The “horrifying” movie scene Roger Deakins “can’t escape” from
Cinematographer Roger Deakins has worked on a selection of the greatest films of the last 30 years or so. His credits include The Shawshank Redemption, Skyfall and A Beautiful Mind, and he is also widely celebrated for his collaborations with the Coen brothers, having added his skills to Fargo and O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and Denis Villeneuve, offering his services to Sicario and Blade Runner 2049.
In a feature with the Academy Award website A-Frame, Deakins noted the films that made him the cinematographer that he is today. One of the projects that Deakins mentions features a “horrifying” scene that one “can’t escape” from. The film in question is Jean Pierre-Melville’s 1969 World War II drama film Army of Shadows.
Remembering the first time he saw Melville’s movie, Deakins said: “Army of Shadows, I saw in film club. What stuck with me is the sense of mood and the sense of place. And the absolutely uncluttered, direct way it shows you things that make it so haunting and so difficult to watch at times.”
Deakins then went on to note that the scene in particular that brings a mood of true horror. “There’s a particular scene in it where the French Resistance have got this guy that sold them out, they take him to this safe house, and they tie him in a chair,” Deakins added. “They stand around him discussing how they’re going to kill him. Right in front of him! They can’t shoot him, because it would make too much noise, so what are they going to do? They’re going to get a garrote.”
The movie is a screen adaptation of Joseph Kessel’s 1943 book of the same name in which he writes of his true experiences serving in the French Resistance while simultaneously creating fictional stories about other members of the resistance. The film focuses on a small band of fighters.
Discussing the impact of the scene, Deakins said: “It’s horrifying. But what makes it even more horrifying is it’s shown in one wide shot, and you can’t escape it. You realize that you don’t have to do fancy camerawork and fancy lighting; sometimes it’s the matter-of-factness of something that makes it incredibly effective. That’s the strength of the scene, really”.
He went on to explain how the film’s cinematographer was able to use the maxim of “less is more” to capture the scene’s nature. “Less is more is what I say a lot. Less is more, but there’s precision in the way the camera moves,” Deakins said. “In some scenes, the camera’s moving and it’s going with characters, but it’s all done with so much thought and so much attention to detail. It’s a wonderful movie.”
