The clip belongs to the movie The Hustler (Robert Rossen, 1961) an adult story about life and love, greed, and self-destruction of isolated characters but also a story about conscience and redemption. The clip reproduces the first meeting about Eddie (Paul Newman) and Sarah (Piper Laurie), starting the romantic part of the film. The director uses both widescreen and black and white to produce a realistic atmosphere and highlight the isolation of the characters in their relationship. This essay analyzes the use of those devices in three different moments of the clip anticipating the dénouement of the plot through the depiction of the characters.
In the entire movie, the use of the widescreen in addition to the performance of the actors emphasizes
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At the station´s bar the scene has been shot with a direct bright light, furthermore, the use of a wide range of scale of blacks and whites depicts the characters (Barsam, 2010, p.214): While Sarah dresses in light colors, seeming to be an innocent woman, Eddie uses dark clothes, moreover, he shows different layers of clothing, from darker to lighter, which could mean that his bottom is good, thus, the use of different light and colors increases the contrast and distance between them. In the tavern, the light changes and becomes darker and indirect, projecting the shadows of the characters. Eddie says ‘you look different’ and he is right, Sarah is now under a different light, especially after confessing that she drinks and as a result, the contrast between them is not so wide, since she is shown darker than in the preceding scene. Furthermore, Eddie is enlightened with a back lighting increasing his charming. Consequently, the use of that kind of light with the widescreen intensifies the isolation of the characters. A low angle puts the audience in an omniscience position to see their reactions (Barsam, 2010, p.244) and realize the beginning of a relationship that leads them to a third moment in front of Sarah´s apartment, in this scene the light is from the front, increasing the range of dark greys and the shadows over the characters. After she has rejected him, the faces are