3

The Steadicam as a Creator of Effects and as a Narrator

Following the description of the structure and technical capabilities of the Steadicam, it is interesting to analyse the relationships that are created between this means and the principal forms of narrative dynamics. Basing the analysis on the Steadicam’s capacity to capture, while in motion itself, the motion of characters or objects, it is possible to identify a series of visual and narrative effects that give a movie a new ‘construction’.

The Camera and Points of View

The first element to consider is vision: this is realized by the choice of the point of view, the dynamics of the ‘narrative view’ and the way in which the visual subject is portrayed.

The point of view is literally the point from which we are looking and thus it represents the choice, the selection of what is visible and presented in the frame, and the way in which that is shown (distance, angle, lens etc.).

Besides its physical attributes, the point of view also has an ideological component, since choosing is a mental process tied to the knowledge and ideology of the person making the choice. Thus, the narrator approaches the visual subject by deciding how it will be viewed: he can conduct a neutral, objective narration, he can insist on and stress a certain political stance. He can express himself in a myriad of ways; it will all nonetheless be filtered by his eyes as he views the subject and by the physical means with which he expresses his vision: the camera. The narrative gaze expresses itself by using the camera – its ‘intelligent’ eye on the world – and, at the same time, it is willing to lend its role as narrator to the characters who, in turn, express their points of view, thus enriching the narration. The narration is built up from the interplay of gazes and points of view, which express the various choices the author made with regard to telling, showing and making known his mental designs.

A film is, above all, a look at things, a gaze, and that is how it must be studied. Often, the gaze moves from one thing to another in order to understand better what it is seeing, focusing on details or looking at the surroundings. A camera films movement, from a fixed spot and while moving. Looking, moving and shooting blend together in the process of choosing, describing and narrating inherent in a film. The camera movement allows the viewer to be present with the character and to follow him on stage; it makes it possible to feel the three-dimensionality of space and contributes to the story’s rhythm.

When it is the choice of movement that prevails, there remains still to be chosen the exactly appropriate manner, speed, path and style of movement. Moving through and across space, besides describing something and making it known, may also create a certain amount of tension. The vision is, in fact, mostly a surprise, since what is shown is tied to the discovery that the camera makes as it is moved. The viewer is guided by what is shown to him, in other words, that which is chosen for him; he is called to attention, as if someone is talking and from a sitting position gets up and says ‘Look, I wanted to show you this …’. The person gets up and moves toward an object, thus catching the viewer’s attention, which then follows the movement and focuses on the object.

The same thing happens with the camera: the identification that suddenly occurs with the camera is necessary and, at any rate, spontaneous: since the camera is our eyes, we see that which is shown to us as if it were ‘our seeing’ – ‘the viewer cannot do otherwise than to identify himself also with the camera which has looked before he did at that which he is presently seeing and whose position (frame) determines the vanishing point.’¹ To move or to stand still means, in any case, taking a position.

The fixed camera, for its part, performs a double underlining: one through the choice of field and another through the way in which the elements speak of themselves.

Moving offers the possibility of seeing better, of emphasizing: the camera shows certain details and invites the viewer to notice them, or else it moves away from them and allows the framing elements alone to dictate the importance the viewer is to give them.

As far as technique is concerned, we have seen that since the need to film in motion arose, various tools and mechanical means have been invented to allow the camera to do just that – to permit the narrator to move his point of view and construct the cinematographic story. Though they became lighter and more varied over time, the most important tools have always been the same ones available today; what has changed is the technical result, which has continued to be perfected. The invention of the Steadicam completes the process of pursuing various ways of filming with the camera ‘on the shoulder’, by uniting as much as possible the operator’s body and the tool with which he is filming.²

Actually, the Steadicam provides us with a somewhat novel perspective, first of all because the Steadicam is less likely to present the usual ‘eye-level’ lens-height of the hand-held camera. In addition, a Steadicam operator may compose with more objectivity because of being a small distance away from the monitor, allowing a superior comprehension of the image in the context of a larger peripheral grasp of the space and the camera’s motion within it. In comparison, a camera operator whose vision is monopolized by the huge image in the viewfinder will have a more ‘immersed’ perspective. Furthermore, the hand-held camera gives a mostly monocular vision, as the operator must have an eye glued to the viewfinder and exclude what the other eye sees. With the monitor, the vision is more detached both physically, because the monitor is located low down on the Steadicam post (the distance created by the articulated arm) and psychologically, since instead of full immersion there is a certain distance that gives the right parameters, also with respect to the situation of which it is a part.³

Subjective Vision

From the beginnings of cinema, and especially when its realm grew to include the possibility of expressing a narrative discourse, filmmakers have attempted to reproduce subjective vision, distorting and emphasizing if necessary the visual process, such as shooting outof-focus to render the vision of a drunk, as in F.W. Murnau’s Last Laugh (Der Letzte Mann), 1924, or the point of view of a driver in A. Gance’s La Roue, 1924. Besides telling the story from an external viewpoint on the visual level, filmmakers wanted to show, and consequently to make the viewer ‘feel’, what the character feels, inviting the viewer to identify with the character and enriching the narration with the depth of the first-person viewpoint.⁴

In order to reproduce subjective vision, filmmakers attempted to make the point of view of the character coincide technically with the optical view of the camera (the lens functions as the eye). The subjective – insofar as it is a vision seemingly devoid of a personality (except by reflection) – was increasingly perfected, creating various keys for interpretation and analysis.

In what we think of as ‘classical’ cinema, films that consistently respect the canons regarding construction and communication of information to viewers, subjective vision must convey the qualitative and connotative characteristics of the subject the camera is impersonating as, for example, in Jaws, when the underwater vision of the future victims is revealed later to be the shark’s view.

In addition to the physical correspondence of lens and character’s eye, a psychological correspondence may be created, giving us the point of view of the subject filtered by the camera but guided by his or her mood. For example, the sequence in Birdy⁵ in which the main character imagines he is flying is done using a ‘mental’ view.

Often we find subjective visions which change into objective visions, or which deny their subjectivity by revealing that the vision belongs to the camera and not to the character, as in the sequence in Ransom⁶ in which the character who is the brains behind the kidnapping enters the house where the child is being held. False point of view shots are frequently used, especially in ‘thriller’ and ‘action’ movies, for their ability to command attention and create nervousness when it is assumed that they are the point of view of a certain character who is then brought into the scene, revealing that it was not, after all, his or her viewpoint.

With regard to subjective vision, it is interesting to recall the analysis made of it by Braningan,⁷ who defined the various ways it may be expressed: ‘open’, when we see only the vision, but not to whom it belongs; ‘multiple’, when we are given more than one viewpoint of the same object; ‘delayed’, when the moviegoer understands whose point of view he is seeing only after some time, in order to create tension and arouse curiosity; ‘false’, when it is constructed as a point of view but turns out to be something else.

The Quality of Movement in a Point of View Shot

The most important characteristic of the point of view shot as ‘someone’s view’ is, however, still the discovery of space by going through it and doing so in such a way that nothing that is seen has been anticipated. Here what is off-screen comes into play, along with ‘the new’; thus one of the basic principles of filming – choosing what to show and keeping the rest out of sight – turns out to continually change and to surprise us.

In point of view shots the unexpected is naturally stressed and, in certain kinds of film, is emphasized even more particularly by the effect of suspense and surprise combined, such as in the sequence in The Untouchables in which Malone is killed and the Steadicam shoots from the killer’s point of view.⁸

The scene begins with an exterior night shot, someone on the street is checking an address written on a matchbox cover, the house is Malone’s, the man goes away but someone else comes into view. He goes towards the house and peeks through one of Malone’s windows, the Steadicam point of view starts: the camera looks through the window, the bathroom is empty, it moves along the wall, passes two windows, from which the dining room can be seen, then along the wall again to the kitchen window through which Malone can be seen pouring himself a drink. The person whose point of view we are seeing makes a noise and Malone looks towards the window (in other words, at the camera), the camera draws back, Malone leaves the room, the camera runs again along the wall from the outside, showing us the various empty rooms, it gets to the bathroom window, the killer’s hand comes into view (a device which underscores the fact that it is a point of view shot), the camera goes in through the window and moves slowly down the hallway and shows us the various rooms again from the inside. It turns to check where Malone is and shows us the empty dining room and then the kitchen, it goes towards the door, moving slowly for fear of finding him outside it, then it turns around and looks towards the other end of the hallway, discovering Malone in the last room with his back turned, winding up his gramo-phone. The camera moves quickly up the hallway as if to surprise him and, when it nears Malone, he turns around.

The entire sequence is charged with tension, created both through our awareness of the fate which awaits the hero and the use of the point of view of the intruder. The Steadicam focuses our attention and moves with precision and tension, just like a slimy and nervous killer who has furtively entered someone’s home. Usually nothing in a visual process is that charged with tension, unless there is a reason to be afraid, which may also be imagined: during normal walking or standing, etc., vision is selective and total at the same time.

