of sitting in a car: this is a very observational choice, which adds to the sort of ambiguity as to what exactly is going on since we don’t see up close how the group afar is interacting with one another, or how they may behave.
Beck immediately gets out of the car and closes the door, leaving Bruno behind. Here’s where it gets interesting: instead of following Beck as he walks towards the group, Canet instead chooses to situate the camera from the POV of Bruno and his friend, thus maintaining the observational (even voyeuristic) aesthetic of the entire scene. The conversation between Bruno and his friend goes as so:
The camera is still from the car’s POV, except even further away as it now resides and films from the backseat. Now we are observing not only Beck from afar, but Bruno (and his friend) slightly distanced away as well.
Bruno’s friend asks why they are helping Beck…
Bruno explains that three years ago, Beck helped his son.
The police believed Bruno had beaten his son, while Beck observed carefully that Bruno’s son was a hemophiliac and that Bruno was wrongly accused.
At this point, we (as well as Bruno and his friend) observe something is going wrong from afar: first there’s a shout, and then there’s a tussle.
These last three screenshots demonstrate a noteworthy choice on Canet’s part: the camera is still situated in the car’s backseat, concluding this entire sequence with the same framing aesthetic it began with - that of impersonal observation. While common school of thought would be to keep the action and intensity going at full throttle – easily accomplished with frequent close ups and tracking of the main character’s actions and movements - Canet instead chooses to place us in a moment of quiet observation while something is going on: we don’t know what exactly happened between Beck and the gang, but the movements leading up to this conflict are quiet and relaxed enough to jerk us back into action and attentiveness - just like the whistle the beckoned the doctor to get up and confront the gang.
Canet’s directing choice in this scene also does something few directors do, which is to subtly imply the voyeuristic aspects of film and narrative: we are observing one man’s confluence of confusion, ambiguity and mystery; while he and others may be negatively affected by events within the universe we the viewer are safe and sound in our seats, free to watch and observe voyeuristically their ordeals and troubles until the very conclusion of such. Similarly, this voyeuristic aesthetic was also explored (much more heavily) in another French film called Caché – a film which I will leave for another time once I (re)watch it, notes and thoughts and all.