Spoiler alert: If you haven’t seen “Barry” season 3 finale “Starting Now”, don’t read it.
Season 3 of “Barry” was the darkest comedy ever, for cinematographer Carl Harsey in no small part.
“One of our great references is the balance between the tragedy and comedy of the Coen brothers and how they find that line, which allows for something meaningful but at the same time ridiculous and absurd,” says Hursey, who worked with Bill Header, who created the co-show. , Starred in the title role and directed several episodes, including the recent Season 3 finale “Starting Now”.
“Bill is very specific as a director. Most of the time on TV shows, you have showrunners with writing backgrounds but not visual, episode directors who are trying to give showrunners more coverage options to decide which direction they want to go,” adds Hursey. In the program, ‘coverage’ is a dirty word. Bill is very familiar with the camera. Most of the time, the director and I don’t want to move an actor if he wants to stand or enter or exit in a certain way. But since Bill is an actor, he can talk to the actors from their point of view, which allows us to design shots ahead of time.
Cinematographer Carl Horse took a close-up shot of Bill Header in the season 3 finale of “Barry”.
HBO
Seasons 1 and 2 followed Barry (played by the series’ co-producer Bill Header) as he tried to avoid his job as a hit man and question whether he deserved to be released, while the newest installment of the series made him more and more. It seems to be falling more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more. Cross the point of no return. For the first time, he finds physical consequences for his actions – namely, Barry’s acting teacher Jean Cousino (Henry Winkler) discovers that Barry has killed his girlfriend, Detective Janice Moss (Paula Newsome), and helps bring a SWAT team to take her. . Down
While “Barry” certainly makes room for climatic motorcycle chases and shootings, Horse points out that the central pride of his work, like homes and offices, needed to be really visually expressed using “relatively unforgettable spaces.” The show happens. This was often achieved by contradictions in the light – especially in episode 7, “Candy Aces”, when Sally (Sarah Goldberg) yells at her agent (Jesse Hodges) and slowly returns to a dark room where she is not set on a completely black background.
“We wanted the actors to come out of the darkness and there are so many different ways that you can explain it. But with Bill and I, we can only talk about the movie,” says Herse. Diversity. At one point he said, ‘You know the bullet [Akira Kurosawa’s 1957 film] “Throne of blood” where woman disappears in the dark? ‘ I immediately understood what he was going to do.
The season finale “Starting Now” begins with Barry’s shot on a beach that first appeared in “Candy Aces” in his delusion. Looking almost into the gray water, he is surrounded by people who have been killed over the years – as well as Sally and Cousin.
“This dream is about all the people he’s ruined, and looking back at Sally and Cousinau and realizing that they’ll probably be next because he’s poisoned everyone around him,” Hers says. “The sequence is to express the dream of fever, where everything is said to be people with strange compositions set at different depths in space. We tried to create a desaturated tone; Was increased. “
“Then, we tried to reflect on Barry and Albert [James Hiroyuki Liao] Meet each other in the tree we saw at the beginning of the season, “added Hursey, when Barry was confronted by his former Marine friend who is now an FBI agent. And shouted.
Barry and Albert’s conversation sinks into stupidity. It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post. What matters most is how (or where) their meeting takes place.
The Desert Tree first appeared in Season 3 Episode 1, “Forgiving Jeff,” where Barry doesn’t think twice about killing two people. The scene was shot in the morning, and the light from the mountain could tell he had a chance at accountability. Until episode 8, no such chance is possible.
“We moved the staging so that we could express the atmosphere of life. [like in ‘Forgiving Jeff’], We turned everything around so that we saw this hard line that was just a dirty and single, scrub tree, and moved away from anything that felt ambitious or or like life. It was really important to get rid of the feeling of beauty, because Barry has made constant mistakes that have taken away any hope that would take her away from her goal.
The finale also explores the loss of hope for Noah Hank (Anthony Carrigan), who was a serial optimist for the show up to this point. Hank, who was kidnapped and imprisoned in a previous episode after traveling to Bolivia in the hope of rescuing his boyfriend Cristobal (Michael Irby), is forced to listen as his fellow Chechens are torn to pieces by a panther in another room that is likely to come. Another for him. But, Panther never appears on screen. Instead, the camera swings back and forth between the hunk and the wall of his cell, in the manner in which he is talking, even when no one is around.
