In his short film, Life Lessons, Martin Scorsese shows off his directing skills and techniques in a variety of ways. Throughout the film, he utilizes stylized camera techniques to enhance the story and make it visually interesting. Those camera techniques combined with his direction produces a very compelling and entertaining film. One scene, in particular, stands out as a great example of the directing skills of Scorsese. In that scene, we see Paulette go from being determined to leave New York to her falling back under Dobie’s spell and deciding to stay. This scene stands out due to the fact that rather than dialog, it utilizes visuals and music to successfully convey Paulette’s decision to remain with Dobie in New York.
Approximately halfway through the film, we are shown a conversation between Paulette and her mother.
From this shot, we know that Paulette had just come from the conversation with her mother, and is going to tell Lionel about her decision to go home. As she walks towards Lionel, she begins to slow. She soon becomes frozen in her spot, with her eyes fixed on Lionel and his painting. The rest of the scene is completely void of dialog, but we still learn that Paulette changes her mind about leaving, and we understand that it’s the painting skills of Dobie that causes this change of heart. We are able to understand these two ideas because Scorsese utilizes reverse shots, cutting between Paulette’s reaction and Dobie’s painting, and uses music to tie it together in order to create an effective dialog-free scene.
The painting inserts used in this scene are what shows the audience why Paulette decides to stay. At the beginning of this scene, we saw Paulette enter with the lost hope of her ever making it as an artist. But, as soon as she enters, we are introduced to many insert shots of Lionel painting with deafening rock music playing over them. In these shots, we truly see Lionel, a famous painter, in his element.
We are shown extremely close inserts of Dobie wildly painting, and all the shots are amazingly hypnotic. In every shot there are many bright colors everywhere, the camera is rushing to keep up with Dobie and his passionate painting, and every brush stroke seems so erratic but at the same time extremely purposeful. These elements pull the audience in, along with Paulette. We now see the passion and genius of Lionel Dobie that was only hinted at and teased until now. When watching these quick cuts of mesmerizing brush strokes, it’s so easy to get so lost in the passion that you forget that Paulette wanted to leave New York just moments ago, and, as we find out through reverse shots, Paulette seemed to forget also.
The reverse shots are what shows Paulette’s new decision to stay. As we are seeing these mesmerizing shots of painting, we are consistently cutting back to show Paulette’s reaction.
With each cutback, we see Paulette falling deeper under Dobie’s spell. Seemingly forgetting her worries in her awe for the art happening before her.
Every time we cut back to Paulette, the camera gets tighter on her face, successfully escalating the feeling of being hypnotized by Dobie’s painting, and driving home the idea that she wants decided to stay in New York. These reverse shots combined with the insert shots of painting successfully show the audience how and why Paulette changes her mind, but what really ties the two different shots together is the music.
The music is what binds the scene together to make it this whimsical, exhilarating experience and specifically enhances the painting inserts. The song, Like A Rolling Stone, does a great job of evoking Lionel’s state of mind. It’s a wild, upbeat rhythm and lyrics seem to suit Dobie’s hectic state perfectly. Not only does the music match the shots of the painting perfectly, but the music allows rhythmic a cutting of shots. Which enhances the already chaotic brushstrokes within the shots, provides great shot escalation on the cuts back to Paulette, and overall just makes this sequence much more entertaining and effective to watch.
Overall, Life Lessons has many successful moments. There are several instances of exceptional scenes throughout the film. However, to me, this scene stands out as one of the most successful in the film. It is a brilliant moment of extremely well-done filmmaking, where performance, editing, and directing came together in such a well-done way that an idea was able to be conveyed without the aid of dialog. The usage of reverse shots between the erratic brush strokes of Dobie, and the reaction of Paulette was extremely successful and a great moment of direction and acting. The usages of the music to create a rhythmic editing pattern was a brilliant choice and the editor did a fantastic job of matching the shot cuts with the feeling of the scene. So, all in all, this was an extremely successful scene and a great accomplishment for Scorsese.
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