Word: foreground
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...same inventiveness gives the film a flavor unique in Ophuls. In general his heavily decorated background settings and firmly placed foreground objects delimit an empty mid-ground where his characters move. Despite his fluid camera motions this spatial plan often imposes upon his characters, notably in Letter from an Unknown Woman and Lola Montes. The introduction of La Ronde tells us that we are in a studio and, after showing us the artificiality of the lighting and sets, invites us to accept them for their beauty, for the pleasant romance of the drama and its trappings. The first episode continues...
...SECOND episode's equally long tracks begin to place dark foreground objects before the characters, creating a more typical Ophuls space, even as we move from a light comedy (the soldier and the whore) toward more serious affairs. The third is a brilliantly played will-he-or-won't-he-fall skit, full of characters walking to and from each other through luxurious rooms, and using astounding angled shots and hard cuts. The fourth episode involves us in a more deeply felt assignation-and so the drama proceeds. Walbrook's appearances becoming rarer and shorter...
...attention within the static frame. One continually rediscovered the composition's different elements as the people in the shot moved and talked. Finally, Warhol began to zoom and pan, giving people an appearance entirely different from the hard-edged definition of the preceding films. The collapsing of background and foreground typical of telephoto shots gives his latest films a different kind of unity, based on skin textures and whole-frame tonal consistency...
...character is completely one with his society. There's an integration of every character's existence and emotion not equalled in his later films, which are based on moral differences. The sets and the action of background figures often seem filled with the sentiments of the principals in the foreground. No other Griffith film attains that degree of unity within such a huge setting...
...Frank Sinatra. Sorel's depiction of New York mayors past, present and possibly future is derived from Eugène Delacroix's painting of Liberty Leading the People. On the left, gazing up at Procaccino, is Mayor John Lindsay. Former Mayor Robert Wagner lies defeated in the foreground. The legs of the supine man at lower left may or may not be those of Republican Candidate John Marchi...