TAYAH LEE

Lynne Ramsay’s short film, Small Deaths, captures snippets of the life of a young girl, Anne Marie, and the moments when she experiences “small deaths.” In one such case, the second snippet or episode titled “Holy Cow” portrays Anne Marie and her little sister playing outside, exploring the creek and running in the cow-filled fields. Anne Marie stumbles across a group of young boys and observes from afar as they lie in the grass and chase the cows. She is filled with wonder and as she dreamily walks through the grass, her little sister teases her for “fancying” one of the boys. However, her sense of wonder is suddenly lost as they stumble across a cow, dying from the injuries inflicted by the boys. In this episode, specific aspects of editing and cinematography accentuate the underlying meaning of the “small death” of Anne Marie’s idea of the purity of life.

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Before the “small death,” the film uses cinematography and editing to portray Anne Marie’s wonder at and views of the purity of life. The extreme close up shots of her little sister playing with a snail show the intricacy of detail and attention paid to such a small creature of nature, as if shot from the girls’ point of view. These takes are still or with slow movement such as a tilt, setting a gentle pace for the scene and adding a calmness to it.

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After Anne Marie sees the boys playing in the field, the shots that follow are all medium shots from the waist down, again as if portraying Anne Marie’s point of view. The camera does not show either of the girls’ faces as they talk, but focuses on what Anne Marie does with her hands—including grazing them along the tall blades of grass as she walks slowly—suggesting the character’s distraction and whimsical feelings. Adding to this, the film cuts back and forth between Anne Marie’s hands grazing the grass and quick, shaky-cam shots of one of the boys, suggesting that as she wanders, she is lost in thought and daydreaming about him.

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When Anne Marie’s little sister starts running after her and teasing her, the pace of the scene picks up with the use of shorter takes and quick cuts between the two girls in the grass. The two girls start to run and play together, and the adjacent shots begin to vary between high-angle and low-angle, and waist-down and waist-up. This, together with the slight use of overlapping editing and quick cuts, creates a playful yet hectic tone, perhaps indicating the slight panic Anne Marie may have felt when being teased by her sister. She nevertheless escapes her sisters taunting and the scene slows down again, returning to the use of longer takes and longer shots with little movement.

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These techniques of cinematography and editing accentuated the wonder and curiosity that Anne Marie had for life. However, these techniques also accentuate the moments of when this wonder died. For example, Anne Marie and her little sister are at first seen running amongst a field of several cows in a shot styled similarly to several before it: extreme long, establishing shot, panning along slowly. In this shot, as well as when they are standing at the top of the hill, the sisters are off-center in the frame. But as the film cuts to the eye-line match of what the girls are looking at, an injured cow is centered in the middle of the frame. This technique draws the attention of the viewer and adds emphasis to the subject being shown.

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As the film shows Anne Marie in shock at the sight of the injured cow, the film uses a graphic match, cutting from an extreme close up shot of her eye to an extreme close up of the cow’s eye. The extreme close up causes viewers to notice the similarities of the eyes—such as the eyelashes—depicting a sense of relatability, sympathy, and intimacy between the character and the injured animal.

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As Anne Marie looks at the dying cow, the off-screen, non-simultaneous sound of the yelling boys gradually grows louder. These sounds play as the film shows several shaky-cam shots of the animal’s wounds. The shot flutters around the cow’s body, never fully centering on the entirety of a specific wound, which stresses the effects of the lesions over the actual wounds themselves. These two elements together are enough to convey the message that the rowdy boys are responsible for the cow’s demise.

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The scene ends with a shot of Anne Marie’s shocked and solemn expression, followed by the eyes of the cow rolling back to signify its death. The long, still close up shots of Anne Marie’s expression shows her realization that the boys she was admiring shortly beforehand were not what she had expected; and their image in her head was then tainted with a lack of purity or innocence. She also witnesses the death of an animal that, since it is always in the background of her playing fields, she has become fond of or close to. By seeing this animal die, Anne Marie is exposed to the fact that life is not just happy and joyful, but short and fragile. These shots, together with the cinematography and editing techniques used, encapsulate the small death of Anne Marie’s idea of the purity of life.

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In Small Deaths, Ramsay’s episode of “Holy Cow” uses the juxtaposition of different cinematography and editing techniques to emphasize Anne Marie’s wonder of life, followed by her shattered image of its purity. Extreme close up shots, still shots, and slow pans and tilts set a peaceful tone to the scene as the two sisters play in the fields and wonder at the things of nature, allowing viewers to peek into their imaginative worlds. Quick cuts, varying angles, shaky cam, and extremely short takes are all used together in times of activity and playfulness, creating a montage sequence-like effect of the sisters’ spirited times. In the shots of the small death, however, both calming and playful elements are used together to convey Anne Marie’s mixed emotions of shock and confusion. The use of these several cinematography and editing techniques accentuate the experiences of Anne Marie’s childhood, especially the moment when her idea of the purity of life is shattered.