Technically, to transpose a subject’s view onto the screen a filmmaker will make the movement of the subject’s head and eyes from right to left coincide with a slow horizontal pan shot, a slow crossing and exploring the surroundings, or a slow forward dolly, while continuing to use the camera as an ‘eye’, so that what is seen on the screen corresponds to the view through the lens. To heighten the effect, various techniques are used (fogging, shaking) that reveal the condition of the character whose viewpoint we are seeing, as in

D. W. Griffith’s first point of views; The Maltese Falcon, John Huston, 1941, a drugged character; Notorious, 1946, the character seeing things upside down after having been drunk; A Fistful of Dollars, Sergio Leone, 1964, a drunk; Leon, Luc Besson, 1994, a wounded man; Snake Eyes, Brian de Palma, 1998, the unfocused vision of the lead character who has lost her glasses.⁹ However, unexpectedness, perfection, lack of shaking or jerking (except for objective reasons) are characteristics of our vision that some people feel can be obtained even without the Steadicam, with a skilfully used hand-held camera.¹⁰

What is unique about the Steadicam as a tool for reproducing our vision is the continual balancing that gives it the same stability as our head on our body, for which we can be likened to a good tripod with a stable and movable ‘pan head’.¹¹ So, all movements that it would not be possible to film with a hand-held camera (even if held in a stable manner) because they are more violent and more subject to vibration, such as running or horseback riding, can be perfectly reproduced with the Steadicam, thanks to its ability to ‘shock-absorb’ the jerks and bounces.

The most important characteristic of the Steadicam is the quality of movement it gives: movement which is not perceived through its defects, but rather through its perfection. On the contrary, the hand-held camera is often used to emphasize instability, dynamism, struggles, as for example, in The Duellists, The Strawberry Statement, The Conformist and Saving Private Ryan.¹²

When we look at something, we are not aware of our vision because it is spontaneous and instinctive, inherent in the human organism. We are unaware of it unless something goes wrong – problems such as nearsightedness or double vision, which make it more difficult to see. Only when our sight is not perfect do we realize by comparison how perfectly our visual process works.

This can also occur when vision is transposed onto the screen, where the fact that a person is looking at something is underlined by those devices (lack of focus, etc.) mentioned above. Seeing movement through a Steadicam, when it is used by a professional, is very much like seeing it ourselves. There is a paradox here, since the Steadicam lacks mechanical defects linked to the recording of movement and therefore moves in a manner which is even too fluid: it can be recognized precisely because of that perfection. If the Steadicam is not used by a very capable operator,¹³ a vague sense of dizziness is created because of the perception of the push that generates the movement (even if it is very slow and carefully calculated). In some films it is possible to see that the movement is done with a Steadicam, since it is coupled with an effect of moving closer or further away, characterized by a certain ‘velocity’ of execution.¹⁴

In addition, two errors often made by incompetent Steadicam operators, poor control of the roll axis and lack of rigour in keeping the camera’s height consistent and its path straight whilst moving, produce images that give that ‘floating’ sensation which the Steadicam’s inventor deplores.

These characteristics can be emphasized for narrative purposes as, for example, when one needs to convey a feeling of anguish and fear. However, they can be completely eliminated, making it almost impossible to identify the means used for making the shot.

The Steadicam, despite having quite specific technical characteristics, has therefore come to be seen as a potential ‘skeleton-key’, good for any occasion, with the risk of it being abused,¹⁵ as has happened in the past with other cinematographic devices. The zoom, for example, is an invention that was certainly over-used in the B movies of the 1970s and 1980s.

The Steadicam is often used to give an uninterrupted view of characters who climb stairs, open doors, cross large rooms, go down narrow hallways and so on. Examples include the initial sequence of The Bonfire of the Vanities with B. Willis who arrives, gets into the elevator and goes up; the chase scenes in The Fugitive; the walk through the market in La Mort en Direct; and the race down the alleys to look for a doctor in The Sheltering Sky. The possibility of following what is happening without cuts makes the scene more spectacular and effective, as in the beginning sequence of Strange Days, a Steadicam point of view shot of a thief running from his pursuers who falls from a building (see Chapter 2).

Seeing ‘the impossible’ is tightly linked to the viewer’s capacity to be aware of it and to the need to fulfil the expectations of an increasingly spoiled public. In other words, the viewer loves the trick when it is shown, but does not like being shown how it is done. Or, at the very least, the viewer studies the techniques and then watches the film to appreciate them.¹⁶

The interest in the story and the spectacle created by the movie’s ‘effects’ blend together in certain proportions according to the director’s expressive capacity. A film that is based exclusively on special effects and spectacularity endures only the short time that is necessary for those techniques and effects to become outdated,¹⁷ while a film with a good, solid story, which also makes use of special effects, such as 2001 Space Odyssey, will last ‘forever’. All the movies which use camera motion in the classic cinematographic sense have enriched the history of cinema and, even if they can seem dated whether for technical or for socio-historical reasons, they stay ‘alive’ precisely because they tell stories well. ‘What matters is the organic development of an idea and the technical instruments are there in fact to contribute to realizing it. First comes imagination, then you worry about details.’¹⁸ ‘Technique has to enrich the action.’¹⁹

Besides making it possible to shoot chases and people climbing stairs, the structure of the Steadicam, when it is used in low mode, makes it possible to shoot very close to the ground (as in the scene in The Shining in which Wendy drags Jack’s body into the kitchen) – the Steadicam is at about knee-level so that it is possible to represent the point of view of something low down: a child, animal or object. An example of this is the point of view shot of the snake in Mamba (M. Orfini, 1988). The technical basis of this film is its ability to render the movement and sight of an animal, in this case a snake that slithers quickly or slowly over any surface. The camera recreates the movement and sight of the snake by using a particular lens:the fish-eye, which gives a larger field of vision and makes use of the Steadicam’s capacity to go just about anywhere smoothly.

Another example of an animal point of view shot is in An American Werewolf in London, in the scenes showing the lead character, transformed into a werewolf, running through forests and subway tunnels. These are point of view shots made with the Steadicam turned upside down. The same device is used in Wolfen, also shot with the Steadicam, to give the point of view of the wolves as they watch and then attack the man (here, the effect is heightened by having the image sun-struck, showing the action as the wolves see it). With the creation of the Steadicam and the discovery of its capacity to reproduce so well the subjective viewpoint of an animal or an ‘alien’, the use of this device has become practically mandatory in any film with such subject matter: e.g. An American Werewolf in London, John Landis, 1981; Wolfen, Michael Wadleigh, 1981; The Thing, John Carpenter, 1982; Aliens, J. Cameron, 1986; Wolf, M. Nichols, 1994; Anaconda, L. Llosa, 1997, etc.

Structural Evolution in Steadicam use from the Earliest Movies to the Present

In the twenty years since it was invented, the Steadicam has been used on a myriad of films. It has been perfected and is now accepted like any other irreplaceable cinematographic tool. In my analysis, taking into account the subjects discussed in Chapter 2, I have tried to illustrate the evolution of an innovative and ‘problem-solving’ technical device that also offers new possibilities at the narrative level, a tool which has its roots in classic movie history and solves the problems encountered with the hand-held camera while maintaining the same spirit and intention.

The Steadicam moves confidently, describing the action without anchoring the characters, going everywhere. It proves itself capable of leading the narrative play. Its role changes from creator of effects to narrative voice, in other words, the person who performs the narration, even if the limits of the roles are not well defined. Thus, following movies that used the Steadicam as a device for creating more spectacular effects and to ‘fill-up’ any gaps in the narrative, came other movies in which the Steadicam plays a role more useful to the narrative depth of the story, and then came movies in which the Steadicam is the actual narrator, a gaze among the many gazes, actively participating in the construction of the story.

Today the Steadicam is used in 90 per cent of movies, more or less obviously. The main reason for this is the fact that the Steadicam frequently offers a quicker and better solution (and sometimes the only solution) to objective technical problems such as set building, rough terrain to be crossed, power supply needs and so on. Thus, where its use is not necessary for narrative purposes, it is dictated by economic reasons.

Although a great deal of time is needed to prepare a perfect sequence (because the action to be coordinated lasts longer and is also less predictable, since the camera movement depends on the operator’s steps), shooting with the Steadicam is still more economical than setting up a series of cranes and dollies in settings such as:

• a forest – The Return of the Jedi or The Emerald Forest
• Central Park, New York – Marathon Man
• a crowded marketplace – The Sheltering Sky, La Mort en Direct
• a rope bridge – Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

The expressive capabilities of the Steadicam and the different functions it could perform were evident, however, even in the first years of its existence. For this reason, I have considered the movies that were the first to make use of the Steadicam: the first experiences with it. These works have already been mentioned in Chapter 2 and are discussed here to show how the unlimited possibilities offered by the Steadicam emerge from their cinematographic and narrative structure.

• Bound for Glory, Hal Ashby, 1976
• Rocky, John G. Avildsen, 1976
• Marathon Man, John Schlesinger, 1976

and later movies in which this device is used with greater awareness and experience:

• The Shining, Stanley Kubrick, 1980
• Coup de torchon, Bertrand Tavernier, 1981.

At the time of movies such as Bound for Glory – with its famous shot of David Carradine moving through the crowd (see Chapter 2) – and Rocky, the Steadicam was an experimental tool. In the sequences showing Rocky in training, as he jogs through the streets of Philadelphia and runs up the steps, followed by the Steadicam that captures his feet as he reaches the top, and in the boxing sequences, the Steadicam’s close-up frames involve the viewer emotionally (the fight is seen from much closer and the viewer is caught by the dynamics of the match) and also show the point of view of Rocky as he fights (see Figure 2.15). These sequences demonstrated the Steadicam’s capacity for illustrating subjective vision, which would be put to greater use in the following years.

