Reconciliation and Haneke's form

I have been busy revising of the short scripts, Reconciliation. This is the short in which I am borrowing Haneke's form, from 71 Fragments, of one or more shots or fragments(some short, some long), which are then closed by a cut to black.
I am just realising the limitations of the form for a short. In 71 Fragments, Haneke as a number of character sets that he alternates with. This means that he can easily create texture and rhythm by moving from one set of fragments to another. In each fragment he has another set of characters, a different location, and potentially a different pace.
Because I want to keep the focus sharp I am sticking to one location, which means I feel there is no place to go. I just had a scene in the kitchen - what now? I have already been in the living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, even the the closet!
In a feature this is not a problem.
I know, I know, I suppose I was really asking for it, taking this on.

I have now revised the script three times. Where is it going, despite my problems with pace and texture?
One addition I made, in part to defuse the drama, but also to make the story more focused, was to make it clear near the beginning that this is the day he is planning to move out. It was important that the audience is not left wondering what the events of the day are about, or how they will resolve themselves dramatically (it is clear in the title afterall).
I have already posted previously about how I have explored surface-reality in the story - packing, emptying a closet, vacuuming, doing the dishes. But my worry was that I also presented the couples estrangement in these everyday scenes - waking together (or rather not) in the morning. That these parts are not surface-reality, and may become drama.
I am now less worried about this. I might rationalise these elements as what Schrader calls disparity, the second element in the transcendental style (which leads to decisive action). I am happy with the story and I suppose the irony of the title, and how the reconciliation happens, in the mundane - he takes out the trash. I was most interested in how our lives are truly lived in these kinds of events.
Finally there is Schrader's final element, the transcendent:

3. Stasis: a frozen view of life which does not resolve the disparity but transcends it.

From the reconciliation - he, taking out the trash - to the macro view of the world, London at dusk, with lights coming on in flats just like this one.

The final codas of Ozu's films are reaffirmations of nature; they are the final silence and emptiness.

This is the first time we have left the flat, and looked at the world beyond the couple and their flat.

Sophie's and Paul's world

A week ago I was in Canary Wharf scouting for locations for Sophie and Paul's flat and the surrounding area, in Part 1. These are from the area to the east of Canary Wharf itself, East India Dock.
I tried to capture the sense of the place, but I don't think I was successful.
What is exciting about the place is a particular building, which can feel powerful and muscular, even if it is not of great architectural value. But these are these are the same qualities that make impossible for any localness to take root. There will never be anything here that will be particular to that place. You would not remember living in a place like this.



























I struggled to find compositions that could represent some of these places. It was difficult. Although you may find a building that seems impressive on one level, with scale, and materials, glass, there was so much else in the foreground that was disconnected and of a different scale or material or colour. It really is quite a mess.
I made my way further east towards East India Dock, and a complex of hi-rise buildings I know.
































This is the kind of place I imagine Sophie and Paul in Part 1. Why? What is that attracts me to this place? Does this make sense for Paul, and especially Sophie? It is not typical of London or Europe, more of the kind of place you find in North America.





















There are some practical reasons. I always imagined Sophie living in a high-rise, and the image of her looking down, and out about into the world. She had a view of Canary Wharf, that seemed important. So I began to write scenes that involved a high-rise. But these are post-rationalised so to speak. What attracted me to their area in the first place?
I think for the same reason that it is so difficult to photograph: there doesn't seem to be any place to start. You can't tell when you have arrived or depart. There is no there there, as Jane Jacob put it. So, for Sophie, this is the perfect place for her to begin to think that every possible life we might lead is of equal value. Or even this belief was an outcome from living in such a place?
For Paul it might be that this place is a way-station for their relationship. You unconsciously know that you are uncertain where the relationship will go, so you stop here, and make a plan. They would need to move elsewhere if their relationship was to become an entity, a we. Or they go their separate ways.

Short film Reconciliation and the transcendent (or not)

I have been getting through Schrader's book, Transcendental Style in Film, and revising my short scripts at the same time.
I have been comparing Schrader's descriptions of Ozu and Bresson, and looking back on Kieslowski and Haneke, and thinking of what I am trying to achieve with Reconciliation.
(There is one important point that Schrader makes regarding Ozu, that did not make an impression on me at the time. He speaks of the 2nd, point, Disparity as "an actual or potential disunity between man and his environment which culminates in a decisive action." But in Ozu's Zen world man is part of the nature. The Japansese have no western duality concept, man versus nature, so that to be alienated from nature is also to be alientated from other people. You can see this in Ozu' s, focus on inter-generational conflict, parent-child.)
The Everyday
Bresson captures surface of reality, in minute detail, treating all equally, without connotation or significance. For this to work he strips away the conventions of cinema, which I will discuss in detail later. This is necessary to allow room for the surface-reality to be seen clearly by us the viewer. Schrader's makes the important point that this is not the idea of cinema-verite, the cinematic truth, but the surface reality.
The surface-reality is achieved, Schrader says, quoting Ayfre, through "a very precise choice of details, objects and acccessories; through gestures charged with an extremely solid reality." (Amedee Ayfre, "The Universe of Robert Bresson"). This reminded me of the interview with Irene Jacob regarding work with Kieslowski on The Double Life of Veronique, and the scenes of Veronique alone, reading, absently looking out of the window of her flat....Jacob tells us these are not the events you recall at the end of the day, but these are where life is lived, and can bring a sense of completeness. I wonder what Ozu would have made of those scenes in The Double of Life of Veronique.
I have already been interested in this idea of the surface reality. Everyday events are central to the story of Reconciliation. Actually, but for one scene, where the male character packs his suitcase, and then angrily empties the contents onto the floor, the everyday is all that happens in Reconciliation. The female character is seen reading the paper, vacuuming, washing the dishes, and he takes out the rubbish, and talks to a friend on the phone.
At the same time I have also contained the couples enstrangement in these everyday events, and their reconciliation. The story opens with the couple waking on this central day, and gulf between them. I don't think I could say these scenes are surface-reality.
Plot
Both Bresson and Ozu viewed plot with disdain, and as their careers progressed, reduced the amount of plot in their stories.
Bresson believed that the plot was only a necessary in how could be used to hang the his style, the transcendental. He set out to ensure that the plot could not be used to manipulate the audience's emotions, by making the outcome obvious from the beginning. In The Trial of Joan of Arc her guards say 'she will die' and 'she will burn'. Even the title of A Man Escaped removes all doubt as to the outcome. The audience members will not sit in the dark wondering if the man will escape?
Perhaps that is why I was attracted to this title, Reconciliation? I begin the story sharply, with the gulf between them, but the audience will know they are to be reconciled. I think there is more: in the short film form I am able to focus on something other than plot, which is a hindrance to a story that must be told in 5 or 10 minutes.
More on Plot, Acting, and Camerawork, later.