GOING TO PRISON
With Burt Lancaster
Chapter 17 From Travels with Dad
VIDEO CLIP - FILM NOIR ESCAPE SCENE - BRUTE FORCE 1946agraph.
IWhen I was about 6 years old, my dad took me to Universal Studios where he was working on building a prison set for the film "Brute Force." While I was exploring the stage prison yard, Burt Lancaster, who was cast in the leading role, appeared on stage with the director, Jules Dassin. This was back when the studios worked a six-day week, and they used casual Saturdays to make sure everything was set right for the following Monday. Jules Dassin would later become a good family friend. 'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
While Dad and Jules fell deep into an intense creative session, Burt took me by the hand. Together, we climbed the circular stairs to the prison watchtower, whose sign bore the name "Westgate Penitentiary." Today, I realize that the watchtower was what we call a power set, but more of that later. p
In the watchtower was a colossal metal lever that controlled the gateway to freedom. I remember Burt lifting me so I could pull it down myself. I was disappointed that the gate didn't open, but there were no special effects guys there that day, and the gates remained shut, which may have been reflective of the last line in the movie, "Nobody escapes, nobody ever really escapes."
EPILOGUE - Ironically, I found myself being imprisoned for the rest of my life, not in a penitentiary like the one in Brute Force, but on movie stages and backlots worldwide designing and building power sets from Epic Roman Palaces to sunken ships at the bottom of the ocean. Black Maria was the nickname for Thomas Edison’s first film stage, and we have been toying with the idea of calling my autobiography The Voyage of the Black Maria. Along the way, I met some amazing would-be captains of the Black Maria, my father included. All of whom won numerous Oscars and awards. I learned a great deal from them and was introduced to the importance the motion picture power set.
SET SKETCH ESCAPE SCENE - BRUTE FORCE 1946
John DeCuir Sr.
POWER SET THEORY
No, I do not mean the power set theory that mathematicians refer to but an adjacent concept that helps build sets that deliver the storytelling phenomena of narrative fusion.
When we watch motion pictures, we see thousands of sets, but some sets are singularly more special than others. A power set doesn't necessarily need to be grand, opulent, or exhaust the budget, but it must play a powerful story-assist role. Power sets often hold the key to achieving narrative fusion because key story moments would be lost and irrecoverable if they went missing. Power sets cannot simply be replaced by playing the scene in other more readily available (perhaps cost-effective) settings.
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Alfred Hitchcock, originally an art director, was especially good at conjuring up power sets: The Statue of Liberty in Saboteur, Mount Rushmore in North by North West, and the Courtyard in Rear Window. These sets hold the story together and contribute to creating narrative fusion. (narrative fusion is only achieved when audience immersion in a story is accomplished and significant suspension of disbelief is achieved.)
(1) (Years later, we met Jules Dassin and the lovely Melina Mecouri in a small Greek nightclub. Julie had married Melina, a Greek "goddess, actress, singer, and politician who starred in his recent film Topkapi. (It was the first time a lovely movie star dashed across the room to give me a kiss on the cheek, but that is another story.)