Gem/Ã¥ben hele nummeret som PDF - 16:9

Strength in the repetition partly depends on the boldness with which theimage is shaped in its first instance. Since very many of the film'simages involve the staircase, the structure that is to be particularlyinvoked in repetition needs to be highly distinctive. Its extremities aremarked at the left by the gaslit globes of the hallway chandelier - anunusual sight because we are looking down into the jets of flame - andat the right by the expanse of bare wall that shields Lisa. The lines ofthe composition take added force from the curved patterns ofmetalwork and shadow constructed from the steel banisters.Theextraordinary nature of the camera movement is determined by theeffort to encompass the action on the staircase while keeping Lisacontinuously in frame in the foreground, and showing her attempts togo on seeing without being seen. That produces the twisting cameramovement, pivoted over Lisa's head at the right as she shrinks backagainst the wall of the stairwell. It also produces a pattern of repeatedappearance and disappearance in the figures on the staircase. We seethem enter from the vestibule; they go out of sight as they approach thestairs. They re-emerge as they reach the top and pause near thelanding, only to disappear again behind the wall that masks theapproach to Stefan's door. Their invisibility is stressed by the sound offurtive giggles and whispers at the bottom of the stairs and at the top byrenewed giggling and the rattle as Stefan fumbles with his door-key.The main features of this image, including the pattern of appearanceand disappearance at the bottom of the stairs, are duplicated in thesecond instance. The repetition is pronounced because the cut to theoverhead view is much more shocking as it has become a cut fromexterior to interior, from a close view to a distant one, and because it isno longer in continuity with Lisa's waiting and watching by the landing.The position and movement of the camera lack the motivation thatjustified their contortions in the earlier instance since there is no longera foreground figure to be held in frame. The crane out over the stairwellhas become more vertiginous now that it is not shadowing theviewpoint of a human observer.The visual repetition is cued by repetition on the sound track. Theclosing of the outer gates and of the hall door are sounds brackettingthe familiar exchange that begins with 'Who is it?' from the concierge(Otto Waldis). After these reminders, however, the pattern of sound iscrucial to a radical change of tone and the sense of difference betweenthis occasion and the one that its images repeat. When Lisa and Stefango out of view at the bottom of the stairs the emptiness of the image ismatched by their silence; their soft, slow footfall is quite unlike thefrivolous clatter and chatter we heard before. Then the suggestion wasof tipsiness, and of an awareness of behaving disreputably. Thosetones were amplified by the styleless flounces and frills of the woman'swhite gown and headdress and by the way that Stefan, in searching forhis key, was encumbered by his evening dress, awkward in hismanagement of a bulky cloak, his top hat and gloves. At the top of thestairs the haste in his leading of the woman, almost pulling her andhardly giving her a glance, together with his fumbling to remove his hatas they approach his door,carried the feeling (within the terms availablein 1947) of his eagerness to get out of his clothes. Everything had aclumsy physicality. Since the event had a context for us only in Lisa'slife, and none in the lives of Stefan or his woman, we saw his partnerdistantly as a nameless stranger - truly an unknown woman. She hadthe identity only of a floozie.Lisa watches Stefan return from anight on the town in the company of agiggling mistress.The visual repetition: Stefan returnsto his apartment with Lisa.That has all changed in the repeated shot. It comes as the culminationnot of Lisa's watching and waiting but of her, shall we say, courtship ofStefan. All that was sordid has become sacramental. There is no rush.The movements have a solemn, considerate grace. Lisa's hesitation atthe top of the stairs is grave rather than coy, a moment of commitmentwith no demand to be coaxed. Her dress and hat are in undecoratedblack with a chaste simplicity of line. Stefan's clothing too has beensoftened and simplified so that clumsy urgency may be the more visiblyreplaced by attentiveness.And noise has given way to music. The Ziehrer waltz played by thebandswomen and then by Stefan in the Prater ballroom ("Wiener