In Marathon Man the Steadicam was used to show the main character, Dustin Hoffman, as he trains in Central Park (New York), capturing to good effect both the actual running and the character’s exhaustion; for the scenes in which Hoffman attempts to run away (literally) from his pursuers; and to follow Sir Lawrence Olivier making his way among the crowd on 57th Street in New York’s diamond district. Shot by Garrett Brown, this ‘self-effacingly smooth walking-shot’, as he calls it, is still his favourite. He recalls (personal communication, February 2000):

We travelled like a ghost among 150 fake Hassids and a thousand real ones (in fact we couldn’t tell them apart, and kept deferring to the fake extras, and insulting the real ones with directions), and since we wanted to be invisible, I had caused a three-armed sweater to be made to cover also the Steadicam arm, and I covered the camera with a garment bag with a hole for the lens … so there we were … only in NY could a three-armed man walking a floating whirring garment bag through a crowd be invisible!

The Steadicam is also used in this movie for several point of view shots, such as when Hoffman approaches the woman who intrigues him, or when he is jogging and tries to outrun another jogger and we see his view of their race. This marks the appearance of a new way of using the Steadicam: to capture what the character sees. Clearly, the next step is to use it for point of view shots as done with the hand-held camera, examples of which can be found as far back as the beginnings of movie history (for example as utilized by D. W. Griffith, A. Gance and F. W. Murnau).

Unlike the hand-held camera, however, the Steadicam first found acceptance as a tool that could make the viewer identify more closely with the screen images: its more fluid vision corresponds more adequately to the way we see things. In The Shining, this ‘seeing’ no longer coincides only with a character in the story but also shows up as a gaze from above that does not belong to anyone present on screen and to which the Steadicam gives a potential for expressing tension and suspense that exalts its own characteristics.

The Shining tells the story of a writer who decides to spend the winter, together with his wife and child, as a caretaker at a resort hotel in the Rocky Mountains. The oppressive isolation causes him to go insane, just as had happened to a former caretaker who, in the same context of solitude, had murdered his family. In this film the Steadicam is used both as a neutral narrative voice, as it describes what happens and follows the characters in the story, and as an object that is ‘alive’ in its own right, a separate entity that moves in a quasi-mental space. It fluctuates, thanks to its properties, between the physical reality of the flight (as in the escape through the labyrinth) and the unreality of a gaze that knows something, a gaze which, in its turn, has the gift of the ‘shining’, which knows what might happen and allows itself to delay some things (such as the hallway sequence in which the Steadicam does not follow Danny around the corner). Here also, therefore, the intention in using the Steadicam is to record movement, but there is also the intention to create suspense, to enter the realm of the undefined, which becomes embodied in the gaze of the storyteller.

The French movie Coup de torchon makes significant use of the Steadicam as a witness to the actions of the main character and to the development of the catharsis. The Steadicam follows and anticipates the action with an unsettling and nervous rhythm, showing its capacity for concurring with the characters’ moods and determining the distinguishing traits of the narration.

As is true of other cinematographic devices, it is hard to distinguish clearly between the role of the Steadicam as a creator of effects and that in which it is a projector of the narrative voice since, with movies made by authors of a certain level and artistic culture, the means are no longer noticed for what they are; instead, they are used imaginatively and creatively, as are all other technical elements (lights, sound, etc.), to achieve an overall effect of plot ‘construction’.

Although we look for the origin of a gaze and identify a narrative voice which acts in a certain way, it is wrong in these cases to break up the overall effect of a sequence into too many microelements, because we risk losing the essence of what is being described.

As in fiction, the narrative voice can be evident, hidden, multiform, etc., but no matter how many acrobatic acts the writer performs, he cannot give us a story without someone or something to narrate it. In movies, however, contrary to literature, the visual part is real, material, because it is a form of total representation. Thus in a movie image there is a narrative level that shows the events and the characters and has an active function in the story, and a descriptive level that serves as a backdrop and positions everything in its context. Thus, at the movies we see; when we read, we imagine. In literature, any image, no matter how precisely described, is always mediated by the reader’s mental elaboration and representation; with movies, this elaboration is made easier by the actual existence and solidity of the image. Here it is the camera that tells the story, in other words, it is the gaze. Thus, even if we describe frames in which the choice of what to show is as neutral as possible (trying to completely avoid any characterization of the choice), as ‘objective’,²⁰ they are still frames caught by the camera and shown to the public when the movie is projected, one part that stands for the whole, a choice of one thing instead of another.

It is always the camera (which, in the primary identification coincides with the viewer) that shows us something and ‘tells’ us what happens: even if it records events passively, it will always choose a point of view. Thus in the tacit agreement of movie make-believe, of getting personally involved in the story, this narrative voice – even if, as in literature, it can be ignored by the viewer who, completely absorbed by the story, forgets who is showing it to him and who has constructed it – can nonetheless remain a perceptible entity, as it can materialize more concretely in the narrative gaze.

The camera which records the play of a movie actor can simply because of the position which it occupies, or again, with simple movements, intervene and modify the perception that the viewer has of the actor’s performance. It can even, and it has often been done, emphasize something, force the viewer’s eye, and, neither more nor less, direct it.²¹

In every movie text there is, therefore, a narrative voice that tells the story, showing and making us feel what happens. If the narrator is outside the story, it is called extradiegetic and if, in telling the story, it chooses to have its role taken on by a character it is called a homodiegetic narrator. At this point the internal narrator can be assisted by the use of point of view shots so that the story is seen through his or her eyes (in this regard, Jost talks about ‘ocularization’, by which he means seeing through the eyes of the character).²²

The transmission of sight through the filter of the character’s eyes does not necessarily imply that all knowledge passes through. There is a tight and reciprocal relationship between that which is shown (the movie), who shows it (the narrator, who uses the camera to do so) and who receives it (the viewer), which is particularly conditioned by the receiver’s participation in decoding the message and knowing how to ‘read’ everything that is contained within and behind the image. The viewers receive various pieces of information that they knit together or keep on ‘standby’ to be used later to reconstruct the story. The narrator, for his part, chooses the manner of telling – which point of view and information to transmit.²³

As we have seen, a discussion of the point of view involves, obviously, both the physical point from which we are looking and the origin of the gaze, as well as the ideology that lies behind everything that is shown. In this way, all images are potentially point of view shots, since they can correspond to the point of view of a character that we will only see later or, at the ultimate level of point of view, to the point of view of the narrator of the film.

The Gaze of the Narrative Voice

In movies, the gaze is not just the passive reception of something, it is a language which structures the world, a seeing understood as an autonomous cognitive process.

Movies pose the problem of the gaze as a creative and cognitive relationship between a subject and an object which do not exist separately, but which sense each other only within this gaze. There is a subjectivity of the gaze as there is a subjectivity of language … to study movies means to study the forms of vision as a form of subjectivity.²⁴

The camera represents the ‘gaze among the gazes’, in other words, it represents the gaze of the narrative voice. In movies, this gaze uses two dimensions, visual and audible, which are further divided on the basis of what can be seen and read in the image and what can be heard and understood on the soundtrack.

The narrative voice, which by definition produces the narrative discourse, is realized through the camera – its status, however, is decided on the basis of its narrative level and its relationship with the story. Thus, within the same movie, although there exists a gaze among the gazes which represents the main axis of the narration, it is possible to encounter other ‘gazes’. And it is at the narrative level that we can distinguish the various exchanges of information which show us the voice that produced them.

It may happen that – in the encounter with a narrative structure – the subject gaze is ‘fractured’ into a network of internal gazes, that is to say, it may happen that this encounter constructs the movie as a ‘system of gazes’ in which the internal configuration of the subject gaze can fade extensively, until it almost disappears, as we have already seen, maintaining however the function of ‘time–space axis’ that we have called the representation gaze.

This fracturing – associated with taking on a narrative function – is the first thing that happens when the gaze is anchored to one or more characters … not all the system of gazes underlying the movie finishes in the network of internal gazes … A substantial portion of non-anchored gaze is left over, the gaze of the speaking voice which – to a greater or lesser extent – becomes a gaze among the gazes, becomes woven into the network, gives birth to a relay of gazes in which it too takes on the role of ‘conductor’ (in the physical sense) of the action and makes the diegetic material dynamic.²⁵

The Steadicam, with its manner of narrating, is easily accepted by the viewer even when its use is evident, because it helps create tension and suspense; in addition, the use of point of view shots as an exchange of gazes creates even greater ambiguity and effect. In particular, the use of the Steadicam amplifies these effects because of its dynamic qualities and its capacity to ‘get inside’ situations. It actually inserts itself physically, moving within spaces fluidly and uninterruptedly, as well as psychologically, since the way in which it narrates creates certain expectations. Moving, discovering, can inspire curiosity, fear, tension; it can also mean an interior voyage, a search.

What happens to Jack Torrance, the main character in The Shining, during the entire movie is a slow and progressive descent into madness, which makes itself felt almost in a material dimension, through which the Steadicam moves.

