Toland, Melville and deep focus in Citizen Kane

[alan smithee]

In his magnificent book "The Making of Citizen Kane", Robert Carringer writes: "A...striking example of an in-camera effect has almost never been recognized as one: the shot of the bottle and glass on the nightstand after Susan's suicide attempt". And in the note: "...is not an extreme deep-focus effect, as it is usually described, but an in-camera matte shot. First, the foreground was lighted and focused, and shot with the background dark. Then, the foreground was darkened, the background lighted, the lens refocused, the film rewound, and the scene reshot". Suddenly, I have remembered that in old book (Le cinéma selon Melville, by Rui Nogueira), Jean-Pierre Melville says (I try to freely translate from french in my poor english): "At that time (1947), everyone wondered as Welles had done some plans of Citizen Kane, specially that one: Dorothy Comingore's suicide attempt. We see Comingore's face and body between the bottle of Gardenal and the glass in the foreground and, in the background, Welles opening the room's door. And only Comingore is out of focus! The opinions were different. Even someone spoke of a special two-focals objective that, at 1/48° of a second, moved one of the two lens in a way that the human eye had the impression that the foreground and the background were in focus, etc. etc. In conclusion, an heap of stupidities ...Welles never explained as Toland had done that shot... But I have seen Citizen Kane an endless number of times an I have reached the conclusion that he filmed this scene with an in-camera effect. Then I wanted to try myself. First (scene: the breakfast in the kitchen in Melville's first film Le Silence de la Mer, 1947; we see two stewpans on the stoves in the foreground, two people drinking a cup of coffe in the middle and Howard Vernon talking in the background), I started to film a shot of two enlightened stewpans with a black drape on the background. Then, I rewound the film and reshot the scene without the black drape". And Melville keeps on explaining in details all the difficulties and the mishaps of the shot. Then, what a marvellous passion for films and filming I feel in this story! How many directors today have so deep love and attention and knowledge of cinema as to experiment in their works with scenes and shots they admire?

[Le Chiffre]

Very interesting, Alan, thanks. I'm looking forward to seeing the new Criterion DVD of THE SILENCE OF THE SEA. It's one of the few Melville films I've never seen. I seem to remember reading somewhere that Melville loaned Welles his private studio to edit F FOR FAKE. I don't know if that's true or not, but if so, it's nice to know there were friendly relations between the two great filmmakers. At that time Melville was making his last film, the superb UN FLIC, with one of the great opening sequences of all time.

[tonyw]

This was highly likely.

http://filmint.nu/?p=15183

[Le Chiffre]

Very good article, Tony. You make some interesting points I never thought of before. I especially like your comparison to Tati and Welles's THE TRIAL in the opening bank robbery. I agree with some critics that UN FLIC is marred slightly by some cheesy special effects in the train heist sequence, but other than that, it's one of Melville's best and most underrated films, IMO.

[tonyw]

Yes, I think it has been very underrated due to comparisons with LE CERCLE ROUGE and critical inability to see the hidden surrealist in Melville when he was not making Cocteau films.