inserts versus codas

JC has this dislike of inserts and I feel the same. By inserts I think of shots that are there purely for information, as in the actor is looking at their phone. Insert: CU of their phone and we see who is calling. Sometimes you have no choice but when you can...so I managed to get rid of just such an insert.
It was the park scene we shot the previous weekend. Here we see that Claire has made contact with Nick, and enough has transpired between them that we see they are comfortable, even intimate together. The setting, and the weather on this particular shooting day, amplify what Claire has achieved in making this leap to become someone else but starting a relationship with Nick.
But still it is a lie, and it is Sophie's presence, in the form of a series of phone calls to Claire's mobile that gives it away.
After we have established Claire and Nick's relationship and setting I have Claire sneaking away from Nick to check her phone messages.
Then the dastardly insert of Claire's mobile phone: Missed calls: Sophie (7)
But I realised that what was important in this scene was that Claire had broken away from Nick and in effect the whole construct to check her phone. It was the fact of the lie that was important, not the content of the lie.
And in the next scene we find out who it was who called and the substance of her calls.
The insert is unnecessary.
Now what I don't mean by inserts are those abstraction you see in an Ozu film or Kieslowski and so many others. I have read these referred to sometimes as codas which made little sense to me at first. I thought of that word in reference to music, the concluding part of the whole piece of music. But coda can refer to something brings to an end the preceding part, not just a whole. If you thought of Ozu and his static shots in The End of Summer you can see how they end and summarise the preceding scene or scenes.
In a coda there may information but there is something more. Kieslowski creates abstractions as a layer of the story's language. I think of Blue and the scene where Juliette Binoche is having coffee and we cut to a close-up of the sugar cube, held just at the surface of the coffee, absorbing the liquid. What does this mean? It is hardly necessary for information. Do we need to know that the character takes one sugar cube with her coffee? Kieslowski talks about this himself in the DVD extras. He wanted to show how the character was looking inward, in her own world. The lighting, which was high-contrast, and the focus, which was shallow, added to this effect.
And so far this is one of the weaknesses of the Claire part of this project - and I am certain that I have said this in previous posts. I have not developed my codas, or the layer of abstractions sufficiently. So, I need to get on to it.
Next weekend I am planning to work with David to develop just this.

I struggle with this image

I continue to work on notes for the new script.
I feel comfortable with most everything - that is comfortable enough to hold a workshop with actors - but for one element: an image for Claire. One that is personal to her, she takes part in. I mean in contrast to an image of which she has a passive role, the way that Antononi would put his actors in a landscape or in front of a building.
I always look back to Kieslowski, specifically The Double Life of Veronique, where Veronika carries with her a clear marble from which she observes the world, fish-eyed and turned upside down. This idea is repeated when she watches her father at work, seen from behind, through the thick lenses of his spectacles.
Veronika's glass is a habit, part of her. Is this what I am looking for?
In Blue, which I watched again for the 15th time, Julie has her habits too, though not objects. Instead we see that well-known image of her dissolving sugar in her coffee. Kieslowski went to a great deal of trouble finding a sugar cube that would absorb liquid in a given amount of time. And what did he say about it? That for him it was about Julie looking inward. Self-absorbed. And she is, considering what has happened to her. For Kieslowski abstractions are just that, abstracted, taken from the real. Is this what I am looking for? Do I need to sit with the actor and work and find that image?
But I am looking also to use this image to tie together some other images. The final scene, with Claire on the ground of the park, staring up at the sky, looking for an opening, some understanding.
Claire exploring her sister's flat, trying to know it intimately, standing on a ladder, looking over the top of the bookshelves, and there thinking that she can smell the Thames. Water.
So here I am at the beginning of the story trying to say something about Claire and her relationship and all this too. It is too much.

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.