MovieChat Forums > Topaz (1969) Discussion > Great Shots In Topaz (SPOILERS)

Great Shots In Topaz (SPOILERS)

posted 18 years ago by ecarle
8 replies | jump to latest

"Topaz" never got much respect in the Hitchcock canon -- not even, in its time, from Hitchcock himself. The plot and dialogue are almost always intelligent, but there is simply too much talk and not enough action, and the romance is dated and overwrought (Hitchcock remedied this last problem with his next film, "Frenzy" in which romance was perfunctory, the players not terribly good looking, the sex psychopathic.)

But if one is immersed in Hitchcock's lifetime work as a "visual stylist," the movie certainly has its great visual moments.

You've got Hitchcock doing his usual thing all through the film, trying to "treat" his audience (and a treat it was ) with all manner of stylish and creative visual presentations and ideas. If you couldn't get a "classic" out of Hitchcock, you could still get a man demonstrating all the perks and delights that a movie camera can offer you:

-- The opening shot, a complex crane movement up and back down to a window in the Russian Embassy in Copenhagen; taking in a spy in a mirror and then following the defector and his family out of a prison-like gate to the street.

-- The close-up on the defector's daughter's hand, about to drop the delicate porcelain statue. You await the crash with anticipation.

-- The escape plane flying up and high into a gorgeous purple-orange sunset.

--- The gleaming lightbulb, with a tiny criss-cross of light, over Uribe's head in the bathroom as he talks to DuBois in the Hotel Teresa.

-- The sudden POV shot, from Rico Parra's viewpoint, on a door kicked open on DuBois and Uribe, revealing them photographing secret plans like pornographers.

-- The shot of the tortured couple (such a nice, older couple, too) in the cell with Rico Parra standing before them, meant to emulate a painting called "Pieta."

--Yes, indeed the one that anyone who has seen "Topaz" remembers: the murder of Juanita De Cordoba, a love scene like "Vertigo" (circling camera) that suddenly becomes a murder, as she dies seen from overhead like a blooming flower (how smart of Hitchcock NOT to make the robe red like blood; it is purple.)

-- When the traitor is exposed at the NATO meeting, the BRILLIANT camera move away from him and high above the room, past several chandeliers as the men below bunch into groups. Then the camera moves back DOWN to the traitor, and he is asked to leave. It is as if the camera has judged him.

...and that's not ALL the great shots in this movie.

Look, now that Hitchcock's gone, it all looks like gold to me. Even if the movie is not.

[–] bbpictures 17 years ago

"...as she dies seen from overhead like a blooming flower (how smart of Hitchcock NOT to make the robe red like blood; it is purple.)"

One of his best shots, I think. One that stays with the viewer long after the film is finished.

[–] rexshard93 17 years ago

Use of colors are very important in Topaz. Yellow represents French. Red represents Communism. And Blue or Purple represents danger or death.

[–] Danny_84 17 years ago

I think the murder of Juanita is my favourite scene in this film - I love how that dress falls across the floor like a pool of blood, and yet she looks so beautiful.

[–] oliver-177 16 years ago

Also, immediately after the tortured Mrs. Mendoza spills the beans, there is a great - unexpected - shot of John Vernon's hands rubbing his pants. It sounds ridiculous when I describe it, but it's very strong.

[–] Balok-2 14 years ago

The tracking shot that zooms in on the spy at the end is a Hitchcock trademark going back at least to "Young and Innocent." I was waiting for a shot like that, and thought it was pretty smart of him to save it for the end.

Another set of great sequences are the ones without dialogue -- Kuzenov's daughter in the porcelain shop, in the flower shop, and when Roscoe Lee Browne is getting the documents. These are also typical Hitchcock techniques. For example, the use of a silent scene to avoid repeating exposition that the audience has already seen was used, in "North by Northwest" when the Professor's explanation to Cary Grant is covered by the sound of the airplane's propellor. The use of visuals without dialogue to build suspsense is also typical of his technique (e.g. in the remake of "The Man Who Knew too Much").

The evidence that Hitchcock was a genius is shown in sequences such as these that show that even a movie that was mediocre by Hitchcock's standards is a heck of a lot better than 90% of the stuff that's out there.

[–] ecarle 11 years ago

The tracking shot that zooms in on the spy at the end is a Hitchcock trademark going back at least to "Young and Innocent." I was waiting for a shot like that, and thought it was pretty smart of him to save it for the end

--

That's right. Good catch.

It seems that freed of having to "service" big stars in his later films, Hitchcock decided to just go back to serving up great shots and ideas on film -- which made HIM the star of these final films.

[–] rsgre 10 years ago

[–] ecarle 10 years ago

Despite all the praise being given here for various scenes,I thought the overall effect seemed somewhat muted. The final conference room scene for instance, going out and coming back, seemed more distracting than anything. Needless camera movement when we needed to concentrate on what was about to happen. The full length director's cut is definitely better, and some scenes have aged well. John Vernon's "Rico Parra" was probably his best performance ever. Juanita's death seemed rather static and overly melodramatic. Maybe too many wordless, silent scenes too, and if the Cubans were so sharp, how could they miss Uribe and the secret agent talking outside the hotel ? Talk about suspicious !
Might have more...

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I would welcome more, for sure.

It is difficult to make a case for Topaz as one of Hitchcock's best...but given that he followed it with one near-great one(Frenzy) and one pretty good one less some old man's flaws(Family Plot), I think there is evidence that Hitchcock the Creative Filmmaker was doing what he could to make the listless script of "Topaz" come to life via all sorts of experiments.

The final conference room shot (going out and coming back) IS the scene...Hitchocck is saying "look how the men are organizing themselves in this room, the discussion...and how a man is sent over to kick Granville out of the meeting." To have organized that into a simple multi-shot dramatic sequence with, say, dialogue between the other men ("I don't think we can trust Granville" "Are you sure, is that what you want to do?") would have been, I'd say, less interesting than what Hitchcock tried to do.

The "wordless, silent" scenes strike me as Hitchcock almost desperately trying to "add Hitchcock touches" to the film -- and there are too many of them and the one between DuBois and Uribe is simply too long. I'd cut some of that -- using cuts to Andre to do so.

Topaz is flawed and here's something --- Hitchcock HIMSELF hated it, and would put me down for praising it. But I'm not alone. Vincent Canby of the NY Times DID title his review of Topaz, "Hitchcock at His Best" and gave it a slot on the "Ten Best of 1969"; the National Board of Review named Hitchcock Best Director of 1969 for Topaz(though maybe belatedly for his entire career), and a noted critic named Manny Farber liked Topaz...better than he liked Psycho!

But there are eccentrics in every crowd. And I don't think Topaz is one of Hitchcock's best.

Still, I don't think it is a "bad movie." At all.