This week in On The Frame we looked at the hypnotic not-quite-romance film In The Mood For Love by Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai (2000). The film provides an interesting alternative to Hollywood’s love-conquers-all motto through its exploration of morality and conflicting desires.

In introducing the film to us, Dan suggested that we look at it in direct contrast to last week’s film, the Italian L’Avventura from Michelangelo Antonioni (1960). Dan put forward the theory that where L’Avventura can be broken up into photographic still images that are each beautiful and artistic, In The Mood For Love relies much more heavily on movement.

With this in mind, Dan used In The Mood For Love as the basis for a discussion of the relationship between the frame and movement. We looked at the history of the moving image, from early zoetrope tricks to digital film, and thought about the importance of both physical movement and movement in time (the key element that distinguishes even the stillest of films from photography).

Then came the fun part: making media time! Inspired by the lecture and In The Mood For Love, we were to take out some cameras and shoot a sequence of one to three shots that explored an element of movement that particularly interested us.

It’s more difficult than it seems to come up with shots that explore an idea – especially when you’ve only got three to work with – but In The Mood For Love is certainly a good source of inspiration when you’re thinking about movement. My mind went back to a scene we had looked at in class:

It’s a beautiful scene; slow motion can so easily be tacky and yet here it seems lulling and rhythmic. The thing that particularly interested me though was when Dan pointed out the music. It’s really stunning, and as Dan observed, in a 3/4 time signature – the same as that of the waltz, the dance of love.

So I decided to see if I could create a series of shots in which the movement was matched to a piece of music in a 3/4 time signature. This is what I came up with:

Now, I’m conscious of the fact that the way I’ve uploaded this seems to invite comparison with In The Mood For Love, which I want to AVOID AT ALL COSTS – apart from the fact that I made it in about 20 minutes, I wasn’t actually trying to mimic Wong Kar-wai’s work; I merely wanted to explore the same idea of rhythm matched to an unusually-paced piece of music.

To be honest, I’m not sure that I achieved this. I think my biggest problem was not knowing what piece of music I would use before I started filming, as it meant my timing of the movement was a bit off. I’m also aware that it’s fairly simplistic; however, as an in-class exercise I guess I can’t really expect it to be a masterpiece. I think noting that it’s simplistic though has helped me appreciate the difficulties of creating artistic and subtle movement in the frame, and has given me more to think about in developing the ideas I’ve already got for my final project.