I have not yet seen
Lincoln, but I know there will be a moment or more in the film that drives me mad. Because Steven Spielberg has never made a movie where he doesn't show a camera flare at least once. Many—in fact, millions—of people disagree with me but I consider this one of the major examples of lousy filmmaking. When you are watching a movie, you are supposed to lose yourself to the story. For an hour of more you are in the situation, in the time period, at the locations, with the characters. It is a wonderful, temporary reality. There are two things that can really spoil that reality. One is something you rarely see: even the hint of a microphone boom. Fortunately most directors know that would be a stupid intrusion. But they don't seem to understand that a camera flare is just as intrusive. Because it says: You are looking through the glass eye of a modern-day camera. This is not real. Somewhere nearby, besides the cameraman, are grips and caterers and all kinds of other workers. That's what a camera flare says. The most egregious example of this was in the1990 film
The Sheltering Sky. In this riveting Bertolucci-directed film Kit Moresby is marooned in the middle of the Sahara at a Foreign Legion post where her husband Port dies of typhoid. I am totally immersed in Kit's abandonment, in the desolation of the desert, in what she must feel about being alone and so far from any civilized society. But as she looks out at the endless desert, an enormous round camera flare takes up most of the wide screen. Fantasy over. This is a movie. Debra Winger not Kit Moresby, is surrounded by dozens of people. I wonder how many flares I can expect to see in
Lincoln.
