Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/584985
dga quarterly 45 "What he's achieved is to take you from something utterly expres- sionistic, bordering on cloying, and into something incredibly cyni- cal and dehumanizing," he says. "We go from the boy who in very artificial fashion is brought toward the camera, with the shot linger- ing, to the deadpan nature of our protagonist on the ferry and the guy scoffing at his naiveté—akin to Ernst Lubitsch or Billy Wilder—and then the pure documentary shots of New York, well-composed and cut. Within a very short span of time, he's done three different types of filmmaking and managed to make them all work." John, prone to writing advertising slogans in secret at his desk, is set up on a double date through garrulous co-worker Bert. He meets sweet-faced Mary (Boardman), and she and John hit it off, acting silly and having fun at Coney Island. "It's really interesting how he's bonding you to this guy," says Weitz. "They're a couple of goofs. It's endearing, and it erases the distance between us and John. But then John sees a clown juggling, and thinks he's better than these poor boobs in the crowd. When he sees an ad for furniture on the bus, he says, 'Let's get married!' It's a constant seismograph of cynicism versus idealism. There's a certain kind of great filmmaker who [can] have both operating at full capacity." Vidor cuts to their wedding day, then John and Mary get on a train for Niagara Falls. ("Vidor's great at pressing 'skip,'" Weitz quips.) Sit- ting in a compartment, they soon realize they'll be sharing a bed to- gether for the first time. "They're afraid of having sex; it's quite edgy," his younger self staring off into the distance, at his own great fate." Suddenly a medical carriage pulls up to John's house, surround- ed by onlookers, and a worried John rushes into the throng. Inside, shot from the top of a sharply angled, enclosed staircase, we see "the crowd" bunched together at the bottom as our young protagonist, his father on his deathbed, gingerly ascends toward the camera to experi- ence his first dose of reality and responsibility. "This is a great shot, expressive and graphic," says Weitz. "It feels like German expression- ism, and it's easy to forget those directors were all lurking around at the time. The shot lingers on him for longer than is comfortable. And the kid is great here. He doesn't overact." Vidor fast forwards to the 21-year-old John Sims on a ferry, beam- ing as he stares at the New York skyline, innocently telling a stranger, "All I want is an opportunity." (The stranger's skeptical expression suggests he knows it's not that simple.) Then comes a montage of bustling streets—some of which Vidor captured on location—and skyscrapers, including a miniature used for a vertical tracking shot up its face and into a high-story window. "The documentary-style shots help you believe that the more staged and backlot shots later are actu- ally taking place in New York," says Weitz. From that window, Vidor dissolves to a legendary forward tracking shot, from a high angle, across a wide grid of insurance workers' desks before narrowing at our protagonist's, just one of the crowd. Weitz takes a moment to reflect on Vidor's multifaceted technique so far.