*ooof*: A Gesture of Reassurance

It feels slightly wrong to go *ooof* today on Servetus’ blog. You all know why. Servetus is home for a little while – although hoping to be online. She has shared her (family’s) story with us all, and we have been with her, virtually, but nonetheless compassionately and honestly so, and accompanied her and her dear, late mother on the difficult journey which we all have to face with our own mothers, unless we already have done so. I would like to mark the occasion, although sad, with a few images that still hit – but maybe in a different place. I am sure you agree with me that a light-hearted post on the (often superficial) attributes of Mr A would be out of place today. Therefore I have decided to give today’s post a different shape – with a message that is intended to communicate love, and tenderness, and compassion, and reassurance, the way only those who we are deeply bonded to can do – like a lover. Or a mother – isn’t she the first person we bond with and thus the first love of our lives?

How do we express that we care? By deep gazes and tender touches. They are reserved for those whom we love, as friends, as family or as lovers. Mr A seems particularly good at communicating care or maybe that is just what we (want to) see despite a back catalogue of action-based, often rogue-ish characters. And there is a gesture in his repertoire that crops up again and again in his oeuvre. The cupping of the face. If you hadn’t already fallen in love with Mr Thornton by the time he was rather abruptly refused by Margaret, then the climactic railway station scene in N&S certainly shattered your heart into pieces, when Mr Thornton gazed deeply, softly into Margaret’s eyes, and placed his right hand on the left side of her head. – Marian, unfortunately, never allowed Sir Guy to show her his deepest care in that way, but after her death, it was Meg whom he thanked for her kindness by tenderly touching her face. – In The Vicar of Dibley, Harry showed all his love and happiness at just having been wed to his beloved vicar by cradling her head in his hands and leaning in for a long kiss. – Poor, miswritten misguided Lucas/John expressed all his hope and dreams in the same gesture when trying to convince Maya that he was going to do the right thing in order for them to be together. – And who would’ve thought that hard-as-steel SAS soldier John Porter would be capable of such tenderness, when he poured all the reassurance he could muster into the cradling hands as he promised Katie Dartmouth to get them out of the kidnap situation.

The scenes I have just described do not exist as stills from the respective shows. A great pity, as a pose such as this has such an interesting dichotomy of simultaneous dynamicism and static the-eart-stood-still-ness which lends itself to photographing. It gives opportunity for wonderful studies of facial expression, and it is the face, indeed, that gives the individual “cupping” scene the interpretative meaning – whether this is a gesture of love, of thanks, of hope, of reassurance or of pity. And even though the images I am going to show you are not photography, but screencaps, I would like to use them to illustrate an important aspect that applies to photography as much as cinematography, i.e. where the following images originated. Let’s talk about Point of View.

Point of view does exactly what it say on the tin – it is the actual position from which the camera observes the scene. There is meaning in it – sometimes very obvious, for instance when a “hero” is shot from below (see here). But with two subjects in our caps, this can take on interesting other meanings and opens up interpretation.

The lightest touch, full of security.Screencap from Strike Back, Sky k 2010. Source.
Image via RAnet

Take for instance the incredibly emotional and evocative cap of Porter reassuring Katie. This shot is taken at Porter’s eye level. The camera thus puts us onto the same visual level as Porter, we are with him. And even though we barely see Katie in the shot – none of her facial expression is visible in this cap – yet we can really feel what she is feeling. The camera very cleverly does capture the hand on Katie’s hair in the foreground – we can almost feel the touch of the hand on her hair. Shot with a very shallow depth of field, our gaze is extremely focussed on Porter’s eyes – they are the communicators in this image (although in the actual scene it is also his words that convey a huge amount of meaning as he reassures her that he will get them both out of the situation). The image, however, does not really need the spoken word – it is clear from the determined gaze on Porter’s face that he knows for sure that he will be able to save them both from the kidnappers. He is intense, and yet incredibly tender, signified by the hand, not manically gripping but softly touching Katie’s head, expressing calmness, reassurance, confidence and care.

