In the early days of cinema, the addition of movement to a still image was the ultimate power of this new invention. Filmmakers of the time used it to create a ‘cinema of attractions’: capturing the viewers’ attention with tricks and magic through editing, montage, acting and light. Audiences were enraptured, but surprisingly not by the attractions cinema provided, but by how ‘nature was caught in the act’.
“[S]eemingly minor details tended to be of greater interest to the audience […] [N]ewspaper reports of the time made repeated reference to incidental details like smoke, waves and, especially, ‘the trembling of the leaves through the action of the wind’“.1
Modern audiences are familiarized to this subtle imagery: The turning of a leaf, softly blowing in the wind in the background of a shot is not something we would really notice anymore unless the camera draws our attention to it with a close-up or if a character points it out. Or by turning up the volume… (of the windmachine, that is.)
Only when wind is foregrounded, do we notice it. When we notice it, it can often tell us something about the narrative.
Oh, there’s so much scope for imagination in a wind!
— Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery
Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)
wind as a comedic device
Buster Keaton was a master of comedy during the silent film era. In Steamboat Bill, Jr., he plays Bill Jr., an awkward, fresh-out-of-college student with a deadpan expression (his trademark). He is the son of steamboat owner “Steamboat Bill”, who is competing with J.J. King, the owner of a new steamer called “The King”. While tensions rise between the two rivals, a romance blossoms between Bill Jr. and Kitty, King’s daughter.
spoilers ahead! ⋆。°✩
After trying to save his father from jail and losing Kitty, Bill Jr. ends up in the hospital. The tension rises even more when a cyclone sweeps through town and demolishes everything in its path. Even the hospital walls give way and expose a clueless Bill Jr.
In this final quarter of the film, the strong wind allows for a lot of physical comedy: People are blown off their feet, a man holds onto the bumper of his car as the vehicle flies through the street, the hospital empties… Even the wounded make a run for it. Bill Jr. is blown away with hospital bed and all and ends up in front of a house, its facade almost toppling over on top of Bill Jr. The wind as a comedic device transforms into a device for creating tension.
This is Buster Keaton’s most famous stunt and it is still impressive to look at: The facade falls down on Bill Jr., but instead of crushing him, the front of the house collapses around him because of an open window that falls on the exact spot he is standing.
Everyone else is still in danger: Kitty, King and Bill’s father almost drown because of the storm. Bill Jr. manages to save them. And so the wind rises with the tension, and makes a hero out of our awkward protagonist.
You can watch the full film on Youtube if you’re interested!
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
wind as a plot device
In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy (Judy Garland) has just turned back home after running away when a tornado sweeps through her small Kansas town. She manages to get back home, but a burst of wind knocks her out. Her house is ripped from the ground, spinning toward somewhere over the rainbow, where she wakes up in a land of colour.
The tornado is a device that prevents her from getting home when that is her greatest wish and creates a portal to a world where everything is different from what she knows. It drives Dorothy to act and causes the adventure ahead.
Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.
— Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz (1939)
The tornado, together with the transformation of the world from black-and-white to colour, is also a great tool to create ambiguity. It marks the moment where everything (possibly) becomes a subjective experience. A dream, perhaps, or a very severe concussion.
Challengers (2024)
wind as a temporal & sensual device
Watching Challengers was what sparked the idea to write this post because of the passionate, wind-swept scene near the end of the film. But before we get there, the wind tells us something else…
Throughout the film, we are fed with time stamps: text overlayed as the images unfold. They tell us where we are, and when we are in relation to what we have see.
‘Phil’s Tire Town Challenger’ is seen as Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor) enter the tennis field. Their importance is as of yet unknown to the viewer, so it is no surprise that we jump back in time to meet them. First, we go to ‘Two weeks earlier’ and then we make a jump of thirteen years back.
This indication of time is also used ‘The day before’, accompanied by images of people on the tennis courts struggling against a storm. As we continue to jump back and forth in time, the storm acts as a way to tell time and orient ourselves in the film. It is placed as an event on the day before the all-determining match between Patrick and Art, and when the wind returns to the screen, we know when we are in the film.
On ‘the day before’, the storm reaches its intensity at night, parallel to the turbulence in Art, Tashi, and Patrick’s relationships. Tashi (Zendaya) exits the hotel where she and Art are staying, heading into the windswept dark. She gets into Patrick’s car and they drive off. The wind rushes them to act differently: Patrick has to yell at her to be heard over the wind when she exits the vehicle. The wind mirrors their passion, their close-ups externalize the internal storm and swirling of feelings are brought to the surface, and make for a pretty iconic scene.
“[I]t is in weather, made explicit by cinema, that we find virtual motion in its purest state: snow, light, wind, fog are all trembling with the very potentiality of movement itself.”2
I hope you enjoyed diving into a few case studies with stormy weather and the many ways in which filmmakers can use wind to tell us something. Thank you for being here and…
thank you for reading! ⋆。°✩
Nature Caught in the Act: On the Transformation of an Idea of Art in Early Cinema, Nico Baumbach
Cinema, meteorology, and the erotics of weather, Emil Leth Meilvang
I love these explanations for the case studies! I didn't notice the different facets of using wind in cinema before, aside from basic pathetic fallacy, but this is so interesting!