Archipelago
Directed by Joanna Hogg, 2010
Director Joanna Hogg uses unbroken takes of wide shots to heighten drama in her 2010 film Archipelago.
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In some of the most tense, uncomfortable, and emotionally loaded scenes in the film, Joanna Hogg holds her audience captive in a wide shot, without cutting to any other angles. The decision to let these entire scenes play out in one shot heightens the audience's discomfort by forcing the viewer to experience these moments in real time, instead of offering a perspective removed from "real time" through cutting. In framing these long takes in a wide angle, the audience experiences the moment as they would as if they were really sitting in the room, watching each character reaction's bounce off against each other, in real time. Through these two simple decisions, Joanna Hogg traps her viewer as a spectator in the scene, heightening the sensation of discomfort. Let's look at four key examples from the film:
Watch Cynthia (Lydia Leonard) react throughout the duration of the scene. Leonard does an excellent job of wordlessly portraying this tone of mocking condescension with her knowing grin as she shifts between poses, at times leaning back in her chair and watching only Edward as he crashes and burns, while at other times adopting a pose of feigned, overly heightened interest. In standard shot-reverse-shot coverage of this conversation between Edward and Rose, we would lose this element of the scene, which serves to make it that much more frustrating and tense.
In this scene, Edward makes a perhaps well-intentioned yet misguided attempt at "humanizing" Rose, the private chef, by initiating patronizing small talk with her. (Hogg's simple blocking choice is brilliant here in heightening the disconnect between the two groups—the family is sitting, comfortably occupying the space, while Rose is standing awkwardly.) Edward only embarrasses Rose, as evidenced by her stiff responses. Meanwhile, Cynthia sports a wry, mocking smile, moving her gaze back and forth between the two as if watching an embarrassingly bad tennis match. The mother only sits there and dissociates, waiting for Edward to finish. Hogg holds her audience captive as an unflinching observer via the angle and duration of the shot, though we would like very much to flinch and look away from this trainwreck. ​
By placing the viewer at the head of the table and letting this scene play out in one take, Hogg forces the viewer to feel the tension by being stuck in this moment in the same way the characters are. We must consider each character's reaction as it plays out. By staying in a wide shot, Edward's uncomfortable reactions play alongside Cynthia's patronizing remarks and mom's defensive responses. This emphasizes discomfort in a way that cross-cutting may not achieve.
Later in the film, Hogg returns to nearly the same angle as the shot in the previous example, again placing the viewer at the dinner table during one unbroken take. Again, Edward discusses and acts on his well-intentioned but perhaps misguided desire to include Rose. In allowing this moment to play out in a wide shot, the viewer is forced to deal with Rose's presence in the background and wonder how much she can hear. As the scene plays out, we bounce between the various reactions to Edward's initiative, loading the scene with tension.
If in the last example we were worried about how much a character in another room might hear, now we are worried about how much the characters in our room are hearing, how much we as the audience are hearing. It is unpleasant and sad to listen in on mom's explosive conversation with dad, but we are forced to anyway. Hogg does use one cut here, giving us a close up on Edward, likely because she wants to emphasize his emotional state in response to this call more than Cynthia's, as this vacation was intended as a farewell for Edward before his year abroad, and now we know for sure that his dad won't be there at all.
For a large majority of the scenes in Archipelago, Hogg's camera remains in an observational-feeling wide angle and stays there throughout the entirety of a scene; fixing the unwitting viewer as a voyeur in this complicated family's vacation-gone-wrong. In the rare moments when Hogg does choose to make a cut and switch angles mid-scene, it's not just to cut between characters in order to show who is speaking or acting, as traditional coverage dictates. Instead, like in the scene above, Hogg only cuts and changes angles in order to emphasize a particular character's (or group of characters) emotional experience in that moment. Otherwise, Hogg's camera remains wide and fixed. Let's look at one of the rare scenes in Archipelago where Hogg employs a cut to a new angle. In using a cut here, Hogg reveals new information about the emotional reality of the scene, as opposed to the physical reality of who is speaking.
Once in the wide shot, Cynthia enters, dismissing Rose from the scene not just mid-conversation, but right after she tells Edward about the loss of her father. Edward doesn't protest this dismissal at all or make any attempt to bring closure to the sensitive conversation at hand—he doesn't really care. He's performing conversation for what he believes is Rose's benefit, but really to assuage his own guilt and privilege. Rose wordlessly returns to her place in the background of the scene.
But Joanna Hogg is a thoughtful filmmaker. Cynthia isn't just to be thought of as a villain here. Hogg cuts once more, this time to a closeup of a disgruntled looking Cynthia, forcing the viewer to contend now with her emotional reality; in the absence of their father, she bears the weight of the role of family decision maker; the only pragmatist of the three who is capable of action. Even in Cynthia's brief moment of discontent, she acts once more, busying herself with the task of sourcing a rug or blanket for the picnic. Her way of coping with life—acting on it—happens, however, to also steamroll Rose's personhood, which we feel deeply in what becomes now a two shot of Rose through the window while Cynthia asks for the rug—not through a cut, but through blocking as Rose's face appears in the window.
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Joanna Hogg is precise and sparse, creating a rich economy of shots not through a variety of tools and techniques but through a paired back approach to shotmaking. She is able to convey more information and milk her drama for every drop by minimizing her presentation in each scene. In doing so, she is also able to make each new angle mean that much more. Making a cut to a closeup amidst a sea of unbroken wide shots signifies to the viewer that there is something in this closeup to pay attention to, as opposed to a film where the entire language relies on cutting to different angles of the same event for no reason. It may also be worth noting that there is a singular pan in this film, while every other angle is completely locked off. But that's an article for another day...
Oftentimes throughout the film, Joanna Hogg will begin a scene in a close-up in order to reveal something later with a cut out to wide. Here we begin close on Rose, who seems now to be having a genuine conversation with Edward. Maybe his misguided attempt at including her has worked! But when Hogg cuts out to wide, Edward is slouched over a bowl of cereal that Rose made for him, wearing his preppy cardigan and silk pajamas. The dynamic is clear—Rose isn't a real person for Edward, even though he wants her to believe that he believes she is.
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