In Casino, Scorsese uses the Steadicam as a quick, attentive ‘illustrative gaze’ that is involved in the story, moving from a playing table to a character who has just been named. As if it were running on slightly different time, it anticipates or follows the information that the off-screen narrator provides. It involves the audience in the story almost without allowing time to think. The viewer finds himself behind the croupier as he goes to get the money – the walk down the hall, the guards, the room where the money is counted, the money, the total indifference of the others, leaving the room, same walk, the salon. The camera allows the character to leave the Casino but, until then, it has followed him, circled him, allowed itself to enter the room before him or to be the recipient of the other characters’ greetings instead of him; then it looks around and connects back to the character. This way of narrating with the Steadicam makes it possible to maintain a tight rhythm that serves the purposes of the story. The short pans from a person to an object, from a detail to a larger view, break up the way of looking, as if there were more than one view of the situation, all blending together in order to show as much as possible while involving the public and capturing its attention.

The Steadicam as a Narrative Voice

The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980, USA) and Coup de torchon (Bertrand Tavernier, 1981, France) are two movies in which the function of the Steadicam as the narrative voice is quite clear. What these movies have in common is above all the effect of tension created by the use of the Steadicam. This tension is not always justified, and it takes the form of the nervousness contained in the camera movement, which is sometimes perceptible and at other times less so.

The Shining enters into the heart of its drama a little at a time, thanks to the Steadicam which, with its characteristic of ‘suspended’ shooting, leads us into a dimension of time and space inhabited by insanity and memory.

In Coup de torchon, the emphasis is above all on the ‘anxious, nervous’ characteristics that the narrative gaze takes on: from the beginning the movie communicates to the viewer a sense of uneasiness and uncertainty, because of the way the movement is shot with Steadicam pans and dollies that anticipate, stay with and follow the actors, devoid of solidity or fixed points. All this culminates in the explosion of a tension tied to the progressive mental decay of the main character, a rundown police officer who leads a mediocre, squalid and often cowardly life, yet is convinced he has the right and the duty to ‘clean up’ everything that is rotten in society.^2A

What is interesting in these two movies is the role as the narrative voice that the Steadicam takes on. In fact, not only does it follow the events and testify to what happens, but it also actively conducts the narration; its narrative gaze presents itself as independent, superior and capable of tying together events, anticipating them and abandoning them exactly because it knows the story and chooses how to tell it to us.

We have already seen how, in The Shining, there are revelations of this gaze, particularly in certain sequences such as that of Danny in the hallway, when the camera does not follow him immediately when he exits the scene but lingers on the empty hallway and allows viewers a perception of its narrative methods. In Coup de torchon the narrative voice underlines its role with continual anticipations or by lingering on events which continue even ‘without it’. It is as if it wished to underline that things go on anyway, that it is important to keep a certain distance and yet, at the same time, it tries to discover what will happen next, which creates a sense of unease.

In these two movies the Steadicam relates to events like an omniscient narrator, especially in the French movie where the camera moves continuously, demonstrating the independence of the narrative voice and its domination of everything. The Steadicam moves through the space and time of the story with the awareness of what is happening and what will happen and, on that basis, it chooses how to involve the viewer in the action.

Thus, there are moments of absolute identification and tension when the use of the point of view hands over the responsibility for the view of the story to a character, used as a filter with regard to ‘knowledge’ and as eyes with regard to identifying the point of view. In this way, the role of the Steadicam as narrator becomes blended with that of creator of effects, since in point of view (subjective viewpoint) it is precisely the movement forwards, ‘to discover’, that best describes a person’s or animal’s vision.

Any technical means can be used to take on the role of narrator; its function as narrator ends, however, when its movement is interrupted and it must turn the narration over to other means (for example, after a dolly shot it is impossible to climb stairs, enter a room, close a door). The Steadicam, however, ties the camera to the operator’s body, allowing him to climb on to different vehicles, climb down from or up onto a dolly, without any interruption at the narrative level. Examples of this can be seen in The Bonfire of the Vanities, the initial sequence; Carlito’s Way, when the Steadicam gets on the subway with the character during the final chase; Raising Cain, the long walk taken by the two police detectives and the doctor (who has to provide information about the father of the killer), entirely seen either from behind or ahead in one long Steadicam shot, starting from the police station, going down the hall, getting into the elevator, going down a couple of floors, getting out of the elevator and going down two flights of stairs.

Since a movie unites image and sound, it can show one thing and say something totally different, it can create a gap between what it shows and what it says or it can make them coincide, but all this will still be a narration, the telling of a story. The narrative voice will thus necessarily be the camera, as it is the physical means by which we see the story that is being told. Although the narrator can choose other temporary narrators, the mechanical means will still be the camera and the way it is used will have an effect, lesser or greater, on the narrator’s intentions and his desire to communicate certain emotions, tensions, attentions and so on.

The Steadicam is technically a tool, like a dolly or the hand-held camera itself, and consequently it will be used like any other tool to realize various camera moves. At the same time, precisely because of the myriad possibilities inherent in any action, it can take a greater lead with regard to the narrative play and take on the role of narrator in a more knowledgeable way than is possible with other means. It becomes an instrument instead of merely a tool.

While it remains a choice for the author to make, the technique is suitable for determining effects that enter the realm of the narrative, from mechanical to emotional. The Steadicam can show an image of itself which is almost a materialization of the narrative gaze. A good example of this can be found in Tavernier’s La Mort en direct, in the flea market sequence: this gaze walks around (and lets us physically feel it and see it) among the crowd and follows and looks for the actors with an insistence and relentlessness which correspond to the sight of someone who is physically in those places and going after what he wants. In this sequence, Romy Schneider and Harvey Keitel walk around the market followed by the driver, who loses sight of them in the confusion of the fairgrounds and tries to find them again. The gaze, which can at first be recognized as the driver’s, then becomes the gaze of the narrative voice from above, that wanders with difficulty among the crowds, which slow its movement, and then manages to find the woman after having followed her from a distance during a long obstacle course among the stands.

It is important however not to stop at the technical definition of the device, but to make it a part of an analysis that makes clear its expressive potential. The Steadicam has a particular image, created in particular by its technical capabilities, which can lead people to have a limited view of its potential and which inspires stylistic attitudes that basically come down to the search for effects (without appreciation of the device’s real worth). It is indeed true that the abuse of the Steadicam in television (talk-shows, variety shows, concerts, etc.) and action and B movies (horror movies, etc.) has determined a stereotypical use of it but, in reality, the expressive and technical potential of this tool allows it to rise above the commonplace (easy solutions to plot problems by providing a dynamic filler or a spectacular effect) in those examples of real ability where plot construction, technique and emotion all blend together and reinforce each other.

The Steadicam and Cinematographic Space

Talking about using the Steadicam means also talking about cinematographic space. Making use of the analysis done by Gardies in L’Espace au Cinema, it is possible to derive a series of procedures for studying a film that allow a greater and more in-depth reading of the meaning and the use of space in movies.

Gardies starts from the assumption that space has never been much considered at the diegetic level^26B (diegetic-setting space in which the events of the diegetic world are produced), so that an analysis of it, comparable to that which is made of a character (who is also an object of the diegetic world), leads to the identification of a series of characteristics and properties which elevate the meaning of space above its mere encyclopaedic definition.

An analysis of space must emphasize the morphological characteristics of the places that within the film can organize themselves in a meaningful system: this is done by applying to space the same categories used in analysing character.²⁷ Space, presented as a character with qualities and functions, is thus considered one of the agents of the action.

When space interacts with the character who is the subject of the story, it can determine an exchange with that character and a possible change. The character that within the story is the one who must be competent, that is to say, capable of doing something, is thus flanked by space as a bringer of value. The latter makes it possible for the subject to take a qualitative leap forward or it blocks him, impeding his development. Space is thus considered a ‘player’ in the story, an element which participates in the overall narrative design and ‘operates’ so as to create certain dynamics.²⁸

Space assumes the characteristics of the character, interacting in the creation of the places for ‘doing’, being’, ‘wanting to do’, etc. and, according to its attributes and functions, influencing the action. It is interesting to analyse how spaces are shown within the story and how they participate in it, bringing out the characteristics of the narration and the relationships which exist between ‘setting’ and character. In fact, according to the way they relate to each other, space can be of help to a character, an accomplice, or it can hinder the character and create a series of difficulties which show themselves also in the setting’s physical dimension (e.g. Mamba).

When analysing space, it is also important to keep in mind the various cinematographic methods of narration and the relationships with the narrative voice that can, in our case, coincide with the use of the Steadicam.

The narrator of the story chooses just how to show us the various settings; it is of fundamental importance, therefore, to see what choices he makes with regard to point of view and the various ways in which events can be shown. Thus, the space that is encountered in movies is described according to its characteristics, but also according to the choices made by the narrator who, in turn, is manoeuvred by the ‘grande imagier’ – the author. Consequently, it becomes important to see which technical choices are made.

A zoom or wide angle shot determines a flattening or a widening of the field, a Steadicam tracking shot or a static shot results in greater or lesser involvement of the viewer, along with physical entry into the space and psychological entry into the event. Lighting and other factors create the image of space in the story, which is closely connected to character in the construction of ‘meaning’ and cinematographic content. By diagramming and reconstructing the geography or, better yet, the topography, of the places that comprise the space of the film, it is possible to identify the characters’ connection, dependence or independence from the various places and to characterize their greater or lesser complicity in the various roles played by the places.

