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Ted: Deep Space in Touch of Evil



Ted Kakasenko
Film Aesthetics 10/29/18
Deep Space in Touch of Evil


In Orson Welles’ 1958 film, Touch of Evil, follows a Mexican drug enforcement agent by the name of Miguel Vargas as he investigates into potentially corrupt police captain, Hank Quinlan. Therefore, corruption is a very prominent theme in this film, and the audience learns to not trust everything for what it seems to be. In many scenes of the film, an action will be taking place on one part of the screen while different characters are in the background doing something entirely different. To complement this, Orson Welles uses deep space in the film’s cinematography to show each scene from multiple perspectives.


The first example of this can be seen at the beginning of the film, which is one single tracking shot of a bomb being planted in the trunk of a car, and two passengers entering shortly after. As the car drives down the street, it pans into a tracking shot of Vargas walking with his wife down a nearby sidewalk towards the Mexican border. As they approach, the camera pulls out to show both the car and Mr. and Mrs. Vargas in frame. Once again, the camera pans back to the vehicle as the woman in the passenger seat exclaims that she hears a ticking sound. Finally, the car drives off screen and the camera cranes into Vargas and his wife who are about to witness the explosion. For the entire scene, the audience is kept in suspense as they wait for the bomb to detonate and for Vargas to react. In addition, this scene contains an insanely large amount of camera movement. The only way for the camera to keep up with both characters is if the cinematographer utilized a longer lense, and deeper space. This is because the car and the couple would both be out of for all the moments in the shot where the camera pulls out into a wide.


Another key example of this can be seen at the very end of the film, when Vargas is tracking Quinlan and his partner Menzies through an old oil field, in an attempt to catch them confessing to being corrupt. In this scene, Welles utilizes deep space to maintain eye-lines between Vargas and the two partners. As Quinlan walks through the oil field with Menzies, Vargas stalks them from above. Therefore, Vargas is shot from low angles, and Quinlan is shot from high angles. Flat space cannot be used in this scene, because of the considerable distance between the two. Therefore, a greater depth of field keeps both characters in view and matches the tone of the scene.





In summary, Touch of Evil is a film that deals with the theme of corruption, and not believing that everything is exactly as it seems. In order to do this, the audience needs to examine everything closer and more in-depth. The use of deep space in this film allows us to do this, by seeing what lurks in the background of every shot.

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