American Cinematographer - December 1960 - 54

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Mephistophelean relief by violent cross¬
lighting.
The pool hall which functions as the
hub of Studs' physical universe and
symbolizes the frenzy of aimless ac¬
tivity which fills his life, is depicted as
an oasis of light which emanates from a
shaded lamp hung overhead. The
figures on the periphery of this illum¬
inated circle are shadowy, almost face¬
less-the whores and guttersnipes who
people Studs' closely circumscribed
world. The game of pool, as pictured
in staccato, sharply angled closeups, is
itself symbolic of an erratic life pat¬
tern: the momentary score, the fre¬
quent near-miss, the Freudian thrust
toward identity. At one point the cam¬
era (through the facility of the zoom
lens) follows a struck ball across the
table and into a corner pocket. Con¬
stantly re-established in montage form,
these pools room sequences depict the
passage of time by their very sameness
-the frantic running on the treadmill
of life as the world passes the film's
hero by.
Along the way Studs goes with his
cronies to a burlesque show where, in
a smoke-filled theater, a weary stripper
becomes the Lady Eve-eternal Wo¬
man-to a crowd of lascivious specta¬
tors. This sequence is filmed in very
low key with just a spotlight on the
stripper. Reverse angles shot from the
stage aim directly into this spotlight
which shines from the gallery, rim¬
lighting the heads of the spectators,
back-lighting the smoke and lending
great depth to the composition. In or¬
der to stop down sufficiently to pre¬
serve depth of field in the sequence,
Feindel switched from DuPont Su¬
perior 2 to the ultra-fast DuPont Su¬
perior 4 negative and he utilized a
hand-held Eclair Camerette to take the
audience right into the crowd.
Leaving the burlesque theater in a
fine frenzy of sex and alcohol, Studs
lurches through the rainy streets to the
apartment of a former school teacher,
portrayed as a thirtyish woman of
severely restrained attractiveness who
sublimates her sexual frustration in the
form of a passion for recorded Beetho¬
ven. In his lust-clouded vision she al¬
ternates between her prim self and a
provocatively jiggling personification
of the stripper until finally, lunging to¬
ward her with seduction flashing from
his eyes, he grabs her and tears her
dress-a gesture intended to symbolize
ravished virtue.
Photographically this sequence is a

small masterpiece. It is, again, shot in
extreme low-key, with the illumination
seeming to come from a muted lamp.
The angles are low, showing the ceiling
of the room, and making the figure of
Studs appear to loom as if to fill the
apartment. The tricky device of re¬
peatedly intercutting shots of the
teacher with her burlesque alter ego is
expertly accomplished. As the teacher,
she is lighted to accentuate her plain¬
ness. As the stripper she is lighted to
exude glamour-but the background of
the room consistently remains in the
same key throughout. Needless to say,
figure size, angle and framing had to
be very carefully matched to prevent
jumps when cutting back and forth
from one image to the other.
A wake following the death of one
of Studs' sidekicks is also expertly
handled camerawise. Here again, the
hand-held Eclair camera is utilized,
this time in a subjective way to simu¬
late the point-of-view of a spectator
pushing his way through the crowd,
peering momentarily into the faces of
various people present. In approaching
this shot Director of Photography
Feindel knew it would be catch-ascatch-can, so he let the camera run
quite a long time. A surprising amount
of the shot was usable, and its presence
in the final cut gives an authentic im¬
pression of a spectator moving through
the crowded smoke-filled room. It is
in the wake sequence, also, that the
camera captures in a mercilessly un¬
varnished closeup the face of the dead
man's wife as she eulogizes in a
lengthy monologue (perhaps the best
piece of acting in the entire picture)
the dubious virtues of her deceased
spouse. Resisting an impulse to cut
away for reaction, the camera remains
on her in closeup for what seems like
a full reel, delineating with almost
newsreel brutality the sagging hopeless¬
ness of her young, suddenly-grown-old
face.
Location exteriors in "Studs Lonigan'' presented the usual share of prob¬
lems. A rain sequence in the park
necessitated the rigging of a maze of
overhead water pipes, plus an intricate
system of umbrellas and shields to
protect the camera. A sequence sup¬
posedly taking place along a lonely
stretch of Lake Michigan shore was,
in reality, shot at Santa Monica Beach,
with the Pacific Ocean doubling for
the lake. Anyone familiar with Chica¬
go knows that because of its peculiar
geography, a sunset is never seen on
the lake. Since this sequence was sched-

AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER
American Cinematographer - December 1960

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