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Directors for ‘Past Lives,’ ‘The Holdovers,’ and ‘All of Us Strangers’ Explain Importance of Silent Scenes
Directors for 'Past Lives,' 'The Holdovers' and 'All of Us Strangers' discuss important silent moments throughout their films.
Unspoken moments also play a big part in David Hemingson’s script for director Alexander Payne’s “ The Holdovers.” The story of a teacher (Paul Giamatti), student (Dominic Sessa) and cafeteria head (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) stranded together on the campus of their New England boarding school over holiday break features lengthy dialogue-free scenes that evidence how the characters behave when they believe no one’s watching them while also underscoring their mutual isolation in the 1970s-set film. Exercising subtle effects like off-synch sound, lighting, focus and other elements, Haigh, Alberts and cinematographer Jamie Ramsay created a sum from these transitions that added up to something greater than their individual parts. Recognizing his specific responsibility to capture not just image and motion but emotion, Ramsay worked with Haigh throughout production to craft powerful moments, some utilizing a full panorama of techniques and others scaling various elements back.
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