Sightlines · how to watch
How to watch Dishonored
1931 · Josef von Sternberg · Dishonored on Sightlines
5 things to watch and listen for on a first viewing, without spoilers, and 3 more once you have seen it. Each names something you can see or hear, the pattern it belongs to, and what noticing it gives you. How these keys work.
On a first viewing
Notice smoke, veils, or netting placed between you and Dietrich. (light)
Garmes and Sternberg keep layering smoke, lace, and falling snow between the lens and Dietrich's face, so the frame is rarely a clean window.
Payoff: You are always looking at her through something, which fits a woman whose job is concealment. In the reading: lyrical-abstraction. Deleuze calls light struggling against soft white until a face becomes pure quality lyrical abstraction; the veil abstracts her from the story around her.
Watch Dietrich's face for feeling that never quite resolves into action. (performance)
She plays X-27 with amused detachment, an erotic confidence that never tips into sentiment, so her expression sits there instead of leading anywhere.
Payoff: You can watch her feel something without ever finding out what she plans to do about it. In the reading: reflexive-vs-intensive-face. Deleuze calls a face that reflects one held state rather than straining toward action the reflexive face; hers gives back light, not intention.
Notice the objects around Dietrich change with each disguise. (setting)
A cat, a piano, masquerade masks, and military regalia mark each of X-27's disguises, from prostitute to society woman.
Payoff: The décor tells you which role she's playing before anything in the dialogue does.
Listen for the moment sheet music becomes a coded message. (sound)
Dietrich's character reads coded music at the piano, so an ordinary piece of sheet music doubles as an instrument of espionage.
Payoff: Even something as ordinary as playing piano hides a performance with a purpose no one else can read.
Notice how long Sternberg holds a shot instead of cutting away. (staging)
Action tends to unfold within a single composed frame rather than across a series of cuts, so the picture itself becomes densely loaded with detail.
Payoff: Sternberg trusts you to read a crowded frame rather than cutting to tell you what matters.
The 3 rewatch keys open on this page when you choose "Seen it?".
Carry this in: Watch her face for what it withholds, not what it shows. The film asks you to read her off surfaces alone.