Focus
I’m rewatching Season One of Rome, this time with elder son Lex, to bring him up to date so that we can watch the second season together. We’d both rather still be watching The Wire, but we’ll have to wait another year for new episodes.
The second episode of “Rome” tonight got me thinking about focus — because in one scene I couldn’t help noticing where it wasn’t.
Legionnaire Lucius Vorenus has just returned from eight years of serving Caesar in an endless war in Gaul. He has barely reacquainted himself with his wife, Niobe (pictured above), when he has to sit in adjudication over a young herder petitioning to marry his 13-year-old daughter. Camera shots ricochet between the beleaguered young man and the unhappy father, who isn’t pleased by the notion of his daughter marrying a drover whose family lives in a house formed from cattle dung. Ultimately, though, he agrees.
And then comes what’s missing: A reaction shot from the daughter, who so ardently wants this man. So why don’t we have it? And why, instead, do we have a reaction shot of a clearly thrilled Niobe?
Because, as this storyline develops, the daughter and her intended aren’t that important. This scene is part of a story being developed about Vorenus and Niobe, which ends the season in a tragic twist. We’re in on the secret; Vorenus is not. Judging by the end product, I take it on faith that the editor (as well as, clearly, the writer and director) knows that Niobe is the point and not her daughter, and that’s why Niobe gets the reaction shot.
My chosen medium is the theatre. While we don’t have a camera, the issue of focus is always important. Good stage movement (blocking) does more than just get actors to where they have to be; good stage movement is also motivated by characters’ desires, and doesn’t steal focus from the principle figure in the scene.
It’s the same with writing the scene. If too many characters come in all at once, or too many different topics are raised, or inappropriate stage business pulls the eye, there’s no way to focus the audience’s attention. Chaos erupts. The human brain demands focus so that it can make sense of all the information flooding it. Without that focusing process, the unfiltered data would overwhelm us. That’s called confusion.
If as an audience member you pay attention to what you’re supposed to, you should be able to follow the story. If you stop to think about what you’re not supposed to be focusing on, you can see the man holding the puppet’s strings. Lex wondered how I saw the twist ending of “The Prestige” coming. It’s because I wondered why, when the one magician’s accomplice was a major character, we were never formally introduced to the other magician’s collaborator even though he was shown in many scenes — and once I asked that question, I knew the answer: Because we weren’t supposed to be.
Directors direct the actors. Writers use focus to direct the audience.