Short Film Analyses- Darling, Do you love me?

'Darling, Do you love me' is a 3 minute short film made in 1968 by Martin Sharp and Bob Whitaker. I found this film whilst at the BFI trip.

The mise-en-scene in this short film has a set theme throughout, the film is in black and white, these are 2 colours that are used as contrasts as at the start there is a black background when the woman is singing and the shots have a slow pace, then when the woman's singing gets higher pitched and her movement speeds up, a white background is used.

With the costumes and make-up used we can get an idea of the type of person the main woman is, she has on a clown painted white face with dark circles around her eyes and dark lipstick and drawn on eyebrows, her hair is also dark and very frizzy and big flowing everywhere.

The lighting is dim for most of the short film but in the shots of the man and woman a light is shining directly on the woman and some of the mans face, this empathises that are attention should be focused onto her actions and also keeps the contrast of dark and light throughout. A shadow is always seen on one side of the characters faces when they are seen in a shot together with the black or white background, this adds to the mystery of the piece.

We get a sense that she is a crazy character straight away, the first shots are close ups of her face with pieces of paper with the films credits on, then the male character is introduced, we see a straw hat first and then a close up of his face, he is a complete contrast of her as he is dressed presentable with a suit, hat and glasses and is also sat down neatly whereas she is stood up moving around him.

The short film is set in a studio, with no back drop or props to set a scene, it is almost like a small room a criminal would be questioned in, with the man sitting down on a stool or seat and the woman walking and moving around him. The second setting is a pathway that is through a park, in the background a big building is seen which looks like either a church or a neglected house, there is a haunted look to this scene as you can tell its autumn with the leaves on the floor and the dark trees, along with the man walking from far away in a long black cape/jacket with the woman looking like a witch dancing and running around him.

Sound
Sound in the short film is non diagetic and starts off with a woman singing "Darling do you love me" in an opera style repetitively, the tone of the song is high pitched and is sung in a different way each time, then a non diagetic laugh and banging is heard when the pace of shots fastens and tension builds, the banging noises are like fireworks. Next a shot of the man walking down a path is shown and for every step he takes a crunch noise is made, the woman is still singing frantically but sounds echoey and far away, also you can hear crickets in the background.

The woman then grabs the man and he falls making the crunching noises end with a scream breaking out. The singing then continues with what sounds like two of her singing but in different pitches, then a shot of her touching and messing around with the mans face has ruffling noises then the shot changes along with the sound of a screeching siren and her singing fastens up. Then the music stops when the man says "I love you" in a croaky voice, at the end there is silent and then a small clown-like laugh.

Camera Movement

The film starts of with close ups and extreme close ups of the woman's face with pieces of paper on her with the films credits written on. The woman starts to sing and the camera then zooms out from the extreme close up of her lips to a close up of her face then the camera pans to the right slowly and we see the top of a hat and then the camera tilts down to reveal who is wearing the hat.

The movement of the camera is very steady, slow and simple. The camera then zooms out to show the woman in the same shot and then cuts to a different scene where the background is white and both of the characters are standing, this shot is a medium shot. The camera shots then speed up with group of close ups, extreme close ups and canted framing, these are all of the woman dancing around and the man standing still.

A two shot is then used

on the left hand side of the shot we see a close up of the side of the mans face with a close up of the woman in the background.

The next scene is a long shot of a pathway the man is walking down, with a big building in the background and trees either side of the pathway, this shot is steady until the man and woman walk towards the camera, the woman falls on the ground to try and get the mans attention so the camera zooms in to empathise the action and the zooms back out to a medium shot as the man just walks straight over her.

Zooms of close ups and medium shots are used continuously towards the end of the film, this plays with your eyes and builds up tension. We see the mans back to the camera and the woman holding her hands around him and singing in his face, the camera then zooms in and out according to the woman's singing which gets louder and faster. To end the tension the scenes climax ends up with the camera canted making the shot look as if the woman is holding the man upside down.

He then says "I love you" and the shot switches to the right way up and zooms into the woman's face as she has a piece of paper in her mouth that says "The end".