Herse recalls: “The VFX department wanted to know what the Panther looks like. At our first production meeting, Bill said, ‘No, no, no. You’re just looking at the wall.’ But we had a stunt person performing as a panther. They went through all the work so there was a sense of time and voice and Anthony had something to perform. “
Herse says “Jaws” was the primary reference here: “You’re learning a lot without seeing the danger. It makes the danger almost scary, because your imagination captures it.”
Hank manages to free and shoot his captors before finding Cristobal, whose wife, Elena (Krizia Bajos), is torturing him with shock therapy after finding out he is gay. A male dancer wearing only underwear performs for Cristobal, who receives a blow to the head aimed at reversing his sexual orientation.
“In each sequence of this episode, the camera is revealing information in one shot at a time. You’re just cutting in a wide shot and then close-up of someone and close-up of another person,” says Hursey. Are doing We see [Hank] Entering this hallway from the basement, but we are sitting in him with these dance figures without focusing on the background, because he does not understand what is happening where you do not show the audience what is happening. Seeing the picture of Cristobal and his family on the wall, there is a long tension pit that we are tracking with Hank, and we as Hunk are keeping the information as listeners, until you get to the room with Elena. , This weird, stripping man and Cristobal, who is now basically a zombie version of himself.
Then the perspective changes, with Hank out of focus in the background and into the room. Now, the camera focuses on Cristobal as Elena stops the music and as she approaches, trying to wake him up, he instructs her to look and touch him – before the bell rings and she falls to the ground. Unbeknownst to him, Hank shot him. He hugs the responsible Cristobal with a smile that lasts only a short time.
NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan) and Cristobal Sifuentes (Michael Irby) in season 3 finale of “Barry”.
Merrick Morton / HBO
“All the information you’re collecting is from Cristobal’s point of view. You don’t see Hank approaching. You don’t see that action even when you shoot Elena. She flies out of the frame. “The camera is there to show how much these two characters are missing. Hank is finally broken. Although he is a scary person because he is a mobster, he is this unique optimist. But at the end of the sequence, Hank has changed.”
As the episode closes, the casino calls Barry from outside Jim Moss’s (Robert Wisdom) home, the father of Janice who found out Barry had murdered his daughter, and the cousin knows about it. Barry appears and snatches the gun from the casino’s hand, and Jim decides to go home and confront himself. The conversation is quiet and frantic as both men are overwhelmed with fear, realizing how few options they have left.
“The scene with Barry and Cousino is the first time in the entire season that we’ve captured a handheld camera,” says Hurse. “The show is very studio and formal and the camera is an impenetrable, objective, ‘blind justice’ kind of character.
Hursey describes how the final sequence switches from third-person to first-person perspective when Barry hides in Jim’s house, inspired by scenes from Brian de Palma’s 1987 film “The Untouchables” when Jim Malone (Sean Connery) hides in his own house. Apartment Barry watches silently and prepares to shoot Jim until he shouts “Freeze!” He doesn’t listen to words, he calms her down. Barry is depicted in close-up with wide eyes in which disintegrating voices shout at him to drop his gun. As in previous scenes with Hank and Cristobal, information rolls in at Barry’s processing rate. Jim turns slowly and Barry realizes that Jim has set him up. Members of the SWAT team emerge from the darkness, reveal the casino standing behind them, and Barry feels the casino in it.
Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler) sees the SWAT team catch Barry.
Merrick Morton / HBO
Horse emphasizes that while many traditional productions have shot from different angles to compile Barry, Cousino, Jim and SWAT teams later, “this is an example of a scene where people don’t have coverage the way people think about television coverage. Bill likes to shoot scenes that really There is only one way to edit and he will shoot only one scene at a time so that you are not out of the cast, so they have to reach those heights.
Although Jim appears only in the last three episodes of the season, “Starting Now” ends with him. Jim’s last shot was taken outside his house and framed in his living room windows. When the blue and red lights flash and the sirens soften, the camera looks at him from the inside.
“Even though Moss was able to take Barry down, once you see all the police cars go away and the lights go out and Cousin walk away, he is still a man left alone without his daughter,” says Hurse. “You saw him [in a photograph] In the foreground and outside him as this little personality. There is a feeling of loneliness. Catching Barry is not fun. This is not the end of one’s suffering. The pain that Barry inflicted on this character is still with you – and that, for a half-hour comedy, is a very heavy image. “
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