Cinema - Text 6
Narrative Cinema
Hardcore Henry
In the case of narrative cinema, we also find countless cases of a camera being attached to the human body to produce unusual effects on body-space relations. Think of Hardcore Henry (Ilya Naishuller, 2015), whose use of a GoPro to capture the meanderings of a stuntman from his own point of view is perfectly in keeping with current uses of this camera in the sports field, in particular in the urban sport known as parkour. An over-the-top adventure of a man rebuilt as a cyborg after a serious accident who sets out to save his kidnapped wife, this independent Russian production was shot entirely with an action cam strapped to the head of the lead actor. One or sometimes two GoPro cameras were placed in front of the stuntman’s face at chin level in order to better frame his hands, which are essentially the only parts of his body shown, since the story unfolds entirely from his own point of view.
