The
added complication of the “present day” interview with an older D.E.
Randall also seems a little bit disconcerting – although that part was at
least explained quite well in the dialogue between interviewer and interviewee.
However, I would’ve liked to hear more about the characters explained by
Randall. T he actor has a really great voice that would be perfect for a type
of James Earl Jones/omnipotent, God-type narrator. It would be quite a simple
thing to re-record audio and interject it throughout the movie. Randall’s
character already has some great philosophical monologues, so continuing in that
vein to reflect on the lives of these characters would be a really good idea,
being careful not to overdo it, of course.
There were some great visual elements to this film – some really nice tracking
and steadicam shots, and multiple jump-cut montages involving a character doing
something rather frantically. There was a nicely-edited moment where a character
broke a window on a house, but the sequence showed the window, then cut to a shot
of the character swinging his fist into frame, and accented by the sound of glass
breaking – an effect far cheaper than breaking and replacing a window for
real! There was a great special effects sequence of a female character being hit
by a car which looked very realistic. Plus a couple of nice juxtapositions –
one with Shelley sitting on a couch and a dissolve to a poster of a girl posed
in the same manner in another character’s room. Also a cut from Lucifer
Cicero with the title character yelling onscreen, to the other actor who portrayed
him being arrested – both with similar camera angles.
The
filmmakers clearly have a lot of creativity on their side, and they seemed to
have thought of a lot of things that others may have missed. It’s difficult
to take the extra half hour at the end of a long night of shooting to get the
one perfect sunrise shot or to spend a couple of extra hours setting up a dolly
to get a tracking shot, rather than a stationary one, but in the end that attention
to detail is totally worth it. I noticed many great moments like this; for example,
an extreme close-up of a studio light being turned off during a break in Randall’s
interview, perhaps in homage to the style used in Citizen Kane?
Many
of the film’s interiors had very low light, and most of the time it gave
a good film noir look, although on occasion it seemed a bit too low, often cutting
down the contrast a bit too much. Shooting in low light is always tricky, and
there are bound to be moments where not everything looks right. Unfortunately,
there’s no magic formula to get the perfect Humphrey Bogart movie look –
it usually boils down to trial and error. However, the moments in Eleven
that looked too dark didn’t outnumber the ones that looked good.
Eleven had a really
nice score. There was a good combination of both instrumental music and singing.
However, early on there was one piece played that seemed a bit too overpowering
and dramatic, especially since not much had happened in the film. It was also
quite loud in contrast to the dialogue that came next.
