One of the things that gives me fits while editing A Life’s Work is the establishing shot. (And this documentary will require a lot of them.) An establishing shot does what its name suggests: it tells the viewer, “You are here.” Let it be known far and wide: I hate establishing shots in film and television.
In sitcoms they are unimaginative—
EXT: BOSTON STREET – DAY
Busy street, most prominent is a sign for a bar called Cheers. Cut to—
INT: BAR*
How many times have you sat through that? Filmmakers try to make establishing shots more interesting, but much of the time these shots are clunky throwaways. It’s not laziness, not usually. A good, original establishing shot is difficult to find.
If you want to see a truly brilliant establishing shot, watch the Coen Brother’s Barton Fink. That film contains the best establishing shot I know of.
It requires a little set up.
It’s 1941 and playwright Barton is in NYC in a Sardi’s-type restaurant. He’s the toast of the town after the opening of his new, socially-conscious play for and about the working man. Barton’s manager informs him Hollywood is calling, and Barton expresses his disdain. He doesn’t want to sell out. He has a cause to fight for, that is, to write for. The common man needs him in New York. His manager tells him it will be easy money and that he can come back and be flush enough so he can write the plays he’s passionate about. “Barton, the common man will still be here when you get back.” To say Barton is full of self-importance is being kind. As the scene ends–
SOUND: a raging surf, volume increases and JUMP CUT:
EXT: BEACH – DAY
A wave crashes violently into a rock formation the size of a car jutting out of an otherwise sandy bit of beach. CROSS FADE:
INT: HOTEL
Barton walks through the lobby of a decrepit Art Deco hotel.
What makes it so brilliant is it works on at least three levels. At its most base it give us essential information: we are now in California. On another level it functions as a symbol for Barton and Hollywood. The water relentlessly and violently beats on an immovable object. It foreshadows what we are about to see—who will win the battle, the sea (Hollywood) or the rock (Barton).
Most impressively, though, the Coen Brothers have made this ridiculously simple shot (it doesn’t even dolly in or out like so many Coen Brothers’ shots) a theme that recurs throughout the film. Suffering from writer’s block, Barton stares at a framed beachscape photo above his desk. This postcard image doesn’t feature a rock, but a beautiful woman with her back to us, looking out at the sea. That is the Hollywood Barton (and we) are sold. Beautiful women on beautiful beaches, not the beachscape featuring a big ugly rock getting pummeled by the sea.
And in the final scene of the film, a destroyed Barton wanders along the beach with the rock. In a neat tie up, he also encounters that beautiful woman in the framed photo.
This shot is also incredibly economical. The Coen Brothers could have spent tens of thousands of dollars with a mundane establishing shot.
EXT: LOS ANGELES STREET – DAY
Barton exits a cab on a street that screams Los Angeles, something with palm trees, maybe the Hollywood sign in the background. He looks at the Art Deco hotel and enters.
Hiring and costuming extras, clearing a street, renting period cars. At least two camera set ups, one of Barton exiting the cab and a shot from Barton’s POV of the hotel. Very expensive.
That establishing shot, then, is anything but a lazy throwaway. It is cinematically simple, yes, but positively brilliant. To call it an establishing shot does it an injustice, but that is how it functions, at least in that scene.
That shot inspires me and challenges me. Finding its equivalent for A Life’s Work is one of my goals.
* The scene headings and the descriptive paragraphs that follow them are not taken from a Cheers teleplay or the Barton Fink script. I wrote them solely to illustrate this post.
Cross posted on extracriticum.com