Holding on to love. Screencap from The Vicar of Dibley, BBC 2007. Source.

The kissing scene in The Vicar in White is a classic over-the-shoulder shot, that is used a lot in cinematography (but not so much in photography). This is a POV that will *almost* put us into Harry’s shoes. The camera angle allows us to believe that we are extremely close to the scene – but we are still outsiders, not quite taking part in the sweet, joyous kiss that these two characters have just shared. We have not quite become the subject ourselves, but we are so close that we can see what he is seeing and imagine what he feels like is feeling. (A true POV on the other hand from the subject would attempt to make us feel as if we were experiencing the scene first-hand. This is as close as Richard Curtis lets us get, though. Curse him ;-))

The sensual reassurance. Screencap from Spooks, BBC 2010. Source.

In contrast to that, we are more distant bystanders when it comes to the intimate scene between Lucas and Maya. The eye level is of less importance here – what counts is that the camera has removed itself a couple of yards away, distancing the viewer from what is happening. This is a ruse, of course, to also emotionally distance the viewer from the meaning of the scene – Lucas is telling Maya that everything will be alright. The POV subtly cautions us, not to be drawn into Lucas’ loving gesture. We are kept out of reach so that we can assess objectively what he is planning. We are not allowed to be touched by him – or by his gesture.

An evocative thank you. Screencap from Robin Hood, BBC 2007. Source.

The shot of Meg and Sir Guy is an interesting example of POV. The camera angle here superficially takes on an undecided position – we are seeing both subjects equally well, in profile, so the camera seems to be impartial about the emotions that are being conveyed. Sir Guy carefully uses his right hand to stroke Meg’s face so as to not obscure the facial expression from the camera’s gaze. However, the scene is shot at what appears to be Meg’s eye level – which makes the viewer want to adopt her position. On second glance, however, we realise that the eye level is not Meg’s but Isabella’s – who has turned up in the background of the image. Even though she is blurred out by the dof, she still stands out due to the clever lighting in the shot (with Meg and Sir Guy in darkish light, looking like shadow and Isabella much more illuminated by the torches on the dungeon’s wall. Suddenly we see the scene the way Isabella sees it – we have been placed on the outside, on a POV like Isabella’s, but cleverly so that we can actually see her, too. The focus of the camera tells us that Meg and Sir Guy are in the centre of the attention – for a second, before the blurry background calls out to us with the realisation that the scene is observed by another character who is central to the scene, even if as yet not in the centre of the attention.

Never ending love in a caress. Source.

As for the shot of Mr Thornton and Margaret – this is a piece for the hand-lovers among you. Someone in the BBC camera department certainly knew what they were doing… We are in this with both of them, shot as it is, on both their eye-levels. Even though the focus is on Thornton’s eyes, the gesture is given extra space in the scene, just by virtue of the large hand being so prominently splayed across the side of Margaret’s face. Again, despite the slight fuzziness of the hand, we can discern that Thornton is holding his beloved’s face with the lightest of touches, merely grazing her face, feeling the pulse of her heart on that spot underneath her ear.

Love, care, compassion, reassurance. All expressed in a simple gesture. A gesture that we are familiar with from the earliest days of our lives. The very first intimate touches that we experience ourselves are our mother’s hand, cradling our head, as we are being placed on her chest after being born. It is the first experience of life that we are given, and one that we carry with us for all our lives. It occasionally gets buried under the trials and tribulations that we must get through, but it is the basis for our own confidence. It is just in that one gesture – that we never remember consciously until much later and we never thank our mothers for – and neither expect to be thanked for when we bestow it on our own children. This is the ultimate gesture of security, of being looked after, and of being loved, unconditionally and forever. And the memory of that, and of the woman who has bestowed it on us, transcends time, distance and state of being. She’ll be with you. Always.

~ by Guylty on September 3, 2013.