The Importance of Visual Storytelling
dialogue is overrated. so here’s a more memorable, appealing alternative.
By: Keaton Marcus
I’ve been really wanting to cover this topic for a while and today is the day I’m doing it. Visual storytelling in cinema is actually a very important thing in film and can actually convey all of a character’s feelings and emotions without any actual dialogue. It is time to stop criticizing movies with little-to-no dialogue as lifeless, cynical, and pretentious and read this thing. Through framing, composition, symbolism, and more techniques, a filmmaker can portray more emotion than some drawn-out dialogue scene with incredibly irritating exposition. Remember, just because a screenplay has a whole lot of words doesn’t mean it’s smart or developed.
COMPOSITION - How we put a subject in the frame
To really make a fantastic shot, the subject matter is possibly the most important thing. To make a generally pleasing, even beautiful image, it’s almost all about where we put the focal point in the frame. Is it a man/woman? Is it an animal? An object perhaps? It doesn’t matter as long as you’re trying to draw attention to it. There are many different ways to make a shot that stands out of the crowd, and the most common is putting your subject on an intersecting point. This is called the Rule of Thirds. In a wide shot, you can easily convey how the subject feels in their surroundings. Are they full of joy? Are they thinking? Are they depressed? It can be any emotion. In a close-up, it helps draw tension in the shot. We are literally closing in on the subject’s face and their face only to make a far more intimate and tense experience. A filmmaker who uses this technique a lot is Terrence Malick, who commonly uses wide-angle lenses while focusing on a person’s face. This is often used in his movie A Hidden Life. This shot draws our attention to the eyes and nothing else, even if we have to sacrifice other things, like the bottom or top of somebody’s head. What about their entire face? An example of this is the opening shot of Blade Runner 2049, where cinematographer Roger Deakins started on an extreme close-up of someone’s eyeball, giving the viewer an intense, intimate and tense experience once again. One last thing that I wanted to talk about is the wide shot, which can be used to put a feeling of isolation in a viewer. This is also used in the most iconic shot of 2049, which sees K walking through the dead city of Las Vegas. It may seem uninvolved and simplistic, but it really does effectively bring a sense of loneliness, and maybe even dread to the audiences watching it. Overall, the composition is extremely important for bringing emotions without dialogue.
fRAMING - The presentation of visual elements in relation to other objects
Let’s get into deeper detail about the different types of shots. One of the most important ones is the establishing shot, which is typically the first one an audience sees. Take a really famous one, which is the first shot of the original Blade Runner film. This shot allows audiences to witness the gist of the world being introduced in only a matter of seconds. There can be several establishing shots in one sequence if necessary, but if you want convenience, this is the way to go. Secondly, we have the extreme wide shot, commonly used in The Lord of the Rings to convey the sheer scope and impress audiences. A prime example of this is when Gandalf is riding on his horse through the vast setting on way to a massive castle. Everything is big and grandiose in scale. Thirdly, we have the wide shot or the long shot, which is used effectively in Mad Max Fury Road when Tom Hardy’s character is standing with his car, looking off into the distance. Similar to the extreme wide shot, this depicts scope, distance, and location to the viewers. It can look really beautiful if used correctly. Fourthly, there is the medium shot, which doesn’t look nearly as appealing, but can be useful to show a combination of facial expressions and body language. A good example of this is Creed, where the cinematographer Maryse Alberti uses a medium shot to convey Adonis’ fighting position and facial expression. Another example of it would be in Nicolas Winding Refn’s infamous Only God Forgives when Julian stands in a fighting stance, ready to challenge the supernatural Chang. In these two shots we get all the emotions the characters are feeling: confidence with violent intentions. Number five is the close-up, which I briefly covered in the previous section, although that was to an extreme level. These are typically used to convey a character’s emotions from just their face, which is the only focus in the frame. However, they could also be used to depict a specific action, such as picking up a weapon, a drink, etc. Three fabulous examples of this would be both the “Here’s Johnny!” moment in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, the final scene of The Revenant, and almost every shot in The Lighthouse. The former gives off an easy sense of madness and insanity, while the second gives a feeling of completion and fulfillment. The Lighthouse is simply a better film than The Shining, and one of the many reasons why is its close-ups. Literally, every single shot gives off dread, bleakness, depravity, and insanity with the utilization of flawless framing. All without words.