On the basis of a first census of the technical indications, the properties of the settings and the spoken information, the connection can be made between what is shown, how it is shown and the value that it assumes at the story level. A grid of meanings and places that are closely connected to each other can be made for a deeper analysis of the value of the plot and the creative message. Space therefore becomes a ‘dimension’, rich in meanings and possibilities that go beyond normal conceptions.

It is important to observe that in the analysis of space and the construction of an eventual topography of the places in the film how and what is shown is of fundamental importance. The viewers’ reconstruction of ‘space’ can be confused or enlightened by what they see, since that is what they must use to tie together and link the various settings and the roles that these might play. The Steadicam is a tool that lets the viewer follow, as on a map, the juxtaposition and the connection between the various settings of the story (e.g., the sequence of Malone’s death in The Untouchables shows us the entire house). Steadicam shots that explore settings in real time make it possible to reconstruct and recognize the interior geography of the places, which can be useful to the construction of the story.

In The Shining, for example, the vastness and, at the same time, the confinement and the limits of the space of the hotel are clearly underlined by the races through the hallways, the scenes in the kitchen and in the room where Jack writes, and by Wendy’s various searches and escapes which become a closed cycle. We are shown the same settings over and over again because that is actually the characters’ living space. It is possible to make an approximate map of the hotel, both because Jack is shown one by the hotel manager, but also because the various characters return over and over to the same spaces, in scenes shot by the Steadicam that joins the spaces together (Figure 3.1).

As the movie proceeds this movement becomes more hurried at both the physical and psychological level (Jack’s unease and insanity) until it culminates in Jack’s mad search and Danny’s desperate escape in the hedge maze outside the hotel. The Steadicam captures perfectly Danny’s panic as he runs through the maze, attempting to escape from Jack who, wounded but relentless, drags himself along wielding his axe, searching for his son, anticipated by the Steadicam that shows us his growing insanity. It then captures equally well Danny’s lucidity as he realizes that the only way he can save himself is to interrupt the trail he is leaving in the snow that is giving him away, by walking backwards in his own footprints.

The scenes, which alternate without external reference points between the search and the escape down the paths of the Maze, are in fact perfectly tied to the movements of the characters, who are followed or anticipated according to what is supposed to be shown and, as in other moments in the movie, the camera performs an ‘internal’ ‘ocularization’, substituting itself for the character, showing us the movement from the character’s point of view. The sensation of unease and strangeness, emphasized also by the physical presence of the maze, is heightened by the Steadicam, which becomes Danny’s terrified gaze as he looks for a possible solution or Jack’s murderous gaze as he searches incessantly down the turnings of the maze. ‘It required enormous force to pull the camera around the turns and a degree of luck to find the right path while essentially looking backward’ recalls Garrett Brown.²⁹ Even in this case, as for other sequences, the space is shown perfectly on the screen, thanks also to the use of the Steadicam. The point of view, no longer from high above and dominant, as in the sequence showing Wendy and Danny (seen by Jack) in the maze, lowers itself and enters the dimension of the two characters, underlining the hostile role (for Jack) and the accomplice role (for Danny) played by the maze. ‘I think that the most difficult shots on the entire picture for me were the 50 mm close-ups travelling ahead of Jack or Danny at high speed’.³⁰

Figure 3.1 Map of The Shining: hall of the Overlook Hotel

Thus, this tool is used to build up tension, by staying close to the character, with the character, in discovering what is happening. ‘The very believable point of view shots as Jack or Danny enter room 237 … The over-the-shoulder shot of Jack as he climbs the stairs above the lobby to find Halloran’.³¹

In this movie the Steadicam work is discrete and basic at the same time. Discrete, since it is not limited to easily identifiable, long dolly shots (following or anticipating), but is also used to follow small gestures, introduce frames and for short withdrawals that enter the realm of the most unconscious meanings, thanks to its characteristic lightness and fluidity, which reveal, without exaggerating, the presence of a narrative gaze. ‘Here were fabulous sets for the moving camera – we could travel unobtrusively from space to space or lurk in the shadows with a menacing presence.’³² Its use was necessary, since it does things that would be impossible for other devices.

Obviously, the capacity to show on the screen a recognizable space depends on the narrator, whose intentions are given total freedom by the Steadicam that can help to locate the story or follow the psychological paths of the characters and cross the space without the least interest in being ‘recognizable’.

In Mamba, as in The Shining, the entire movie takes place in one space (apart from the prologue which has a particular setting, the desert where the snake trainer lives) – a loft apartment, a single, large environment where the main character lives. Here it is easy to identify the topography and floor plan of the apartment which, although it is a friendly space because the heroine knows it very well, turns against her and becomes a prison when her deluded lover frees the snake in her house, because the door is sealed and locked from the outside. The space thus takes on the double characteristic of being both a particular and friendly place, well-known to the heroine who can move around in it confidently and, at the same time, her enemy and opponent because it is a hiding place for the deadly snake, will not let her escape, and makes it hard for her to hide or to call for help. The space is thus undivided and communicating and it is crossed in every sense of the word by the heroine and the snake. The latter, often in primary ‘ocularization’, shows us the space from his point of view, spread out, brushing the ground, and these shots are made with the Steadicam.

All the space is then condensed and shown diagrammed on the assassin’s computer screen where, just as if it were a videogame, he has put the characters and closed all exits in order to then watch the ‘game’. He follows what is going on in the apartment from far away and lets us once again reconstruct the events perfectly.

The heroine, who finds herself involved in a real test of courage in which she must fight for her life, discovers that her loft is the place where she ‘can be’ and ‘can do’, precisely because of the will to fight and save herself that she needs to stay alive. She thus manages to dominate the space that had dominated her, upsetting it and taking it apart, and allows us, thanks to the Steadicam shots in real time, to identify with her struggle and to share the difficulties that she encountered in her space.

The Steadicam and Real Time

We have analysed space in terms of its physical characteristics and the value it has as an agent of the plot. We have looked at it in relation to the various paths taken by the characters and, thanks to the fact that the Steadicam moves through it, discovers it, describes it, it is possible to see how spatial dimension is strictly tied to the effect of real time. The latter, in its turn, influences the perception of space.

Time and its passing are perceived through physical manifestations: seeing a high-speed race or a chase down three fights of stairs shot in real time, without interruptions, makes us ‘feel’ the physical dimension of time and flight. An example of this occurs in Bugsy: ‘Warren Beatty runs up some stairs after Annette Bening into the bathroom, slamming one door after another. I finally had the opportunity to get a shot that couldn’t be gotten any other way’, Jeff Mart (Steadicam operator).³³

The Steadicam is therefore the only tool which can shoot a scene in real time, continuously, without having to cut to adapt to new situations. As the body of the camera is tightly attached to the operator, the whole structure is ‘one being’: wherever the operator can go, so can the camera. For this reason, the operator can be in a car, he can get out, climb on a dolly, enter a second-floor window, enter a room. In other words, by taking advantage of the camera’s properties of stability, he can go from one situation to another by using a combination shot without the viewer being aware of any change. Potentially, the arrival point is the single take.

During the entire movie, time coincides with real time and there is absolute unity of place … long and complex camera movements without ever having to cut to make the two basic elements of dramatic tension, time and space (setting) stand out.³⁴

The dream of being able to tie things together in order to obtain a single movement.³⁵

… The rope has only one level because the images are only the twists of a single, identical thought.³⁶

At the same time, continuous shooting means that there must be a unity of time and action, since the physical perception of time is given by the space that is actually crossed by the camera. In other words, the time of the action is made real by the space that we cross through completely. Thus we see sequences that use the Steadicam, as dollies and cranes were used in the past, to follow characters in long, uninterrupted shots as they go from one place to another, in order to make the physical time needed to go down the stairs, take the elevator, etc. ‘interesting’ and an integral part of the story.³⁷ An important example is the long take at the beginning of Snake Eyes, which follows the main character as he goes through various rooms until he gets to where the fight is being held.³⁸

It should be a rediscovery of the value of reality, gestures, simple actions, so that everything that happens is unique, unrepeatable, important and therefore can be recorded. Actually, it often happens instead that a tool such as the Steadicam is abused, as when a story that lacks large-scale action and/or a strong plot is constructed on tiring reproductions of long walks or chases that border on pure virtuosity³⁹. Or there is an attempt to create dynamic depth by making the action more agitated, moving the camera continually, as in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,⁴⁰ where the continual use of the Steadicam tires the viewer in a non-constructive way.

The director Brian de Palma uses the Steadicam in all his movies, for both constructing the story and building physically and psychologically the expressive dimension of the characters.

The idea of the initial sequence shot was to show viewers as much as possible of the world in which they will be immersed … the first thing to do is to walk through it, trying to show the character not only in his physical space, but also in his way of living.⁴¹

In De Palma’s The Bonfire of the Vanities there is a long sequence (running about 5 minutes) of a character arriving in front of a skyscraper and going up to the salon on the top floor, which begins with a view of the car and continues with an internal tracking shot through the garage, hallways, elevator, hallways, finally arriving at the salon. The entire sequence runs in real time, creating a sense of dynamism, but even more of dizziness and apprehension. It becomes the continuum of the search and discovery of the character’s truth, an entering and going towards things.

