Tod Browning was a masterful director of the 20s and 30s, once most famous for directing the original Dracula (1931) and now best known for making the infamous Freaks (1932). The latter is a documentary packaged as a melodrama, with real sideshow freaks in the cast. It also has the shot that is the inspiration for this post, yet another instance where a director let a single shot tell his story, instead of relying on conventional coverage and edits. (Prior posts has highlighted shots in films by Leo McCarey, Ozu, Oz, and Coppola.)
But first some context. I imagine filming a passionate kiss has always been a drag for filmmakers. The idea of putting the faces of your characters that close together is dramatically sound but cinematographically dull. Sure, if the script has organically brought us to the kiss, then we, the audience, can do without seeing their faces for a few moments, and if the acting is spot on, we can feel the passion. But still I’m sure some directors (and actors and DPs) dislike the visual element; it has a way of leveling the playing field, whether it’s Bogart and Bergman, Woody and Diane, or Edward and Bella.
Since the camera can’t see either face completely, what’s a filmmaker to do? Traditionally, they rely on other ways of conveying the passion: the blocking of the actors (how they move into the kiss and out of it); their moans, pants and words uttered in between kisses; music, of course; multiple angles and edits; and camera movement (ah, the old “360° around the kissing couple” routine). In Notorious, Hitchcock famously dealt with a kiss in a single shot that was long, intricate, and incredibly clever.
It’s also been talked into the ground, so I’ll leave that shot alone.
On the other hand, given the same visual conundrum every filmmaker faces, here’s how Tod Browning staged it.
Freaks is about life in the circus and the code of honor among the pinheads, dwarves and others of the freak-class. Many within the circus regard them as “less than,” though to others, such as Phroso the Clown, they’re (relatively) normal people and even their peers. Frequently the film shows us how these people are as domestic and as we are—they can roll cigarettes, pour wine, etc,–regardless of how few limbs they have. In the case of the conjoined twins the Hilton Sisters, Violet and Daisy, we even see their suitors.
In this brief scene, their first in the film, the sisters approach Phroso. They talk about Daisy’s pending marriage and Phroso seizes the opportunity to flex their genetic empathy, so to speak…
The sisters are just bystanders in the film’s plot—not even a subplot—and in a later scene, Violet gets engaged. Naturally, a newly-engaged couple will kiss and this is how Browning shows it…
An uncommon solution, but it always takes my breath away. And although this shot seems like a gimmicky excuse for a post, it stands up under scrutiny, with plenty of pointers for filmmakers.
For starters, use what ya got. If you have gifted people in your film, use those gifts to your advantage. Repeatedly in the film, Browning turns his casts’ unusual skills and features to his advantage, both visually and narratively. In this instance, he found a way to show his characters uniqueness and how their lives might be—and that it’s really quite wonderful.
Secondly, Browning gives us context. Long before this kiss happens, he sets up the payoff. The brief scene with Phroso touching Violet’s arm is played off as a parlor trick, not even a plot point, but only 17 minutes later we get the kiss and Daisy’s joy and know exactly why she feels the way she does.
Lastly, it’s simply a beautiful shot. Here’s how I know: I showed this film to my wife, Debbie, a few years ago. She’s by no means a film geek—she doesn’t get hung up on cinematic style or form—and Freaks really isn’t her cup of tea. She was rolling with it, somewhere between repulsed and bored, when this kiss happened. Her reaction was palpable and positive (kind of a gasp or an audible smile). It didn’t matter whether Daisy’s bliss was genuine or if she was acting (I doubt conjoined twins really do feel each other’s sensations as such); it was something Debbie had never seen, a moment of perfect visual storytelling, all the more impressive since she had not put the film or its filmmaker on a pedestal. In other words, its eloquence caught her off-guard.
Like I said, I don’t know if the Hilton Sisters really had this kind of symbiosis, but this is another example of Browning’s attitude toward “freaks”: they’re well-adjusted, domestic, special (in a good way), honorable, very human, and members of a community that we should respect. (Gooble Gobble!)
Compared with my other posts in this series, Browning’s Kiss is perhaps the most unusual in the bunch (maybe closest in intent to Ozu’s static wide-shot), but I’m certain of one thing: if there were even one more cinematic ingredient (i.e. edits, coverage, a close-up of Daisy’s face, a music cue, even a dolly in) it wouldn’t be as powerful as it is. He cast it well, set the stage, and stood back. After that, it was all up to us.
