Check out that face! (Being lecture notes on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Hush")

After re-watching the infamous silent episode from the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Hush," I am compelled to conclude that Joss Whedon loves him some tracking shots.  Unless the camera is tightly framed on someone's face, it's either panning or tilting or both.  If this were my only encounter with his work, I'd probably draw the conclusion that because the majority of the episode contains no spoken dialogue, Whedon felt the camera work had to be dynamic enough to sustain audience interest.  But that's not the case: Whedon's camera is consistently active, only a bit hyper in "Hush."  For example, when Buffy finishes her ablutions and enters the hallway, the camera pans with her:

Note that as she passes it, she moves from a medium close-up to a close-up and back to a medium close-up.  The reason for her occupying more and then less of the frame is that Whedon requires some space for this:

That would be a student crying because she's lost her voice, but Buffy doesn't know that yet.  Whedon allows this anonymous student to come in for a close-up:

Then follows her down the hall:

The camera's attention here is mimicking Buffy's curiosity, so as soon as she disappears, the camera whip pans back to our protagonist:

The reason for keeping this in a single shot—besides the obvious one that Whedon always prefers tracking shots—is to create the impression that Buffy has had a realization.  At this point, it consists of "something's wrong," or maybe the more innocuous "something may not be right," but the audience connects Buffy's attention to the anonymous student's flight via the tracking shot here. 

As noted above, the only time Whedon's not tracking is when he's tightly framing faces.  That technique makes sense in an episode in which all the information about the characters' respective mental states is going to be non-verbal.  In his excellent post on non-verbal facial cues in The Social Network, David Bordwell argues that the "intensified continuity" in modern cinema requires actors to "be maestros of their facial muscles and eye movements," and though "Hush" is an episode of a television show and not a film, the same applies here.  For example, immediately after the above, Buffy enters her dorm and begins to "converse" with Willow:
 





Because even shows like Buffy prefer some sort of realistic acting, this almost qualifies as over-doing it: this is intensified continuity intensified, but it remains naturalistic in the hushed context of the episode.  The only way the characters can communicate is to over-act.  Looking concerned no longer communicates being worried unless, as per the last frame above, that concern is exaggerated.  (I could demonstrate that this dynamic is operative when Xander and Spike are conversing or when Riley's trying to enter the Initiative, but in the interest of space and bandwidth, just take my word for it.)  In sum, Whedon is setting the audience up by having it pay closer attention to facial expressions than they otherwise would.  Why would he do that?  Meet the episode's antagonist:

They would be the Gentlemen, and creepy as they would be otherwise, their creepiness is heightened by the fact that in an episode that keys the audience to pay attention to the plasticity of faces, theirs don't move.  The above also represents the only moment after the initial dream sequence in which Whedon frames them in the conversational medium close-up that he employs for the all other players in the episode.  Otherwise they are perpetually in motion and the camera's tracking them:

Or they're standing still and the angle of framing is severely canted:

In other words, outside of that one shot, the audience is going to be discomfited by their paralyzed smiles and the blocking as they hover about and odd angles at which they're shot.  I choose the word "discomfit" for a reason: the Gentlemen don't horrify the audience so much as unsettle it, and the techniques Whedon uses to unsettle it are intended to be disconcerting, not frightening.

Comments

[HP]

I've never seen "Hush," since I lost interest in Buffy after the second season. To what extent is Whedon's approach informed by silent film?

For example, I'm reminded of two other examples of anachronistic silent filmmaking from the horror/fantasy genre, both of which reflect an interest in obsolete filmmaking techniques:

- The silent flashback sequence in Roger Corman's Edgar Allen Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum. Corman uses monochrome gels and proscenium staging; Price shows an unerring mastery of silent film acting. (I wish he'd done more silent bits in more movies. Well, Last Man in the World has some good silent bits. Phibes, for all its flapper-retro vibe, is relatively talky.)

- The silent sequence in Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula. Shot on a vintage 19th c. camera at (IIRC) 18 fps, Coppola's silent sequence reflects 19th c. experimental films, and seems to want to set up the 1890s as a time of massive technological change (a frequent comment about the novel as well).

Also, the description of Whedon's constantly moving camera makes me think of Murnau's mostly static camera, which, when it does move, immediately sucks you in (especially if you've been overdosing on silents for a few weeks). From your description, it sounds like the proportion of moving to static camera is roughly reversed between Whedon and Murnau. Yes? No?

Ooh, a final observation from horror cinema: Most non-British European horror movies from the 60s/70s were shot MOS, with dialog added only later, and what dialog there is varies between hamfisted and incomprehensible. So, I've always considered Bava, Argento, et el to be effectively silent filmmakers, since all the affect comes from the visual elements. (As translation and looping have improved, Argent's movies have gotten less interesting.)

[KWK]

You gonna go into sound in the "silent" episode at all? I'm sure the meeting of the Scoobies set to "Danse Macabre" is a gold mine for showcasing Whedon's aural (if not visual) directorial choices.

[Martin Wisse]

That was a shoutout to Jonathan Creek though, wasn't it?

[Crystal]

A shout out to the wine company? I'm confused!

[Albert]

Willow was always my favourite :)

[Alex]

Great blog!