This continuum in time and space is also seen in The Shining, with the events taking place in a vast, articulate but single space. The hotel is shown, in fact, through a ‘crossing’ of it; in this case, not in a single sequence, but in a series of long Steadicam sequences that create a symbolic ‘flow’, that is to say, the overall continuity of the story (the movie), circumscribing and acquainting us with the setting.

The flow constructed with sequence shots is not the only kind: a movie may also wish to build a symbolic, thematic, expressive flow through the use of editing and the rhythm that it gives the movie. Certain movies which narrate with the Steadicam build a dynamic flow which, despite the cuts done during editing, is imposed through the rhythm of the action.

Carlito’s Way, another film by De Palma, builds the final sequence in which Al Pacino escapes and meets his girlfriend at the station with a frenzied rhythm and a crescendo of tension that are obtained in particular by the dynamism of the running: on the street, in the subway, up and down the stairs at the station. The sequence is shot mostly with the Steadicam and, although it is spliced and cut with other shots, it maintains the frenetic rhythm of the escape, swallowing the viewer up into the vortex of the speed and the desire to be saved, skilfully illustrated by Steadicam sequences alternating with other shots that do not slow the rhythm but, on the contrary, blend with the narrative intent to communicate to us the character’s frenzy, fear and desire to get to his destination. The rhythm of the race counters the static waiting of the girlfriend as she stands by the train, trusting that he will come but nonetheless afraid.

In Coup de Torchon Tavernier uses the Steadicam to create a sense of flow, of continuity in movement, or what Daniel Brian has called ‘circuit of wandering’. The on-going search in the unfolding story, the passing of time which, even if it is told in numerous ways, fragmented, anticipated, runs on continuously.

It is not at all indifferent, in fact, at least in a work that gives importance to style, whether an event is analysed by fragments or shown in its physical wholeness⁴²

… The editing is negative when the spatial unity of the event needs to be respected, when breaking it would transform reality into a simple imaginary representation of it.⁴³

The rejection of editing opens itself to the theoretical definition of the concept of setting the scene as the organization of the scenic elements and their relationship with the camera in order to convey their real flow.⁴⁴

Continuous shooting is also linked to the idea of the documentary and its way of filming reality, which is perceived as a whole and must be captured in the same way. Even if didactically it is necessary to break up the action to better show the various phases of a process, the continuous take gets closer to the complexity of the event and is better at capturing it at the moment that it happens, following it uninterruptedly as it unfolds.

Shooting a documentary and shooting for television are the same in that they both involve entering a situation and staying with it without a break, in order not to lose the public’s attention for even one second. Not just by chance is the Steadicam used so frequently for television programmes.

Television and cinema genres such as cinema verité, free cinema and nouvelle vague,⁴⁵ have been influential in demonstrating the importance of the means of shooting in connection with obtaining the effect of reality or of totally exaggerating it. They emphasize this documentary-like continuous view of what is happening and show it in a continuous evolution over time.

Television shots for news programmes, in which it is particularly important to be continuously present during the event, are closely tied to documentary shots, as the aim is to record what is happening as a witness. Similarly, the television show ER⁴⁶ is based on its capacity to stay with the characters, who are often involved in urgent attempts to save patients, through the constant use of the Steadicam, which ‘breathes’ with the medical staff and conveys their feelings, a continuous witness.

Another example is the experience of Steadicam operator Jeff Mart. Given Mart’s background in news and documentaries, Steadicam was a natural transition for him. He bought a system ‘because I wanted a device that would smooth my camera movements as I ran after animals or parades’.⁴⁷ The movie industry, as with all mass media, understands, or rather reacts to, this influence, making movies that mirror just that documentary and television-type approach.

In The Sheltering Sky, the search for the doctor and the marketplace scene at the end of the movie are all filmed with Steadicam. Pecorini describes the camera moves as ‘documentary style’.⁴⁸

Another example is All Quiet on The Western Front, in which the Steadicam was used for the shots in the trenches, both because there was no other way to do them and for the realistic and almost documentary-like effect it was able to lend to the portrayal of war. The Steadicam embodies the qualities of a perfect witness who has the gift of being able to go anywhere (or almost) and follow events as if it were their shadow.⁴⁹

The Steadicam and Remakes

A number of movies have been or will be made more than once in the history of cinema, because each time the story is attractive and new for the person who wants to tell it. Thus, we find that over time we have had one, two, three, four versions of Frankenstein, each of which caught, emphasized or looked for a new aspect of the story and which therefore had a new form each time it was offered to the public.

Often in remakes there is an attempt to go beyond not only the limitations that exist with regard to the expression of the story, but also the technical limitations. Since the technology available to the movie industry is continually evolving, the story can be enriched and retold with greater effect.

With the creation of the Steadicam, camera motion attained an expressive capacity that makes it possible to underline the construction of the movie, to follow the more complex developments in the narrative and to describe the events with greater clarity, heightening the viewer’s sense of participation. Thus the werewolf is no longer described exclusively from the outside, as a transformation from man to wolf, but is seen as a being with his own point of view that we can perceive through the visual changes and from a new, low down, viewpoint, in movement, quick, unexpected, thanks to the use of the Steadicam in low mode.

At the same time, in many films less concerned with effect, the Steadicam allows the construction of different dynamics and rhythm. The camera follows a conversation between people on the street, stays closer to the actors, following their paths more efficiently and in a way that increases the viewer’s involvement in the story, e.g. Sabrina, 1954/1995; We’re no Angels, 1955/1989; The Night and the City, 1950/1992; Dial M for Murder, 1954/A Perfect Murder (remake), 1998.

Obviously, there is no direct link between the existence or not of a new cinematographic tool and telling a story that has already been told. The story has the inner strength to exist in its own right and technology can be used to express it as well as possible.

John Carpenter, in his remake of The Thing, used the new technology available to him to go beyond the limits of the 1950s, when Christian Nyby’s⁵⁰ black-and-white classic was made. In the original version, there is a lot of atmosphere and expectation, and the audience is left to imagine what is not shown; the cold and snow make it difficult to have a clear view of what is happening. The use of the dolly and the many fades serve to synthesize the idea of movement. In his colour remake, Carpenter makes the story more complex and more visual. The Steadicam, which is also present as an independent narrator, is unleashed to follow the characters in the races down the hallways and is used for point of view shots.

This example shows how using the Steadicam can increase the expressive potential of a story and a movie without, however, legitimizing the idea that a movie made with more means and possibilities is necessarily better.

The Beginning and End of a Movie

Entering into and leaving a film are particularly beautiful and tragic moments for viewers. Entering the world of make-believe can coincide with a need for entertainment, meditation or reflection on their part. They choose a movie, they dedicate that interval of time to the make-believe and play the game. The movie’s beginning is the start of the credits, the first frames that appear out of the dark. For this reason, the graphics at the beginning of the movie, the presentation of the authors’ names and the first events are of fundamental importance. All this, accompanied by a soundtrack that is both internal and external to the story, allows us to enjoy the oblivion of the fiction and detach ourselves from the present, to ‘get into’ the film.

The Steadicam has made it possible for viewers to enter and leave a movie in new ways that we might call ‘more physical’. It manages to involve the viewers and take them by the hand so energetically that they almost feel the need to call a stop, even if they are already sitting in the theatre, in order to understand what is happening. This is what happens in Diner, Legal Eagles, The Bonfire of the Vanities and Snake Eyes.⁵¹ These movies, all with opening scenes shot in Steadicam, have dynamic beginnings which lead viewers to feel almost as if they were racing along behind the story.

At the end of a movie as well, viewers participate in a particular rite – the inevitable displeasure of leaving the make-believe, the fantasy, the sentiment. Thus, the stories are often made to finish with full shots, which progress slowly and gradually ‘to accompany the viewer to the door’. At times, however, the ending can be brusque or paralysing using, for instance, a freeze-frame. At other times the ending is done differently and can take viewers back to the beginning again, closing the story in a circle. For example, in The Bonfire of the Vanities, the long tracking shot at the beginning, which was interrupted to allow the story to be told, is concluded at the end of the movie.

However, the end of a movie may not mean cutting viewers off from the make-believe, as in After Hours,⁵² where the final tracking shot is a movement that continues to lead us into the story, making us think that something else will follow. The movie ends with a Steadicam tracking shot in the empty office, the camera moves among the desks and hallways to the music and then it moves away, inviting viewers to continue to give their imaginations free rein.

Conclusions

The moving camera is particularly useful in cases in which the scene of the action is not a static environment, in which the actors come and go, but when the actors are, so to say, the constant elements and it is the environment instead that changes. The camera can accompany the hero through all the rooms of a house, down the stairs, along the street; and the human figure can stay the same, while the environment runs like a panorama, continually changing. The movie artist can therefore do what is very hard for the theatrical director, which is to show the world from the point of view of an individual, to take man as the centre of his universe; in other words, make a totally subjective experience visible to everyone.

