Flesh by Paul Morrissey

1180 Words3 Pages

In the first scene of Paul Morrissey’s 1968 film Flesh, the viewer is taken on a brief journey through the streets of New York City. The perspective taken is that from a passive observer looking into the life of the main character. The camera does not tamper with the images nor try to impose new meaning on them – we see the sequence of events as it actually unfolds. Throughout the film clip, a main theme is centered on the banality of the protagonist’s existence, and his restless state is reflected within both technical and organic aspects of the clip.

The opening shot looks like it was taken with a handheld camera, as it is somewhat shaky and we can hear a background noise. We are introduced to the character right away. We see a reflection of him at first, and then the camera proceeds to pan up until we can see his whole body. His head is turned away, so we can only see his profile. He is wearing casual clothing and a red headband. We know he is in New York City because we can see Queensboro subway station behind him. He looks to the side of the camera as it makes a few quick cuts. He crosses the street and the camera is behind him, a safe distance away. It zooms in and out and makes another series of quick cuts as it observes him reading a newspaper. He is never really in the centre of the shot and does not appear to be the main focus of the camera. We see people pass by and block our view and we even see him from the back. The next shot, at 1:50, shows his back as he’s having a conversation with somebody, whose face we also cannot see. The next shot is him sitting on a car, smoking a cigarette. Another man approaches him and they proceed to talk briefly. We cannot hear what they are saying. After another series of cuts, w...

... middle of paper ...

...ere also plays with the notion of suture in regards to the role of the audience. We enter into a dialogue with the film (using the shot/reverse/shot technique cutting/excluding/??), but then we realize that something is missing, the camera is hiding something from us (faces, names, speech, etc.). The scene is not complete, and we as an audience can only be passive observers. This is further demonstrated by the camera angles and how the camera seems to follow the protagonist as opposed to being side-by-side with him.

Paul Morrissey has created an atypical piece of cinema in which we view a character’s banal existence through the focal point of a choppy and broken editing style. This clip takes the viewer by surprise as it does not follow the conventional norms that we as an audience are familiar with, such as smooth transitions, clean editing, and sound dubbing.

More about Flesh by Paul Morrissey

Open Document