STUDIES AND RESEARCH
Seven Films by Ante Babaja — Their Pictorial Style
The paper is part of an extensive
study of the stylistic specifics of pictorial approach
in the films of a prominent Croatian filmmaker who was
famous for his short feature films, documentaries and long
feature films. The author of the paper analyses seven Babaja’s
films: two short allegoric features Nesporazum/A Misunderstanding (1958),
and Lakat/The Elbow (1959); Babaja’s first long
feature, a highly stylized fable Carevo novo ruho/Emperor’s
New Clothes (1961); an allegoric short feature Pravda/Justice (1962);
a short documentary on teaching deaf children to speak Čuješ
li me?/Do You Hear Me? (1965); a highly praised long
feature Breza/The Birch Tree (1967); and a candid
camera documentary Čekaonica/The Waiting Room (1975).
Babaja’s general style developed from a highly stylised
phase into a naturalist style, however, what makes the
transition coherent is a careful choice of pictorial style
in support of Babaja’s meditation stance, his reflections
on the basics of human condition.
In his allegoric short
features Babaja dealt with almost caricature topics, e.
g. gallery visitors appreciate a mill-stone as a work of
art in the context of abstract sculpture exhibition (A
Misunderstanding); an office worker advances by ’elbowing
his way through’ (The Elbow); a bystander watches
an act of street violence — a man beating his wife — and
only imagines his successful intervention (Justice).
Actually, the main emphasis in these films was on the pictorial
approach to a basically simplistic situation, an attempt
to bring the irony of the situation in play by the use
of rich pictorial stylisation devices. The intriguing choice
of camera perspective, (e. g. view of the gallery visitors
through the hole in the mill-stone), the use of wide angle
lenses with strong perspective distortions, radical change
of the angle of vision, a particular choice of details
of visitors’ inattentive behaviour and insistence on visual
analogies (on circles in ambience).
In The Elbow Babaja
and his cameraman (Hrvoje Sarić) introduced a completely
white background, high key photography, absence of shadows
which anticipated a highly reduced pictorial approach in
the feature Emperor’s New Clothes, where the characters
and rare pieces of furniture were placed on an uniformly
white background, only the film was in colour, and pure
colours were stylistically used with costumes and props.
In Justice, light was diffused (as in cloudy weather),
but Babaja and his cameraman (Tomislav Pinter) have used
an effect of live action animation (by dropping out phases
of live action), a double exposure effect, and wide-angle
movements along the sight line, which produced a caricature-like
effect of the action of characters. With the documentary Do
You Hear Me? Babaja made an exception in his approach:
he chose a ’transparent’ stylistic approach witnessing
a process of speech therapy for the deaf in a very economical
manner. Still, one feels that this stylistic approach was
carefully chosen: shooting the film indoors, close shots
of patients and their efforts, an emphasized absence of
’intervening’ pictorial, sound and editing articulations.
The cameraman Nikola Tanhofer took special
care in dealing with natural light, finding an excellent
balance between the ’uncleanness’ of a given ambience light
and its recognition functionality — achieving an atmosphere
of spontaneity and a strong feeling of autonomous ’inner
life’ of the situation at hand. There is a close analysis
of the beginning and ending sequences of the film in the
paper. Babaja’s most appreciated film — The Birch Tree (cameraman
Tomislav Pinter) is an adaptation of a rural short story
by the prominent Croatian writer Slavko Kolar. The film
harmoniously combines naturalistic (anti-pastoral) approach
to the rural environment and meditative stylisations. Naturalism
mostly pertains to the choice of rough elements in rural
social and natural milieu.
Meditative stylisations pertain
mostly to the pictorial and editing style reminiscent of
the famous Croatian school of rural naïve painting. Situation
is frequently presented in a ’staged’ (tableau) style that
keeps ’a viewing distance’, stimulating a more global,
meditative approach to the presented situation. Pinter
frequently uses filters to darken the sky, carefully modelling
lighting in indoor scenes, while Babaja occasionally uses montage to
build up a situation, introducing a more symbolic interpretation
into play. This meditative streak became predominant in
Babaja’s short documentary The Waiting Room (cameraman
Tomislav Pinter).
Candid camera shooting of the people
waiting relied on the lighting and visibility circumstances
found at the scene of the shooting, however, a careful
choice of minute details of people’s unconscious gestures
and moves, and careful editing association of such shots
invoked meditation on people’s hidden mental life. Following
the line of analysis suggested by particular films, the
paper also exposes some basic problems, e. g. problems
of candid camera approach, problems of shooting in natural
light, problems of high key photography, problems of harmonizing
different stylistic devices, etc.
ANALITICAL CONTENTS:
1. A MISUNDERSTANDING (1958); 2.
THE ELBOW (1959); 3. THE EMPEROR’S NEW SUIT (1961); About
stylisation with black or white; Reduction of space with
white background; Reduction with limited choice of colours;
4. JUSTICE (1962); 5. Do You Here Me? (1965); Close analysis
(1st shot; 2nd shot; 51st shot; 52nd shot, 53rd
shot); 6. THE BIRCH TREE (1967); Naturalism; Stylistic
elevation; General pictorial mood of the film; Naïve
painting: naturalistic support; Brightness and Hue;
Filters; Camera movements; Death as a theme: funeral
procession; Composition as style; Basic characteristics
of Breza’s pictorial style; 7. THE WAITING ROOM (1975);
Bibliography
Silvestar Kolbas |
