Some thoughts on mise-en-scene

It's fascinating how deceptively stylized this film really is. Lumet has said in the past that he made the decision only to use extremely wide or extremely long lenses -- to throw out the lenses between about 25 to 60mm, the mid-range lenses which actually approximate human sight. Lumet wanted nothing to appear as it would to the human eye. And so we get a film full of either shots with incredibly deep focus and distorted edges, or long-lens shots of soft, blurred backgrounds, all space compressed unnaturally.

It goes further, though. The first half of the picture, according to Lumet, was purposefully filled with busy, bustling tableaux -- mostly wide shots of the characters that emphasize their ornate surroundings (e.g. the cluttered bookshelfs of D.A. Cappolino's apartment). In these scenes, the lighting was focused on the surroundings, thus shrouding the actors in shadowy darkness.

In contrast, the second half of the film pares down the background activity, often setting scenes in blank-walled, empty rooms. Here, the actors are lit excessively (and more often in close-ups) while the backgrounds are left dark. Lumet gave a great example of the difference between the two halfs: compare the first big courtroom scene, a little before halfway through, where Danny testifies against Blomberg. There's tons of people in there, the shots are wide and cluttered with visual information, and so on. Now think of the next Blomberg trial, right before the end of the film, where Danny is being harshly cross-examined by that slimy defense lawyer. There's maybe one or two spectators in the courtroom, including a guard, and Danny's face is exceedingly well-lit and given constant close-ups to show his anxiety. The emptiness of the room weighs heavily, and heavily in contrast to those busy settings early on.

The overall impression of this aesthetic decision is that the film becomes emptier, barer, starker as it goes on and as it probes more and more into Danny's soul.

[Something else I noticed which fits into this strategy: right as the second half begins, we really do zoom in on the people more (literally), at the expense of their surroundings. There's two scenes in a row where an identical slo-o-ow zoom or dolly in moves towards the face of the character baring their soul: first, on Danny as he warms up to D.A. Mario Vincente on an airplane, clearly distraught as he tells him that Santimassino and Polito are "not [his] friends"... and second, on Rafael Alvarez as he tells a table full of lawmen that he had nothing to do with the French Connection, but can admit to them a few other misdeeds...]

Just some idle rambling thoughts on the under-appreciated aesthetic brilliance of this already under-appreciated masterpiece.