Life Lessons: Through the Iris

Through the Iris

By: Cassie Galonsky

“There is no such thing as simple.  Simple is hard.” This is a famous quote by Martin Scorsese.  In the short film Life Lessons, Scorsese captures idea perfectly.  He makes purposeful choices with the cinematography to make the audience view the piece in a specific way.  He does not choose the “easy way out,” but rather finds the way that is going to best engage his audience. Throughout the course of the film, Scorsese chooses to use iris shots to connect the main character to the audience, and make them see his point of view in an effective way.

Life Lessons, is one of three films that make up the anthology film New York Stories.  Life Lessons centers around a famous artist named Lionel Dobie, and his significantly younger assistant, Paulette.  Paulette is working to become a better artist herself, and she wants to learn from him because of his success. The entire film takes place over the course of three weeks, as Dobie prepares to show a painting at an art gallery.  During the film, we learn that Dobie and Paulette have an unstable relationship, with Paulette fed up with his involvement in her life, and Dobie constantly saying that he loves her and would do anything for her. Paulette wants to be a painter as well, and Dobie won’t tell her whether she is actually good or not.  As the film progresses, the two characters become more frantic and eventually, Paulette leaves. At the end, we see that Dobie meets another young woman, who we can assume becomes his new assistant. We learn that Dobie is caught in a tragic cycle of unhealthy relationships.

An iris shot is used as an important part of the story.  This is when there is a mostly dark screen that has only a circular section of the shot showing.  It is often used to end old cartoons by closing in on a subject, but in the case of Life Lessons, the iris shots expand from a subject to the surrounding area. At the beginning, there is a sequence of close up shots that are very impactful to the story.  The shots are used to show exactly who Lionel Dobie, the protagonist of the film, is as a person. With the iris effect, the audience gets to see close up after close up of his paints and his brushes, but also the glasses of wine, the dirty rags, and his feet pacing back and forth around the room.  

Here, the shot is focused on the paint brushes, and resolves to a bigger picture.  This type of shot occurs repeatedly throughout the entire film from when we first get to see Dobie’s paints, to the very end when he is talking to the new possible assistant in the art gallery.  It helps explain more about the character of Lionel Dobie. The audience is also then able to know what they are supposed to be focusing on.

In some cases, the iris shot is also used to it tells us what the actual characters in the film are looking at, such as Dobie looking at Paulette’s foot.  With the use of an iris shot, and cuts to Dobie’s face, the audience knows that this is exactly what Dobie looking at. This happens earlier in the film as well, when Paulette is first getting off a plane and Dobie is picking her up from the airport.  The audience sees large groups of people, but when Dobie sees Paulette, the audience gets to focus on her with him.

          

Another example of when the audience gets to see the use of an iris shot is at the end of the film.  The art gallery is taking place, and there is an extreme wide shot of the entire event. Then, with the iris, the audience is able to see where Dobie is, talking to the girl who might become his new assistant.  This is helpful to the people watching because they can see Dobie and his conversation with the young woman, without having to find them in the huge crowd of people.

The iris shot is a crucial part of the film Life Lessons.  Over the course of the entire film,  Martin Scorsese uses this technique to give the audience insight into what the character of Lionel Dobie is thinking about or looking at, as well as tell the audience exactly what the important focus points are.  Without the use of the iris, the audience would have a harder time understanding the characters and the piece as a whole. With the decision to add an iris, Scorsese chooses this form of explanation for the people who watch his film.