1 00:00:01,191 --> 00:00:06,023 Hi, my name is Tony and this is Every Frame a Painting, where I analyze film form. 2 00:00:06,023 --> 00:00:10,255 Today's movie is The Imposter, from 2012, directed by Bart Layton. 3 00:00:10,255 --> 00:00:12,078 If you haven't seen it, please read nothing more. 4 00:00:12,078 --> 00:00:14,204 Don't even look up what genre this thing is. 5 00:00:14,204 --> 00:00:18,306 Just close this video, browse over to Netflix and watch it, because I am gonna spoil everything. 6 00:00:18,306 --> 00:00:21,316 You have 5 seconds to terminate this tape. 7 00:00:21,316 --> 00:00:22,087 Ready? 8 00:00:22,087 --> 00:00:26,774 5, 4, 3, 2 9 00:00:28,711 --> 00:00:30,020 Let's dig in. 10 00:00:30,020 --> 00:00:35,865 I think Bart Layton made one of the smartest, simplest decisions I've ever seen for a doc and it's this: 11 00:00:35,865 --> 00:00:41,436 Every subject in this story is shot in a normal interview style, looking off frame at someone else. 12 00:00:41,436 --> 00:00:43,621 Except for our bad guy... 13 00:00:43,621 --> 00:00:47,833 [clip] From as long as I remember, I wanted to be someone else. 14 00:00:47,833 --> 00:00:49,704 ... who looks right at us. 15 00:00:49,704 --> 00:00:51,527 That's it. Dead simple. 16 00:00:51,527 --> 00:00:54,213 See, the movies have always had a fascination with bad guys, 17 00:00:54,213 --> 00:00:56,387 and we've always had this way of looking them right in the eye, 18 00:00:56,387 --> 00:01:02,549 whether they be gangsters, cannibals, sociopaths, psychos, japanese girls or Leonardo DiCaprio. 19 00:01:02,549 --> 00:01:06,381 And I love it when a detective story or a thriller plays moments into the lens. 20 00:01:06,381 --> 00:01:10,421 Jonathan Demme does this a lot in Silence of the Lambs, which is all about getting you... 21 00:01:10,421 --> 00:01:11,777 [clip] Closer… 22 00:01:11,777 --> 00:01:13,714 ...into her headspace. 23 00:01:13,714 --> 00:01:18,448 Just the little things, like the experience of being shorter and female in a room like this. 24 00:01:18,448 --> 00:01:19,668 [clip] Go on now. 25 00:01:19,668 --> 00:01:21,313 Or here's a scene from Zodiac. 26 00:01:21,313 --> 00:01:23,764 This is the first interview with our prime suspect. 27 00:01:23,764 --> 00:01:27,633 All three of the detectives are trying to figure out: is this guy the killer? 28 00:01:27,633 --> 00:01:31,005 And when he says something suspicious, look at the shots Fincher cuts to. 29 00:01:31,005 --> 00:01:33,234 [clip] Well, we'll be checking in on that. 30 00:01:33,234 --> 00:01:35,278 Were you ever in Southern California? 31 00:01:35,278 --> 00:01:36,924 And the climax of the scene is this: 32 00:01:36,924 --> 00:01:39,430 I'm not the Zodiac. 33 00:01:39,430 --> 00:01:43,372 And if I was, I certainly wouldn't tell you. 34 00:01:43,372 --> 00:01:45,185 So the movie's asking you to judge: 35 00:01:45,185 --> 00:01:47,031 what do you think about this guy? 36 00:01:47,031 --> 00:01:52,379 But in fiction films, it's really hard to sustain a whole movie with someone looking into the lens the entire time. 37 00:01:52,379 --> 00:01:53,688 It's just too much. 38 00:01:53,688 --> 00:01:54,615 [clip] Yeah. 39 00:01:54,615 --> 00:01:56,465 But if you go to documentaries… 40 00:01:56,465 --> 00:01:58,968 [clip] Introduce the sentence, because I know exactly what I wanted to say. 41 00:01:58,969 --> 00:02:00,388 - Go ahead! - Ok. 42 00:02:00,388 --> 00:02:03,339 …you'll run into Errol Morris, who does it all the time. 43 00:02:03,339 --> 00:02:05,628 For him, the goal is to achieve the first-person, 44 00:02:05,629 --> 00:02:08,738 the sense that you're really in the room with these people talking to them. 45 00:02:08,738 --> 00:02:11,451 And when they explain themselves, they don't break eye contact with you, 46 00:02:11,452 --> 00:02:14,875 so it makes it easier for you to empathize with them. 47 00:02:14,875 --> 00:02:17,350 So that's the camera setup for The Imposter. 