Actually, it is possible for experiences of an even more subjective nature to be represented in this way. The feeling of ‘seeing everything turning around us’, dizziness, drunkenness, the sensation of falling and getting back up are easily produced moving the camera in the most suitable way.⁵³

With these words Arnheim in 1933 anticipated what the Steadicam fully realized. We have seen how this device can be used to help tell the story and to substitute itself for the gaze and the narrator itself. I have tried to analyse the various functions of the Steadicam, examining how it performs in the different movies in which it has been used, according to the type of movie and the director. As it was impossible to review every film, I have limited my analysis to the earliest films, to the period in which the Steadicam was introduced as an official movie tool, and to some of the films through which it became known. Then, the analysis considers those productions that clearly demonstrate the qualities of the Steadicam. Movie history makes it possible to travel through movie production from 1977 to 1999, and to consider the films made during the last 10 years, during which time there has been an exponential increase in the use of this tool.

The versatile Steadicam, which can go from being a fixed camera to performing any number of camera moves all without needing to interrupt the shot, has undergone a metamorphosis from the time of its debut to the present. If, at the beginning, it was used and experimented with for the effects it could create (stability and fluctuation together, shooting the point of view of someone looking while moving, chases down long and varying routes, etc.), its uses are now more skilled and more standardized. More skilled, since it is not as identifiable as it was. In fact, where it once was noticeable for its diversity and for the peculiarity of its movement compared with other means, we now see movies that use the Steadicam as if it were a dolly or for a stationary shot, since all shots can be made without the viewer being able to recognize the source. At the same time, the Steadicam has been standardized because it has determined what is practically a style, one tied to action movies and ‘thrillers’ in which it is the absolute protagonist. Tightly linked to the dynamics of editing, it helps to construct movies that seem to be ‘all alike’.⁵⁴ All

action films of the 1990s use the Steadicam, particularly because of the dynamic shots it can make, perfect for capturing the ‘action’ that is their basic premise. In these movies the rhythm is fast and the events rush along one after another to astonish and enthral the viewer. Basically, the story is constructed by relying on the dynamics of the action.

In my analysis, I have attempted to gather examples of point of view shots done with the Steadicam and to give more thought to the link between the expressive richness of the device and the fact that it represents a stimulus to ‘write’ stories which can fully exploit such wealth.

The point of view is substantially a figure which is halfway between meaning and expression, between syntactic position of the camera and special effect within the image, it is a ‘compromise formation’ in the Freudian sense between the desire to enter the visual horizon of another person, of a character, and the impossibility of leaving oneself to one side.⁵⁵

In the light of this analysis, it is interesting to look at the movie Strange Days, directed by K. Bigelow, which unites ‘effect’ and story construction, exalting the possibility of living ‘the point of view of others’. Set in a violent and disillusioned Los Angeles just before the year 2000, a large part of the movie is shot with the Steadicam. The lead character is a man who sells ‘dreams’ through the squid, an electronic system that is attached to the head and allows the wearer to live the same emotions felt by whoever wore it before and activated it for recording. Practically speaking, it records brain activity and sight, a direct line with what one feels while one acts.

This coincidence is realized, in terms of moviemaking, by the use of point of view (subjective vision), since the wearers of the pre-recorded diskettes (squids) live other people’s lives anew, seeing again directly through their brains, what happened to the person who ‘recorded’ it. The point of view shots are alternated with shots filmed with the Helmetcam, which is worn directly on the operator’s head in order to achieve the greatest possible coincidence with the character’s point of view. Seeing and feeling blend together; the viewer is swallowed up in long takes of insane flights and violent situations.⁵⁶

A movie such as this is an evident and efficacious example of technical and narrative effects that move along together, and adds another title to the long list of action movies, thrillers and horror movies that are constructed with an incessant dynamism of shots, even if in many of these movies the spectacular dimension becomes more important than the contents: a fast-running story that never lets up and is over in the wink of an eye.

Notes

1    Metz, C. (1980) Cinema e psicanalisi. Il significante immaginario. Venezia: Marsilio, p. 53.

2    ‘The techniques for the hand-held camera are essential to penetrate the reality which one is investigating, adapting the shooting in function of the space. In fact, the director/operator must become a mechanical eye, capable of following the characters involved in the action in what Rouch calls by analogy with the phenomenon of possession cine-transe.’ Nepoti, R. (1988) Storia del documentario. Bologna: Patròn Editore, p. 98.

3    ‘Patricia Rollet notes that some of the most important technological innovations of recent years in the field of cinema, such as the Steadicam or microcameras, have the effect of detaching the camera from the human eye, thus completing a longstanding cinematic tie.’ Metz, C. (1995). L’enunciazione impersonale o il luogo del film. Napoli: Ed. Scientifiche. See the author’s interview with Garrett Brown in Chapter 4 (question 5).

4     La Roue, 1922, A. Gance: particularly in the sequence called ‘Sisif aveugle’, in which after an accident (a jet of steam went in his eyes) the driver looks at the familiar objects that he has at hand and no longer recognizes them – the continuation shows them to us: Sisif, who picks up his pipe, feels it and looks at it as he moves it closer to his eyes (descriptive image). Later, this pipe is shown to us (in close up) as he sees it, in other words in a sort of woolly shimmer (analytic image, called subjective). Next come various images of this type showing Sisif looking at an object that we also see in the way that he sees it. Mitry, J. (1965) Esthétique et psycologie du cinema, II Les Formes. Paris: Editions Universitaires, p. 61.

5     Birdy, directed by Alan Parker, 1984.

6     Ransom, directed by Ron Howard, 1996.

7    He divided the subjective viewing process into six elements: point, glance, transition, from point, object and character (awareness of the presence of someone looking); and defined various point of view categories on the basis of the relationship between the subject and the object of the glance. ‘The point of view shot is a shot in which the camera assumes the position of a subject in order to show us what the subject sees. The point of view shot is composed of six elements usually distributed in two shots as follows: Shot A: point/glance: (1) establishment of a point in space; (2) glance: establishment of an object usually off-camera, by glance from the point; between Shots A and B, (3) transition: temporal continuity or simultaneity; Shot B: point/object: (4) from the point: the camera locates at the point, or very close to the point in space defined by element one above; (5) object: the object of element two above is revealed; Shots A and B: (6) character: the space and time of elements one through five are justified by – referred to as – the presence and normal awareness of a subject.’ Braningan, E. (1984) Point of View in the Cinema: A Theory of Narration and Subjectivity in Classical Film. Berlin, Mouton Publishers, p. 103.

8    The Untouchables, Brian De Palma, 1987.

9    The Maltese Falcon, John Huston, 1941; Notorious, Alfred Hitchcock, 1946; A Fistful of Dollars, Sergio Leone, 1964; Leon, Luc Besson, 1994; Snake Eyes, Brian De Palma, 1998.

10  ‘We Italians have always used the hand-held camera, even when there was no Steadicam – it’s just that we never used it as something to be shown, I mean to say no one was ever aware of it, but in every Italian movie there is a piece which is ‘hand-made’. Interview by Serena Ferrara with Giuseppe Rotunno, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, Rome, 7 February 1997.

11  ‘Most hand-held shots suffer from a distinct jerkiness. Since it is solidly connected to the operator’s shoulders or hands, the camera is subject to all of the operator’s movement including undesired shocks and bounces that accompany each footstep. When we walk we do not see these shocks in the way the camera see them … our muscles, joints, tendons and ligaments absorb a large portion of these shocks. What the body does not absorb is corrected by the eyes, muscles and the brain’s image processing, turning a bumpy ride into a smooth flight … the easiest and most reliable way to counter these movement is to prevent them from even reaching the camera and it is through this isolation that the Steadicam works’. Swanson, E. (1994) Steadicam Operators Association www.steadicam-ops.com/Eric Swanson’s Steadicam FAQS hosted by Kiwi Film. This document is copyright Eric Swanson 1994.

‘The eyes are part of an exquisite human servosystem (the brain) that is constantly adjusting and correcting for body motions so that the scene we see is always steady.’ DiGiulio, E., President, Cinema Products Corp. (1976) Steadicam–35 – A revolutionary new concept in camera stabilization. American Cinematographer, July, 57 (7), p. 786.

12  The Duellists, Ridley Scott, 1977, UK; The Strawberry Statement, Stuart Hagman, 1970, USA; Il Conformista, Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970, Italy; Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg, 1998, USA.

13  About Larry McConkey: ‘Larry’s about the best there is: you can watch At Play in the Fields of the Lord and have no idea that it’s full of Steadicam shots. He’s the kind of Steadicam shooter we all aspire to be’ (from the interview of J. Muro, Steadicam operator). Comer, B. (1992) Steadicam hits its stride. American Cinematographer, September, 73 (9), 82.

14  Such an effect can surely be found in other types of camera movements involving the use of mechanical devices that are less fluid and therefore more perceptible.

15  ‘You see, sometimes instead with the Steadicam they do things, they linger, just to show that it couldn’t be done with another device; instead that same scene can be done just as effectively, maybe even more effectively, in less time.’ Interview by Serena Ferrara with Giuseppe Rotunno, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, Rome, 7 February 1997.

16  In this sense it should be noted that for many years now movie studios have offered tours in order to satisfy the curiosity and interest of the public. In addition, movie tapes, whether for rental or sale, have in recent years begun to include behind-the-scenes footage which shows how certain sequences were made.

