A Shot from the Past: a Critical Analysis

by Massimiliano Folgheraiter

The primary aim of this essay is to analyse the form and style of the digital film A Shot from the Past, alongside some technical attainments. A significant inspiration we had during the development of this horror film was Alice In The Cities (Wenders 1974), a German movie, that bases the clue for its story on a photograph. The other key influence we had was the location: Fort Burgoyne. This disused military post, with its legacy of almost two centuries, instilled in us the idea of an intersection between the present and the past; the story of a photographer who captures the history within her snapshots but ends up caught up by the past itself.

Even if the film is organised in narrative form, its genre and some of its stylistic choices make it trigger embodied responses in the spectator at times, such as anxiety and scare. The continuity editing, ‘that allows for an inconspicuous compression of space and time and the same time as it creates a spatial and temporal coherence’ (Elsaesser and Hagener 2010, p. 90), is quite adequately maintained, apart from some lacks towards the end.

The film can be divided into two parts, which also differ in terms of style. In the first segment (00:00-04:22) the action is focused on the protagonist, who walks around the fort, exploring its rooms and taking pictures with her Polaroid camera. Although the film begins with a medium close-up of the girl, this type of shot is used only three times in the first part, that is mainly defined by long shots and medium long shots. 

The setting of the film is not constructed. It is an existing fort situated in Dover and plays a key role in the plot. Indeed, it plays the role of a major character in the film, as it overwhelms the protagonist at some points. Bordwell (2007) argues that ’the horror film typically centres on a monster’s attack on humans, who must fight back’. However, in this particular case, the fort can be considered as the main antagonist of the story, alongside the past, making it difficult for the photographer even to defend herself from this intangible presence.

The first sequence is overexposed and presents a hard frontal lightning, emitted from the sun. This light is bright, in contrast to the red dyed hair of the protagonist. This expedient gives the spectator a sense of heat and quiet and makes him focus his attention on the girl.

As she goes into the area that surrounds the military post, the sun gives way to an overcast sky. This change has an impact on the quality of the light, which results in a soft lighting. At this point of the film, the contrast increases and the shots stop making the audience feel safe. The coldness of these scenes, also supported by the sudden snowfall, cannot but transmit a sense of loneliness and danger.

During the entire film, the absence of music or dialogues draws more attention to the noises. Nevertheless, the sound takes the second place throughout this first part of the film. It is entirely characterised, in fact, by background noises, such as the wind blowing, the leaves rustling in the trees, the zipper of the protagonist’s backpack and her footsteps while walking around the fort. All these effects are external diegetic sounds, faithful to their sources and simultaneous. Their pitch is high, except the steps that have a lower pitch and whose volume changes in relation to the scenes.

The sound effects can also represent an element in the continuity of the film. An example is the noise of the Polaroid camera as it opens and takes a picture. This external diegetic sound is faithful and simultaneous, and it is exploited in several scenes during the film, establishing a motif. More than halfway through the first segment (02:57), the scene cuts away from a shot of the Polaroid camera just before it snaps to another one in which the girl lights her cigarette. This choice represents a way to give the scene rhythm through the montage and dramatises the action, making the viewer focus on the emitted noise. At this moment, in fact, editing helps to maintain the sound fluent and avoids a lack of continuity, replacing the click of the camera with the noise of the lighter.

The shot that could mark the end of the first part (04:09-04:22) is filmed from a low height and uses a straight-on angle. The centre of the action, in this case, is the walk of the protagonist, emphasised by the way she moves the dust while leaving the room and the sound produced by her footsteps, which is typified by a low pitch.

Right after this moment, the audience is introduced to a scene that represents an unexpected twist in terms of plot. A close-up shot of the snapshots taken by the photographer during the first part of the film reveals, in fact, that she had captured on her pictures some people who used to live there in the past. There is no sound in the shot, in order to increase the tension in the spectator, who is already astonished by the discovery. 

The noise that breaks this silence is produced by the appearance of one of the soldiers shown in the pictures, who suddenly taps on the window. This external diegetic sound is faithful and simultaneous and, also because of its low pitch and high volume, represents a breakthrough in the film, frightening the audience and marking the beginning of the protagonist’s run.

The sequence of the pursuit (04:54-05:14) represents a significant change in the style of this second segment of the film. The action is no longer focused only on the photographer but also on the new characters that are briefly introduced.

The bumpy shot of the run, taken from the girl’s point-of-view, is created by a handheld camera and makes the scene assume the typical look of a  documentary. ‘This sort of camera movement [in fact] became common in the late 1950s, with the growth of the cinéma vérité documentary trend’ (Bordwell, Thompson and Smith 2017, p. 491). 

Moreover, the scene is underexposed, and the higher-contrast images make the black areas starker, in order to raise the tension, showing almost only the shadows of the people following the girl. 

The sound of this sequence finds its peak in the scream, with which a green-haired girl terrifies the protagonist. This external diegetic noise is the only sound produced by a human voice in the film and has higher volume and pitch than the previously heard sounds.

In the shot in which the girl hit the ground outside the fort (05:28), there is a major lack of continuity. The lighting here differs from the previous shot, as it is softer. This fact gives the shot the intensity of illumination of the evening, characterised by a dark blue tonality. The next scene, however, gets the lighting back to normal, thereby highlighting the failure in continuity that could have been fixed throughout the editing process. This lack is also repeated in the very last shot of the film, as the moon starts disappearing behind the clouds.

A distinctive element in the last scene is the way the selective focus is employed. The shot after the soldiers pound the protagonist on a wall, in fact, is characterised by the fact that the characters are left in the background out of focus, while a carcass of a pigeon fills the centre of the frame.

The film ends with the external diegetic sound of a shot, without showing neither the source nor the action. This ploy of cutting to the shot of the moon right before the execution makes the spectator bewilder and unaware of the photographer’s fate, leaving the end open to interpretation.

Taking everything into consideration, the film A Shot from the Past proves an understanding of the 180° rule and the narrative form. There could have been several improvements, especially in relation to continuity and expressiveness of the protagonist. Moreover, some developments in the story, like the revelation of the people captured in the snapshots, could have been shot differently, to give the audience a better comprehension of it. However, the sound reveals itself as crucial to the maintenance of continuity and succeeds at evoking embodied responses in the spectator, such as anxiety and fright.

LIST OF REFERENCES

Bordwell D., (2007). But what kind of art? [Online] David Bordwell’s Website On Cinema. Available from: http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2007/04/20/but-what-kind-of-art/ [Accessed on 9 December 2017].

Bordwell D., Thompson K., Smith J., (2017). Film Art: An Introduction. 11th edn. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.

Elsaesser T., Hagener M., (2010). Film Theory: An Introduction Through the Senses. Routledge:  New York.

Wenders W., (1974). Alice In The Cities. [Film]. Axiom Films.