Two Issues in Serge Daney's Tracking Shot:2

This time Daney compares the “tracking shot” in Kapò (1959) to the death scene in Ugetsu monogatari (1953) in which we see barely a death scene. About the fact that the death of the character is not emphasized or dramatized like the way it was done in Kapò, Daney claims that Ugetsu’s director Mizoguchi “did the exact opposite of Kapo”. In a way, he suggests that showing the event in a point of view that is given indirectly rather than showing in detail and make exploitation. As he divides the effect of a cinematic image in history as before WWII, after WWII and nowadays, I agree that they are giving something different now. Reflecting the war and ethics about it, is something but I cannot find a morality issue in using a shot technique. It is never simply choosing a technique but the things argued about the intended meaning and the effect on audience is, I think relative on audience and only can be an assumption about the mind of the director. The tracking shot is seen as an emotional exploitation and trying to individualize the events that effected the masses, but going from one to a whole is a way too. I do not think it is a thing about being true to cinema or being honest to the medium. It is I think relative in the way people look at life in general.

I know that it is not same to compare a war situation deals with masses with this seemingly individual story of some people but I would like to give the ending close-up example from The Edge of Heaven (2007) of Fatih Akın. As is known, story deals with a couple of deaths which are looking like the unfortunate situations in life that can happen with the choices that made by characters. All the time the dramatic events occur and they are tried to be given in the way like Mizoguchi did. However, after the climax, in resolution, the protagonist or the main character is seen in a different way than the rest of the film. A close up is seen which tells a lot, from being a human with hope for a new beginning to see the beautiful details of emotions can be seen on a human face. Fatih Akın is not the inventor of this type of direction, but putting the close-up, saving it to last second and I thought that giving it in the end was the most sincere thing to do. That was the closest moment I felt to the character even if there are no parallels among our lives.

Anyway, while reading the text of Serge Daney, as it is autobiographical with stories from Daney’s life and it gives similar feelings like the book The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. His tone and writing style is really enjoyable for me as he passes from one subject to another combining personal experiences and film theory and he is writing like he is chatting. He gives his experiences of affection he got from the visuals in cinema as a young boy and gives the details of what made him decide to deal with cinema. He talks about being a cinephile, the experience of it and in a way makes his definition of it.

http://sergedaney.blogspot.com/

This blog has the writings, thoughts, interviews and videos about and of Daney, all translated into English.

And this is a video from the blog that can be an introduction to Daney’s ideas about the history of cinema, American cinema and cinema in general that we talked also in the class.

Journey of a "Cine-Son" (excerpt) from ibeescus on Vimeo.

Two Issues in Serge Daney's Tracking Shot:1

Daney tells his story about the “tracking shot” in the 1959 film Kapò, which is about a group of Jewish people led by a girl to escape from a concentration camp in WWII. He talks about representation of history through cinema and the deals with being a “moral issue” of a tracking shot which was argued back then. There is also an important comparison between the two films Kapò (1959) and Night and Fog (1955) or rather the attitudes towards the representation of the events that occurred in camps. I cannot differ the tracking shot and showing the things with their nakedness from each other in terms of being “just”. There is also an atmosphere intended to be created through the wonderful music by George Delerue, through a text, a narration and an editing in Night and Fog. I think it is relative to choose between this two today as the facts are known today, but back then it was a different argument as cinema was not used as an instrument of informing the world about what is happening over there; as there are very few footage about the crimes of humanity. Nevertheless, it was not only the cinema that was in silence; with all the instruments of civilization, the world kept its silence for a time in terms of reacting to the horrific situation. This is an issue still used as a criticism of civilizations, most of the time a criticism of German civilization, in cinema too. In recent examples The Reader(2008), we see that there is an argument occurs among the German law students of the first generations after the WWII in the academy of law about the inaction against the systematic tortures of Nazis against the Jewish race in Nazi Germany and the places it invaded.


Of course people did not approve the cruelty, however, they maybe could not, but for me, did not do anything about it. I know it is easier to say than it is done of course, there were different circumstances back then. This is dealt in the 9^th episode of “Band of Brothers” (2001) named “Why We Fight”. Of course these are two examples from American cinema that has an attitude of looking things from a bossy perspective like “we had to come over there to save your asses, therefore we can deal with it in the way we want” or “we fought as nobles to save the humanity, and when we fight we fight for noble reasons” maybe trying to justify their actions nowadays etc.


However, after all, this is an issue should not be forgotten about human in general and for me it should not bother people to see the Holocaust, remember it from time to time. Even if the perspectives change, even if the style of narration changes, even if it is not sincere and has different theoretical intended meanings under it; even if these are all thought to be constructs, it is secondarily for me how you deal with it, I think it is an issue about dealing with it and world is still trying to purify itself by constantly doing that as it did not at the time of war.