17  For example, Lucas ‘remodernized’ the Star Wars Trilogy by using computer graphics which Lucas felt enhanced the story.

18  Rilla, W. from Marner, T. S. J. (1987) Grammatica della regia. Milano: Lupetti & Co, p. 24.

19  Truffaut, F. (1985) Il cinema secondo Hitchcock. Parma: Pratiche Ed.

20  ‘There are no neutral images. Any visual, or audio, element of any film … is the result of many choices which always imply an activity.’ Metz, C. (1995) L’enunciazione impersonale o il luogo del film. Napoli: Ed Scientifiche. Metz does not considers so-called neutral images a category, but rather a limit in the perception of the enunciating/speaking means; this definition is given to those images that do not have the characteristics of film d’auteur images (for example, the camera held intentionally at an angle, the use of colour that changes to underline emotion).

21  Gaudreault, A. and Jost, F. (1990) Le recit cinematographique. Paris: Natham Université.

22  ‘Ocularization: this term has in effect the advantage of evoking the viewfinder and the eye which is looking through it at the field that the camera is going to capture.’ Jost, F. (1987) L’oeil-camera. Presses Universitaires de Lyon.

23  In Gardies’ work, we find the distinction between the three levels on which the viewer’s knowledge is constructed: he distinguishes between location (where the camera is positioned), display (what is seen) and polarization (management and diffusion of the narrative knowledge). In Gardies’ polarization we find the differences and the correlations between the various sources of knowledge. On the basis of whether the narrator’s or the character’s knowledge is favoured more or less, we have the polarization – enunciator/speaker, the polarization – viewer and the polarization – character. Gardies, A. (1993) L’espace au cinema. Paris: Méridiens Klincksieck.

24  Bernardi, S. (1994) Introduzione alla retorica del cinema. Firenze: Ed. Le Lettere, pp. 68–69.

25  Cuccu, L. and Sainati, A. (1987) Il discorso del film. Napoli: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, p. 33.

26A ‘The times the Steadicam is used are therefore perfectly functional to the narrative regime which was established with the illustration – truly Celine-like – of a voyage to the end of the night, a hiccoughing-voyage of which Cordiere, the rebel, is the Messiah. A voyage in which everything is turned upside-down, everything oscillates between logic and madness, in a sort of metaphysical delirium.’ Arecco, S. (1992) B. Tavernier. Firenze: Castoro Cinema Ed.

26B Diegesis: Everything that belongs to the story, i.e. events and characters of a narrative. See Stam, R., Burgoyne, R. and Flitterman-Lewis, S. (1992) New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics. London and New York: Routledge.

27   Attribution: elements which characterize a place; usefulness: organizes the places into three categories: referential places, ‘embrayeurs’ places, anaphorical places; differentiation: involves the morphological characteristics (horizontal–vertical), the relational characteristics (open– closed), axiological characteristics (public–private), the speaking and cinematographic processes; modalization: involves the new information that the subject of the narrative acquires when he enters into a relationship with the space (i.e. the place of doing, of being …). Gardies, A. (1993) L’éspace au cinéma. Paris: Méridiens Klincksieck.

28  Casetti, F. and Chio, F. (1990) Analisi del film. Milano: Ed. Strumenti Bompiani. (See discussion: Attanzialita pp. 176–8.)

29  Brown, G. (1980) The Steadicam and The Shining. American Cinematographer, August, 61 (8), pp. 786–9, 826–7, 850–4.

30  Brown, G. (1980) The Steadicam and The Shining. American Cinematographer, August, 61 (8), pp. 786–9, 826–7, 850–4.

31  Brown, G. (1980) The Steadicam and The Shining. American Cinematographer, August, 61 (8), pp. 786–9, 826–7, 850–4.

32  Brown, G. (1980) The Steadicam and The Shining. American Cinematographer, August, 61 (8), pp. 786–9, 826–7, 850–4.

33  Jeff Mart (Steadicam Operator) in Comer, B. (1993) Steadicam hits its stride (Part 4). American Cinematographer, February, 74 (2), p. 78.

34  Chiarini, L. (1965) Arte e tecnica del film. Bari: Ed. Laterza. p. 66.

35  Truffaut, F. (1977) Il cinema secondo Hitchcock. Parma: Pratiche Ed.

36  Deleuze, G. (1984) L’immagine in movimento. Milano: Ubulibri.

37  In Raising Cain, the doctor’s long walk with the detectives. As the doctor goes from one place to another she talks continuously and gives us important information about the killer.

38   Snake Eyes opens with a technically demanding, seemingly edit-free 20-minute Steadicam sequence, shot by renowned operator Larry McConkey, which follows Santoro (Cage) through the Forum. ‘Of course, you only have 500 feet in the magazine’, notes Burum, ‘so when it got to the end of the roll, we would either have a wall or a person wipe in front of the camera … we use those moments as our opportunities to cut.’ Pizzello, C. (1998) Ringside riddle. American Cinematographer, August, 52 (8), pp. 52–9.

39  Some critics have noted these ‘filler’ functions, such as Roy Menarini, with regard to Species, by R. Donaldson, 1995, USA: ‘For the rest of the movie, Donaldson is satisfied with a series of circular tracking shots, with a good use of the Steadicam’. Segno Cinema, 1996, No. 78. G. Rotunno also criticizes movies which too often invent situations in which to use the Steadicam, not for narrative ends but because it provides a resolution for a weak screenplay. See interview in Chapter 4.

40  K. Branagh, 1994.

41  D’Agnolo Vallan, G. (1998) Morte al Casinò. Ciak, 11, November.

42  Barbera, A. and Turigliatto, R. (1978) Leggere il cinema. Milano: Mondadori, p. 307.

43  Bazin, A. (1986) Che cos’é il cinema? Milano: Garzanti, p. 87.

44  Barbera, A. and Turigliatto, R. (1978) Leggere il cinema. Milano: Mondadori, p. 292.

45  They are all movements which belong to a cultural moment involving the search for reality, provocation and the sense of the author. There is an attempt to reduce the amount of organization and expense involved in creating a set to a minimum and to directly follow what is happening.

46   ER, television drama series. Comer, B. (1993) Steadicam hits its stride. American Cinematographer, Part 4, February.

47  Jeff Mart, Steadicam Operator, in Comer, B. (1993). Steadicam hits its stride (Part 4). American Cinematographer, February, 74 (2), p. 78.

48  N. Pecorini, Steadicam Operator, in Comer, B. (1993). Steadicam hits its stride (Part 4). American Cinematographer, February, 74 (2), p. 77.

49  In this regard, it is interesting to hear Garrett Brown’s opinion: ‘Steadicam is almost too facile at this … these shots desperately need thought – the discipline would be as follows: To imagine that these are dolly shots and that we need to lay all that rail. One would certainly have to consider each aspect of such a shot more carefully, since the labor of laying the rail is so large and essentially unchangeable. Therefore, one would actually design all aspects of the move carefully, rather than just jumping in and following endlessly, or relying on the flexibility of the Steadicam to avoid what should be an act of intense design.’ Garrett Brown, personal communication, February 2000.

50   The Thing from Another World, Christian Nyby, 1951, USA.

51  In Diner the scene begins in the street: the camera follows the character as he goes down it, enters a building, climbs the stairs, goes down a hallway, enters a ballroom. Legal Eagles begins with characters on the street, they cross it, go into a building, climb the stairs (almost as if to music), enter a room where a party is going on. In Bonfire of the Vanities Bruce Willis gets out of a taxi and goes to the salon on the 50th floor, all shot without cuts. See also Chapter 2 and this chapter for references to De Palma’s work.

52  This film, too, in a certain sense has a circular ending, since it began precisely in that office, thanks to a masterful Steadicam sequence shot running about 7 minutes, that shows the arrival of the various employees, with a sense of dizzy premonition of what will happen, until it finds the main character sitting at his desk.

53  Arnheim, R. (1983) Film come Arte. Milano: Feltrinelli, p. 100.

54  V. Storaro: ‘Today, simpler lighting equipment, faster lenses and the mobility of the Steadicam have given American movies another aspect, one which is also dangerous at the level of style and language, because I’m a little bit afraid that these films will turn out to all resemble each other.’ Consiglio, S. and Ferzetti, F. (1983) La bottega della luce – I direttori della fotografia. Milano: Ubulibri, p. 177.

55  Bernardi, S. (1994) Introduzione alla retorica del cinema. Firenze Ed., Le Lettere, p. 74.

56  Strange Days ably reconstructs the feeling and the effect of subjective vision (point of view), showing the hands and feet of the character to whom the glance is attributed it makes the image truly seem to be his sight. As early as 1947, Robert Montgomery in The Lady in the Lake had amply reconstructed the effect, shooting the entire movie as a single point of view, that of the main character, the detective Philip Marlowe. Using devices such as the smoke from a just-lit cigarette, the hands … all seen directly by him (coinciding with the camera). Montgomery’s experiment, different from Strange Days, was in part a failure precisely because of the heaviness of the image which, even though it was a point of view, became in the long run almost an ‘objective vision’, according to J. Mitry. Paradoxically, the effect of subjectivity was lost, because there was no confrontation with other points of view.