The Imposter (2012) - Looking into the Lens

Hi, my name is Tony and this is Every
Frame a Painting, where I analyze film form.

Today's movie is The Imposter,
from 2012, directed by Bart Layton.

If you haven't seen it,
please read nothing more.

Don't even look up
what genre this thing is.

Just close this video, browse over to Netflix
and watch it, because I am gonna spoil everything.

You have 5 seconds
to terminate this tape.

Ready?

5, 4, 3, 2

Let's dig in.

I think Bart Layton made one of the smartest, simplest
decisions I've ever seen for a doc and it's this:

Every subject in this story is shot in a normal
interview style, looking off frame at someone else.

Except for our bad guy...

[clip] From as long as I remember,
I wanted to be someone else.

... who looks right at us.

That's it. Dead simple.

See, the movies have always had
a fascination with bad guys,

and we've always had this way
of looking them right in the eye,

whether they be gangsters, cannibals, sociopaths,
psychos, japanese girls or Leonardo DiCaprio.

And I love it when a detective story or
a thriller plays moments into the lens.

Jonathan Demme does this a lot in Silence of
the Lambs, which is all about getting you...

[clip] Closer…

...into her headspace.

Just the little things, like the experience of
being shorter and female in a room like this.

[clip] Go on now.

Or here's a scene from Zodiac.

This is the first interview
with our prime suspect.

All three of the detectives are trying
to figure out: is this guy the killer?

And when he says something suspicious,
look at the shots Fincher cuts to.

[clip] Well, we'll be checking in on that.

Were you ever in Southern California?

And the climax of the scene is this:

I'm not the Zodiac.

And if I was, I certainly
wouldn't tell you.

So the movie's asking you to judge:

what do you think about this guy?

But in fiction films, it's really hard to sustain a whole
movie with someone looking into the lens the entire time.

It's just too much.

[clip] Yeah.

But if you go to documentaries…

[clip] Introduce the sentence, because
I know exactly what I wanted to say.

- Go ahead!
- Ok.

…you'll run into Errol Morris,
who does it all the time.

For him, the goal is to
achieve the first-person,

the sense that you're really in the room
with these people talking to them.

And when they explain themselves,
they don't break eye contact with you,

so it makes it easier for you
to empathize with them.

So that's the camera setup
for The Imposter.

This angle puts us in the same room
as the bad guy, judging him.

But the same angle also makes us really
susceptible to have persuasive he is.

In other words,we know he's the
bad guy, but that doesn't protect us.

If you watch closely, you'll see a bunch of
other decisions in the film that stem from this.

Most of the reconstructions are shot from the
imposter's point-of-view. He even lip-syncs…

[clip] I wasn't the one who was telling them I've
been sexually abused. I made them ask me that.

…across past and present.

Other people we see from above or
from below, but we're eye level here.

Plus, these subjects are framed in depth, so you can
see their environments and where they come from.

But the imposter's background is literally a blur.
He doesn't even have a title card telling us who he is.

Ok, so all of these are clearly
directorial choices. But why?

Why set up the movie so that the bad guy
controls the story and how it's framed?

Because the movie wants to trick you.

Not in a "gotcha!" kind of way.

Just that the director wants you
to experience this guy's persuasiveness.

See, he spends most of the story telling us how
he lied to other people and how he tricked everyone.

So we know we shouldn't
trust what he says.

But then two-thirds of the way
through the film, he plays on that:

Why did the family accept him so easily?
Aren't they too trusting of him?

[clip] I didn't need to be Columbo
to put all the pieces together.

I mean, why else would they
accept this guy, right?

[clip] They killed him.

Oh, shit!

[clip] Some of them did it, some of them knew
of it and some of them choose to ignore it.

Wait, what?

Fuck him!

See, the natural reaction of a lot of people to
this case is to look down on the Barclay family.

To see them as being dumb
or easily manipulated.

I mean, the movie even
gives some ammunition.

You know, Spain? Isn't that
like across the country?

Plus, who doesn't
recognize their own kid?

So the movie lets you believe that.

It's not shoving it down your throat, it just lets you believe what you're already predisposed to believe.

And then you fall for the same trap.

Because your brain was already thinking it, all
this guy has to do was look at you and confirm it.

Whether this movie works
for you or not, I can't say.

I can say that I definitely fell for it.

And I think this film actually has
a lot of empathy for the family.

For 90 minutes, it lets you experience
the story the way they would have:

with one crazy twist after another,
until you don't know what to think or feel.

And maybe at the end of it, you understand
a little better how they could have been tricked

by something that seems
so obvious to you or me.

Or maybe you don't, and
you're a fucking psycho.