Next in the When Not to Edit series: Kubrick knows how to make us hold our breath.
What Happens When You Meet Grover and He Curses?
At the time, I was the East Coast pointman for the LA-based documentary company Automat Pictures. Besides producing the bonus features for the DVDs of Scorsese’s Raging Bull and The Last Waltz, I occasionally covered their NYC-based gigs, such as interviewing Isabella Rossellini about her vagina. 1
Frank Oz was due to record his audio commentary for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in LA, but circumstances kept him on my coast, and so I got the call to field produce his session. The DVD’s producer was Ian Haufrect, a swell guy who was understandably crestfallen that he would not be able to cover the session personally. Still, he gave me great questions and did all the logistical arrangements. 2
The session was at Spin Cycle Post, a small facility where I had been a sound editor for a half-dozen years. It was just Frank; my old buddy Jason,
who engineered the session; and me. Jason and I were very professional: courteous and calm, the whole time ignoring the fact that—Holy Shit!—we were in the same room with Cookie Monster, Miss Piggy, Grover, Fozzie Bear and Bert!!
Frank was a Commentary Producer’s dream come true: he spoke constantly, giving us an in-depth glimpse into his process. There was one moment of (self) constructive criticism I’ll never forget. Frank had just done a portion of commentary and suddenly stopped, asking us to play it back for him. It was a two minute chunk of his description of “what is funny,” and I have to admit, it was pretty meandering. Although when he asked us for our opinion, Jason and I were reflexively and blindly supportive: “Oh, it’s great, Frank! Just beautiful! It’s awesome, Sir!” etc.
“Really?” he asked incredulously. “No, it isn’t. It’s fucking boring.”
After that icebreaker, it was easy for us to offer genuine feedback. (And to this day, when re-reading something I’ve written, such as this post, I’ll sometimes hear Frank’s voice say, “It’s fucking boring.”)
Naturally, there were the requisite Star Wars junkies on hand. (Can you imagine a film editing facility that wouldn’t have them?) In this case, two assistant editors a few years younger than me, Chris and Jeff, though that day they were more like Mutt and Jeff, giddy over the possibility of an audience with Yoda. “OK, guys,” I said. “Keep yer pants on. This isn’t my session, technically. I’ve never met the man. I don’t know how he feels about shit like this, “ and so on, explaining that they could approach him at the end of the session. Every time I went into the lobby, they’d be there, like expectant fathers in a waiting room, wide-eyed, wondering if it was Time.
When the session was ended, Frank was glad to do a small meet-and-greet. I stuck my head outside of the studio and gestured for the groupies to come in. They did, each with brand new Sharpies and 8×10 glossies of Yoda that they purchased that morning. I rolled my eyes and stepped back so they could have their own private Comic-Con.
Frank was incredibly cool. Recently, I asked Jeff Marcello, who’s now an editor and filmmaker, for his recollections:
Jeff’s also generously offered this scan as proof of the momentous occasion.
That’s pretty much it, except for one noteworthy postscript. MGM would “pay” directors and actors for their time in DVDs. They’d provide a list of 200 or so titles and ask the talent to check off 15 that they wanted. Frank did this, grumbling as so many others did that the folks at MGM were being cheapskates, and I mailed it off to Ian. A few months later, I got a phone call at home:
“Hi. This is Frank Oz. I was wondering…where the fuck are my DVDs?”
I already knew that MGM was slow to “pay” talent, so I referred him to Ian in LA and that was the end of it. But there was that one stunned moment when I thought, “Did Yoda just curse at me?!” (“Off it pisses me!”)
All-in-all, it was my favorite audio commentary session, and I made one contribution that I’m proud of: Frank’s commentary for Dirty Rotten Scoundrel’s legendary teaser trailer. MGM hadn’t sent the trailer to the session—so Frank would have nothing to watch–but thanks to my film geekery, I knew that it was at the beginning of the VHS of Eight Men Out, so I rented it on my way in and—boom!—there it is on the DVD.
And that’s why MGM hired guys like me to produce those things!
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BACK TO POST 1 Of course, that story’s for a future post, but, hey, nice to see you’re using the nifty footnote function!
BACK TO POST 2 In fact, Ian was the first commentary producer to recommend I have an IMDB cast-and-crew list on hand to make life easier for directors (and if you’ve read this post, you know that I put a lot of stock in the commentary producer’s responsibilities).
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Tagged as audio commentaries, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Frank Oz, Yoda