48 00:02:17,350 --> 00:02:20,970 This angle puts us in the same room as the bad guy, judging him. 49 00:02:20,970 --> 00:02:25,755 But the same angle also makes us really susceptible to have persuasive he is. 50 00:02:25,755 --> 00:02:30,376 In other words,we know he's the bad guy, but that doesn't protect us. 51 00:02:30,376 --> 00:02:34,426 If you watch closely, you'll see a bunch of other decisions in the film that stem from this. 52 00:02:34,426 --> 00:02:39,983 Most of the reconstructions are shot from the imposter's point-of-view. He even lip-syncs… 53 00:02:39,983 --> 00:02:45,397 [clip] I wasn't the one who was telling them I've been sexually abused. I made them ask me that. 54 00:02:45,397 --> 00:02:47,370 …across past and present. 55 00:02:47,370 --> 00:02:51,487 Other people we see from above or from below, but we're eye level here. 56 00:02:51,487 --> 00:02:55,652 Plus, these subjects are framed in depth, so you can see their environments and where they come from. 57 00:02:55,652 --> 00:03:00,988 But the imposter's background is literally a blur. He doesn't even have a title card telling us who he is. 58 00:03:00,988 --> 00:03:04,251 Ok, so all of these are clearly directorial choices. But why? 59 00:03:04,251 --> 00:03:08,844 Why set up the movie so that the bad guy controls the story and how it's framed? 60 00:03:08,844 --> 00:03:11,627 Because the movie wants to trick you. 61 00:03:11,627 --> 00:03:13,279 Not in a "gotcha!" kind of way. 62 00:03:13,279 --> 00:03:16,971 Just that the director wants you to experience this guy's persuasiveness. 63 00:03:16,971 --> 00:03:22,122 See, he spends most of the story telling us how he lied to other people and how he tricked everyone. 64 00:03:22,122 --> 00:03:24,585 So we know we shouldn't trust what he says. 65 00:03:24,585 --> 00:03:27,625 But then two-thirds of the way through the film, he plays on that: 66 00:03:27,625 --> 00:03:32,195 Why did the family accept him so easily? Aren't they too trusting of him? 67 00:03:32,195 --> 00:03:35,457 [clip] I didn't need to be Columbo to put all the pieces together. 68 00:03:35,457 --> 00:03:38,197 I mean, why else would they accept this guy, right? 69 00:03:38,197 --> 00:03:39,527 [clip] They killed him. 70 00:03:39,527 --> 00:03:40,952 Oh, shit! 71 00:03:40,953 --> 00:03:47,320 [clip] Some of them did it, some of them knew of it and some of them choose to ignore it. 72 00:03:47,320 --> 00:03:49,382 Wait, what? 73 00:03:49,382 --> 00:03:51,106 Fuck him! 74 00:03:51,106 --> 00:03:55,609 See, the natural reaction of a lot of people to this case is to look down on the Barclay family. 75 00:03:55,609 --> 00:03:58,123 To see them as being dumb or easily manipulated. 76 00:03:58,123 --> 00:03:59,959 I mean, the movie even gives some ammunition. 77 00:03:59,960 --> 00:04:03,875 You know, Spain? Isn't that like across the country? 78 00:04:03,875 --> 00:04:06,780 Plus, who doesn't recognize their own kid? 79 00:04:06,780 --> 00:04:08,667 So the movie lets you believe that. 80 00:04:08,668 --> 00:04:13,215 It's not shoving it down your throat, it just lets you believe what you're already predisposed to believe. 81 00:04:13,215 --> 00:04:15,151 And then you fall for the same trap. 82 00:04:15,152 --> 00:04:20,004 Because your brain was already thinking it, all this guy has to do was look at you and confirm it. 83 00:04:20,004 --> 00:04:22,660 Whether this movie works for you or not, I can't say. 84 00:04:22,660 --> 00:04:25,357 I can say that I definitely fell for it. 85 00:04:25,357 --> 00:04:28,595 And I think this film actually has a lot of empathy for the family. 86 00:04:28,595 --> 00:04:31,807 For 90 minutes, it lets you experience the story the way they would have: 87 00:04:31,807 --> 00:04:35,653 with one crazy twist after another, until you don't know what to think or feel. 88 00:04:35,653 --> 00:04:38,897 And maybe at the end of it, you understand a little better how they could have been tricked 89 00:04:38,897 --> 00:04:41,702 by something that seems so obvious to you or me. 90 00:04:49,314 --> 00:04:51,774 Or maybe you don't, and you're a fucking psycho.