https://youtu.be/bvvNVQdnQtc
In this blog post, I will be analyzing a scene from The Square (2017), directed by Ruben Östlund. In this 12-minute scene, a Russian artist named Oleg Rogozjin performs as a chimpanzee to terrorize a black-tie museum gala in Stockholm where the biggest donors and curators are present, including the protagonist, Christian, who is the curator of X-Royal museum. In a room full of fancily dressed and wealthy people, Oleg goes from whopping around, flirting with a lady, challenging the alpha male and chasing him away and eventually to attempting to reproduce with a beautiful redhead woman.
High-key lighting is used through out the scene. The lighting is warm-toned, diffused, soft. The source of light would mainly be the chandeliers hanging on the ceiling that are originally installed in the room and the tiny table lamps that generate soft and dim light. The lighting accentuates the sense of superiority and upper-classness of the scene, juxtaposing Oleg’s performance as a wild chimpanzee from the jungle with the highbrow, elite-only event.
I found an image of the set while they’re filming this scene and in the corner there’s an ARRI lamp casting direct, strong lighting to the ceiling. To recreate the lighting, multiple ARRI 1000Ws are to be set up with the doors closed to the edges and their heads pointing toward the ceiling, letting the light bounce back from the dome so it looks like it’s highly diffused and cascading down from above. One of the possible difficulties of setting up this lighting would be the mirrors in the room. There’re many reflective surfaces and it’d be a bit hard to get the whole room lit evenly without any ARRI lights or their reflection appearing in the frame.
The scene starts out disquietingly as Oleg invades the human civilization and later on progressively becomes horrifying as he fully unleashes his animal natures. Laughter goes off when Oleg comes out, flirts, plays with Julian, suggesting that the guests see Oleg as a clown. But when Julian signals Oleg to stop, the interaction switches to a hostile challenge and eventually Julian is chased out of the room by Oleg, not defended by any one. The character being the guest of honor makes it more ironic. From this point on, everyone in the room knows this is serious and the laughter never comes back. Everyone is looking down at the table, not making eye contact with Oleg or anyone else, wishing not to be pick on. It’s only when Oleg is about to rape a woman have people realized that this is not right. A very old man gets up from his seat and runs to Oleg to shove him off the woman before he starts hitting him. Then a younger man joined him, then all the men in the room. The structure of the scene seems to be implying how people react to almost any social issues. People would find it funny at the start, as it turns serious, some people try to fight it, and when they fail, the rest decide to remain silence and turn a blind eye on it until someone is fed up and takes action, then the rest would then join him/her when they find it’s less risky to do so. This whole scene could be an analogy between human’s mentality and herd animal’s natures.
The Lobster (2015), directed by