One Last Goatie

The first-ever Goatie for Best Focus Pulling in a Feature Film goes to Leigh Gold for Last Chance Harvey.

That's right. Best Focus Pulling. The focus puller, often called First Assistant Camera, is the person who changes the focus on the camera within a shot, sometimes to keep the focus when the camera or actors are moving, and sometimes to shift the focus to another element in the frame. Most people have probably never thought of focus pulling before, but it's an essential and unheralded part of filmmaking.

Leigh's work in Last Chance Harvey is the second best thing about this underrated film, after Emma Thompson's reminder of what an amazing actress she is, and before Dustin Hoffman's reminder that he's a really good actor too. The bulk of the film is shot with an amazingly shallow depth of field; there's basically one point of focus, and everything between that point and the camera, and everything behind that point, is out of focus. Reaching back into my hazy memory of the single filmmaking class I took, I believe this involves using telephoto lenses, but I could be misremembering.

All I know is that the incredibly tight focus in this film is astounding, especially in the riverfront scenes late in the film where Hoffman's trying to convince Thompson that he's not a total asshole. Thompson's face is the center of the frame, the center of the film, and for a few seconds it feels like the center of the world—Leigh Gold's focus-pulling ensures that our attention is directed to the proper place. The focus is so tight that Thompson's gorgeous cheekbones are in focus, but her stray hairs, caught in the no-man's land between those cheeks and the camera, are out of focus. That's right—anything outside Emma's anguished face, including her hair, is an afterthought to Gold's singleminded attention.

Bravo, Leigh Gold, whoever you are. I admired your work in Casino Royale, and it tickles me that you got your start in Muppetland. (Even if it wasn't on the good Muppet films.)