Let me begin by
saying, “Wow!” Not just about the
lighting in the scene I am about to describe (link provided above), but also
about the fact that I have viewed this film over a dozen times, and I never
fully appreciated (or even noticed) how effectively and dramatically the
director and cinematographer use lighting to set the mood. The way that this class forces me to more
closely evaluate the process of making films is already helping me to
appreciate them more fully.
The film, Amistad (1997), opens
with a poorly lit extreme close up of the upper part of the face of the
character Cinque (Djimon Hounsou). The
light is definitely only from one direction, and is very low-key. Even this early in the film, there is already
a very ominous tone. However, that is
not all. His face is dripping with
sweat, and with tears. The sweat and
tears roll down his face, over his left eyelid, and down to the tip of his
nose. Each large bead of fluid refracts
the light from its single source and scatters the light back out, creating multiple
new tiny sources of light. It is slowly
revealed that this single source of light is moonlight, pushing through a tiny
window in the lower deck of the nineteenth century slave ship, Amistad, in the
dead of night. Additionally, there are
frequent bright flashes of lightning coming through the same window; it comes
from the same direction as the dim moonlight.
However, the bright light from the lightning also bounces off of some of
the other surfaces in the ship, scattering the illumination just a little
bit. When the lightning comes, the
audience catches brief glimpses of what Cinque is doing, as the camera changes
between extreme close ups of the upper half of his face, the lower half of his
face, and his fingers. He is
painstakingly picking at the softened wood around a nail in the ship’s
decking. The nail has a square head.
I rebuilt a
nineteenth century house in Upstate New York, and as such, have seen many
square cut nails in my life. Because of
the type of machining that was available during the nineteenth century, nails
were cut from long sheets of steel, and they were tapered to a sharp
point. That means that if you are able
to dislodge a square cut nail just a tiny bit from the wood it is in, you will
be able to pull it all the way out, somewhat easily.
As Cinque picks
at the wood, and at the head of the nail, he sweats more profusely. The sweat is dripping off of his face,
refracting light as it falls. The
flashes of lightning reveal that his fingertips are cut and bleeding. It is apparent that he has been picking at
this nail for a long time. I believe the
flashes of light convey conflict, as well as hope. When the flashes interrupt the near total
darkness, the audience gets brief moments of hope that whatever Cinque is
trying to do will be successful, since his determined look and the dark setting
have already made it clear that he is in a dire situation.
When he finally
frees the nail, it emerges very slowly from the wood, and he lifts it toward
his face to stare at it. The camera
angle changes from extreme close up to close up, from under Cinque’s face,
looking up. The lightning flashes again,
revealing that Cinque is wearing locked wrist irons, typical of a slave ship’s
below deck quarters.
Cinque uses the
nail to quickly pick the locks of his irons, and then he frees several other
men below decks. They break into the
weapons cache. When the men open the
hatch to the top deck of the ship, the lightning is coming from all around,
intermittently flooding the deck with light, and casting ominous shadows, and
it is raining heavily. This ratchets up
the speed of the scene, which very quickly becomes an action sequence. Cinque and the other African men kill most of
the crew of the ship in a very dark, very bloody, poorly lit scene. Every time the lightning flashes during this
sequence, the screen takes on a decidedly blue hue. The blue contrasts sharply with the massive
amounts of red blood that is spilled during the battle.
The next
morning, the storm has ended, and the Africans are rummaging through the
supplies of food and weapons upon the deck.
The lighting in this scene seems to be coming from all over, except from
below. I believe the cinematographer
wished to make this scene resemble a documentary. In fact, the film is based upon the true
story of a slave ship revolt aboard the Amistad in 1839; so natural lighting is
appropriate for some of the scenes.
The genre of the
film is courtroom drama, and it is also historical drama. Another well-known courtroom drama, A Few Good Men (1992), also begins with
a very dimly lit nighttime scene, wherein the primary events upon which the
eventual case will be based transpire.
It seems that a certain degree of mystery regarding the most crucial
events of a case in a courtroom drama is necessary in order to maximize the
dramatic effect of the case, and this mystery is frequently cloaked in
darkness.
 |
| Cinque, standing over a slain Spanish slave merchant |
References
Allen,
D. (Producer) & Spielberg, S. (Director). (1997). Amistad. [Motion picture]. United States: Dreamworks & HBO
Pictures.
Brown,
D. (Producer) & Reiner, R. (Director). (1992). A Few Good Men. [Motion picture]. United States: Columbia Pictures.
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