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Crappy Editing or Intentional Suggestion?

posted 17 years ago by fade_like_a_sigh2002
5 replies | jump to latest

During the first sequence in which we see Bruce Dern driving Barbara Harris away from the Rainbird mansion, there is a sequence of back and forth shots within Dern's cab. Whenever the camera is facing Bruce (the driver) from the backseat, Bruce Dern's figure appears totally transparent--- in other words, you can clearly see the passing street lights and car headlights right through his head! In fact, in any of the shots in this scene, the figures against the green screen of passing night traffic looks absolutely awful! Is this the result of extremely poor editing or is it an intentional suggestion from Hitch that the characters are indeed 'fake', 'phony', or 'transparent'?

Any takers?

[–] ecarle 17 years ago

I call this sequence "the background that ate Bruce Dern's head."

I'm afraid it wasn't a matter of theme from Hitchcock. What it WAS is rather interesting, I think.

Hitchcock had intended to film the car scenes in "Family Plot" using traditional "rear screen projection," in which footage is run off of a projector on a screen behind the actor. Though many 70's movies eschewed rear screen, Hitchcock still liked to use it (and after all, "realistic" footage of people driving cars simply gives you the perspective of laying down on the hood of the car looking at them. Sometimes "unreal is real.")

Anyway, Universal suits convinced Hitchcock to use a new kind of "matte techology" that was intended to be cheaper than rear-screen projection.

Hitchcock was instructed: just shoot the scenes of people in cars with total blackness behind them. We'll insert the process footage IN THE LAB, when the film is being "post-produced."

Hitchcock agreed -- and was utterly appalled by the results. It is said he was literally heartbroken to see those scenes on screen.

Universal went one awful step further: when publicity shots from "Family Plot" were released to newspapers and theater lobbies, a shot of Bruce Dern and Barbara Harris in the runaway car sequence showed them in the car with nothing behind them but blackness. The background hadn't even been matted in yet.

I don't believe that this experimental process was used ever again.

[–] fade_like_a_sigh2002 17 years ago

Thanks so much for that information! I'm somewhat of a beginner in the world of Hitchcock film criticism (I'm taking a senior thesis course this coming semester on Hitchcock films and took another course studying his career last semester) and these tidbits really interest me.

[–] ecarle 17 years ago

You're welcome. Hope you enjoy your classes. I've been reading books and articles on him for years. I try to share what I've read. Tidbits. The articles I've found in particular are somewhat interesting, because they pretty much disappeared. You can't find them anymore.

[–] c7c7c7r 16 years ago

What did you think of those background street scenes outside Author Adamson's jewelry store? Hitchcock's rear projection almost always looked unique to his movies (the Phoenix street scene when Marion stops for a traffic light in Psycho is my favorite). Hitch definitely liked those kind of visuals.

[–] LinusW 11 years ago

Didn't they use blue screen? Looks like it in the documentary on the blu-ray disc I own.