SYMBOLISM - Adding visual subtext to the film
The third thing I wanted to cover is symbolism, which is now commonly used as a visual metaphor or motif for something important to the story. However, different from the last two sections, I will also explain how you can get this completely wrong. The colors orange and black are commonly used in Frances Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, but the most important color of those two is the orange, which is actually used to symbolize imminent death. In fact, the actual fruit foreshadows a character’s demise. Taking a look at a modern gangster flick, Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, we see that this filmmaker was inspired by the 1972 classic? Why? Because throughout the movie, an X is used as a metaphor for death instead of the color orange. Perhaps my favorite example of this would be in 2019’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire. The fable of Orpheus and Eurydice is a very essential aspect of this film’s symbolism working, and it effectively uses the tale by making one character’s vision of another character one of the people from that story. Heloise (one of the leads in the film) is portrayed as Eurydice, and the other woman is Orpheus. This is used when Heloise/Eurydice asks Marianne/Orpheus to turn around at the end of the film. This is just like when Eurydice asks Orpheus to turn around at the end of the book. Wait but how about that scorpion jacket in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive? Isn’t it just a cool touch to an even cooler film? No, it means something. Basically, The Driver is metaphorically carrying around a scorpion, driving around criminals, and giving in to his violent tendencies. This ultimately stings his relationship with Irene, completely destroying his life. Ok, but how do you do this in the wrong way? Well, to fail at visual symbolism you’ve got to be overly pretentious. You’ve got to throw symbols in there with no meaning or significance to the story. Although it’s mainly a mixed bag, Only God Forgives is a mash of gorgeous filmmaking and some of the most meaningless, pretentious, and obnoxious dream sequences I’ve ever seen. Remember, just because you’ve got some pretty camera movements and neon lighting doesn’t mean the film is brilliant.
SHOW AND DON’T TELL - the art of complete silence
In my penultimate paragraph, I will be explaining one of the most essential things when it comes to visual storytelling…Silence. When trying to tell stories or convey emotions through cinematography, you DO NOT want long, drawn-out dialogue scenes filled to the brim with exposition. The big thing is that readers want to take away from this is to convey how a character is feeling through framing and composition. For example, Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Oddysey is a mostly-silent film, and absolutely has no dialogue in the beginning 25 minutes, which chronicle the routines of ancient humans. Through color palettes and incredibly gorgeous and smart cinematography that convey emotion without dialogue, this is visual storytelling done right. In another example, we have the opening sequence of Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, in which we literally just watch Daniel Day-Lewis’ character, Daniel Plainview, go through his day-to-day routine of mining. In what could have been the most boring beginning of all-time, cinematographer Robert Elswit’s beautiful, meditative camera work saves it and makes the experience infinitely better. Also, not a single word was spoken. Drive and The Thin Red Line are also great examples of this. The former uses different camera angles and hidden metaphors to keep things incredibly interesting while set to a backdrop of vibrant, enjoyable music. The latter is not only Terrence Malick’s masterpiece, but it’s also a thrilling journey through hell with some of the best cinematography and action I’ve ever seen. And it doesn’t have a lot of words. There are so many examples of this that it’s too difficult to get deeper into all of them. There’s the Bathroom Dance in Joker, the opening car-chase in Baby Driver, the crop-duster sequence in North by Northwest, the entire final act of Children of Men, the radiation walk-in Blade Runner 2049 and so many more that give off more feelings than a casual dialogue sequence. That’s not to say that a wordy script cannot be good, because more often than not they are, but what’s wrong with a little flash?
USE LIGHTING TO YOUR ADVANTAGE - why color palettes and visual muteness are important
Although this final technique may seem relatively unimportant compared to the rest, this is actually also pretty essential if a filmmaker is willing to go deeper by making the literal lighting of their movie have significance to the story. The Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis is a prime example of this, as it uses a sort of visual muteness and melancholy that enhance its depressing, meditative story about a musician getting rejected in a highly commercialized world. In fact, one of the earlier films from the Coen brothers, Barton Fink, also has exquisite lighting. This is especially conveyed in the hotel showdown between John Goodman’s character, who’s currently going on a rampage, and the two foolish detectives who have come to investigate Barton. The dark, ominous contrast of Goodman and the fire in the background is simply glorious. Wong-Kar Wai’s In the Mood For Love is probably my absolute favorite example of fantastic lighting. The film was so leisurely and voyeuristically shot and lit that it almost felt ethereal or otherworldly. It brings a great sense of placidness and calms to the viewer. Otherwise, the colors also absolutely pop off the screen in that film. Smaller examples of this are large in numbers as well. For example, the ending of Moonlight, the rain-drenched sequence of Prisoners, literally everything in Drive, Han Solo’s death in The Force Awakens, the Ghost in Portrait of a Lady on Fire, the helmet reflection shot in A Space Oddysey, the hellscape of 1917, the gliding scene in The Dark Knight, the palettes in The Grand Budapest Hotel, the neon-drenched lighting of Only God Forgives and The Neon Demon among many more great examples.