American cinematographer - Cop gone wrong WELLES

American Cinematographer – A Cop gone wrong

George Turner

September 1998

Source: American Cinematographer, September 1998, Vol. 79 Issue 9, p88, 8p

Item: 505760640

Because most of the film's exteriors were shot night-for-night, the city also proved to be a gigantic lighting job. There are many deep-focus shots looking up and down long streets past the landmark series of arches, some of which are still there today. To add the appropriate ambience, studio technicians dumped trash everywhere, and wind machines swirled the debris around.

The picture's most remarkable photographic feat is its opening scene, an unbroken 31/4-minute crane shot which ordinarily would have been composed of a series of separate shots. The action covers several blocks of downtown Venice from an amazing array of angles, including close-ups, low tracking shots, very long shots and bird's-eye views. It is further complicated by being elaborately night-lighted, and there is a lot of detail and activity on the border-town street.

The camera seems to float through the action, gliding in all directions, without a glitch.

One of the most violent and harrowing sequences in any film is the murder of Grandi in the cramped hotel room. The room is dark, with illumination from a flashing neon sign outside the window. Quinlan, a drunken ogre, pounces savagely on the much smaller Grandi, and the fight rages all around the unconscious Susan. Garotting his victim at last, Quinlan drapes the corpse over the brass bedstead. A "shock" scene comes later, when Susan awakes and we see, from her POV, an upside-down close-up of the dead man's distorted face and bulging eyes.

Most of the picture consists of hard-lit night scenes with jagged, opaque shadows and, toward the end, a few Dutch tilts. Day exteriors were done without fill lights. A few auto interiors were filmed on the process stage, but most were done on location with the camera mounted on the car. The hard-edged style is broken inside Tanya's brothel, the only place where music is sweet, lighting is diffused, shadows are soft and camera angles are resolutely "normal."