by Marlo
In Martin Scorcese’s short film Life Lessons, the protagonist Lionel Dobie sits at the pinnacle of the art world. A master of his craft and a womanizer, he is the Harvey Weinstein equivalent of the New York fine arts gentility. No one can look down upon him... except the camera. In order to reflect Dobie’s apparent power, Nestor Almendros, the cinematographer of the film, uses the camera to make Dobie look strong in the eyes of his community or week in the face of art and lust. The result is a complicated look at Lionel Dobie trying to control his life while the camera falls at his feet or towers over him, mirroring his struggle to keep the power in his relationships.
The majority of the time when Dobie is on screen, he is shot from below - establishing the artist as a powerful and mighty character. When Dobie is in the airport to pick up his current obsession and assistant, Paulette, he is shot from a low angle, taking up almost the entire frame. This has the effect of making him look larger than he really is, as a result, giving him a demeanor of dominance. For the time being, he has control over her, and she can do very little about it. As the story progresses, Dobie often towers over Paulette or whoever else is in the scene. For instance, when Dobie uninvitedly enters Paulette’s room, he stands over her laying body, domineering. The camera, again, seems to be shooting him from the ground. His tall demeanor represents his power to do anything. Later again, when he pulls Paulette away from a potential love interest into a mirrored powder room, the same technique is used to make Lionel larger than Paulette and show that he is her superior. The camera distills Lionel’s power and makes it visible. This repetitious use of low angle shots makes it glaringly obvious that Lionel Dobie holds dominion over Paulette.
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| Lionel is much larger than Paulette in the mirror. |
There are only a few instances when Dobie’s cinematic dominance is broken. The first and most memorable time is when he has no inspiration to paint. In front of a blank canvas, Dobie is shot from an almost overhead angle, dwarfed by the art. This illustrates the one thing that Dobie respects and isn’t in control of - he is the servant of his art. Without it, he would be nothing. Another instance is during the final interaction with Paulette when she leaves him. They are shot from similar, normal angles; Paulette, in making a decision for herself, has escaped Dobie’s overbearing rule. In the very last shot, as Dobie flirts with the bartender at his exposition, he is shot from a very wide and high angle. In fact, he is lost at first in the crowd of people that surround him. He is no larger than anyone else, reminding us that he is still just a human. But the significance of this shot also speaks to the cyclical nature of his obsession with women. Paulette has left him just the day before, yet he has already fallen for a new girl. The high angle signifies his weakness to his confounding cycle of lust.
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| The canvas dwarfs Dobie. |
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| Lionel is lost in his sea of admirers. |
The power dynamics within relationships in the film are mirrored by the use of high and low camera angles. As a whole, it shows the change in power between Lionel Dobie and Paulette. It shows that Lionel is the lion of his world- the king of his jungle. It shows how Paulette regains her freedom from the powerful artist and how Dobie is really nothing more than a tool of his own art. It shows that although he may look strong and give off an air of confidence, internally he is just as insecure and lost as anyone.
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