WEBVTT 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. 00:00:06.023 --> 00:00:10.255 Today's movie is The Imposter, from 2012, directed by Bart Layton. 00:00:10.255 --> 00:00:12.078 If you haven't seen it, please read nothing more. 00:00:12.078 --> 00:00:14.204 Don't even look up what genre this thing is. 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. 00:00:18.306 --> 00:00:21.316 You have 5 seconds to terminate this tape. 00:00:21.316 --> 00:00:22.087 Ready? 00:00:22.087 --> 00:00:26.774 5, 4, 3, 2 00:00:28.711 --> 00:00:30.020 Let's dig in. 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: 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. 00:00:41.436 --> 00:00:43.621 Except for our bad guy... 00:00:43.621 --> 00:00:47.833 [clip] From as long as I remember, I wanted to be someone else. 00:00:47.833 --> 00:00:49.704 ... who looks right at us. 00:00:49.704 --> 00:00:51.527 That's it. Dead simple. 00:00:51.527 --> 00:00:54.213 See, the movies have always had a fascination with bad guys, 00:00:54.213 --> 00:00:56.387 and we've always had this way of looking them right in the eye, 00:00:56.387 --> 00:01:02.549 whether they be gangsters, cannibals, sociopaths, psychos, japanese girls or Leonardo DiCaprio. 00:01:02.549 --> 00:01:06.381 And I love it when a detective story or a thriller plays moments into the lens. 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... 00:01:10.421 --> 00:01:11.777 [clip] Closer… 00:01:11.777 --> 00:01:13.714 ...into her headspace. 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. 00:01:18.448 --> 00:01:19.668 [clip] Go on now. 00:01:19.668 --> 00:01:21.313 Or here's a scene from Zodiac. 00:01:21.313 --> 00:01:23.764 This is the first interview with our prime suspect. 00:01:23.764 --> 00:01:27.633 All three of the detectives are trying to figure out: is this guy the killer? 00:01:27.633 --> 00:01:31.005 And when he says something suspicious, look at the shots Fincher cuts to. 00:01:31.005 --> 00:01:33.234 [clip] Well, we'll be checking in on that. 00:01:33.234 --> 00:01:35.278 Were you ever in Southern California? 00:01:35.278 --> 00:01:36.924 And the climax of the scene is this: 00:01:36.924 --> 00:01:39.430 I'm not the Zodiac. 00:01:39.430 --> 00:01:43.372 And if I was, I certainly wouldn't tell you. 00:01:43.372 --> 00:01:45.185 So the movie's asking you to judge: 00:01:45.185 --> 00:01:47.031 what do you think about this guy? 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. 00:01:52.379 --> 00:01:53.688 It's just too much. 00:01:53.688 --> 00:01:54.615 [clip] Yeah. 00:01:54.615 --> 00:01:56.465 But if you go to documentaries… 00:01:56.465 --> 00:01:58.968 [clip] Introduce the sentence, because I know exactly what I wanted to say. 00:01:58.969 --> 00:02:00.388 - Go ahead! - Ok. 00:02:00.388 --> 00:02:03.339 …you'll run into Errol Morris, who does it all the time. 00:02:03.339 --> 00:02:05.628 For him, the goal is to achieve the first-person, 00:02:05.629 --> 00:02:08.738 the sense that you're really in the room with these people talking to them. 00:02:08.738 --> 00:02:11.451 And when they explain themselves, they don't break eye contact with you, 00:02:11.452 --> 00:02:14.875 so it makes it easier for you to empathize with them. 00:02:14.875 --> 00:02:17.350 So that's the camera setup for The Imposter. 00:02:17.350 --> 00:02:20.970 This angle puts us in the same room as the bad guy, judging him. 00:02:20.970 --> 00:02:25.755 But the same angle also makes us really susceptible to have persuasive he is. 00:02:25.755 --> 00:02:30.376 In other words,we know he's the bad guy, but that doesn't protect us. 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. 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… 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. 00:02:45.397 --> 00:02:47.370 …across past and present. 00:02:47.370 --> 00:02:51.487 Other people we see from above or from below, but we're eye level here. 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. 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. 00:03:00.988 --> 00:03:04.251 Ok, so all of these are clearly directorial choices. But why? 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? 00:03:08.844 --> 00:03:11.627 Because the movie wants to trick you. 00:03:11.627 --> 00:03:13.279 Not in a "gotcha!" kind of way. 00:03:13.279 --> 00:03:16.971 Just that the director wants you to experience this guy's persuasiveness. 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. 00:03:22.122 --> 00:03:24.585 So we know we shouldn't trust what he says. 00:03:24.585 --> 00:03:27.625 But then two-thirds of the way through the film, he plays on that: 00:03:27.625 --> 00:03:32.195 Why did the family accept him so easily? Aren't they too trusting of him? 00:03:32.195 --> 00:03:35.457 [clip] I didn't need to be Columbo to put all the pieces together. 00:03:35.457 --> 00:03:38.197 I mean, why else would they accept this guy, right? 00:03:38.197 --> 00:03:39.527 [clip] They killed him. 00:03:39.527 --> 00:03:40.952 Oh, shit! 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. 00:03:47.320 --> 00:03:49.382 Wait, what? 00:03:49.382 --> 00:03:51.106 Fuck him! 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. 00:03:55.609 --> 00:03:58.123 To see them as being dumb or easily manipulated. 00:03:58.123 --> 00:03:59.959 I mean, the movie even gives some ammunition. 00:03:59.960 --> 00:04:03.875 You know, Spain? Isn't that like across the country? 00:04:03.875 --> 00:04:06.780 Plus, who doesn't recognize their own kid? 00:04:06.780 --> 00:04:08.667 So the movie lets you believe that. 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. 00:04:13.215 --> 00:04:15.151 And then you fall for the same trap. 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. 00:04:20.004 --> 00:04:22.660 Whether this movie works for you or not, I can't say. 00:04:22.660 --> 00:04:25.357 I can say that I definitely fell for it. 00:04:25.357 --> 00:04:28.595 And I think this film actually has a lot of empathy for the family. 00:04:28.595 --> 00:04:31.807 For 90 minutes, it lets you experience the story the way they would have: 00:04:31.807 --> 00:04:35.653 with one crazy twist after another, until you don't know what to think or feel. 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 00:04:38.897 --> 00:04:41.702 by something that seems so obvious to you or me. 00:04:49.314 --> 00:04:51.774 Or maybe you don't, and you're a fucking psycho.