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Playing "Dream Lover" from the start, Kenneth Anger has found the sensual side of communicating with an automobile, while still keeping the movie free of blatant symbolic imagery. The scene of the short is a very plain stage. A pink backdrop with no props other than the car, our attention is already focused to the action to be presented. The shots are very slow and very smooth, with fade's and dissolves used abundantly for the transitions. The panning is done at a very slow pace, with the polishing being done at about the same speed.
What could be only a few quick shots of a man have been dragged out into 3 + minutes of care and love to the car. The buffing rag itself is virginally white, having never seen any dirt on the car. Everything in the scene leads to a very innocent, sensual theme that Anger expresses so well in his cinematography. The hints of sexuality appear as soon as the first shot comes onscreen. The fluffy white buffing rag caressing the body of the car ever so slowly, it then finds its way to two shiny circular (and very breast-like) objects that are part of the car's engine. Moving from the body to these two "breasts", the buffer never wavers, never slipping up in its quest to polish every inch of the car's body and engine.
Immediately afterwards, and in the same pan, the camera finds a hood ornament of a man sitting down (and apparently fishing) with a very phallic fishing rod projecting out in the silhouette. It is shots like this that give the short its erotic undertone. Another interesting aspect of the film is the ambiguity of the man polishing the car. The shots are all done very carefully, so that the man's face is never seen until the very end of the short. At one point it goes to a close up of the body being buffed, with a fairly revealing reflection of the man, but not his face. At that point it gets slightly darker and becomes unidentifiable.
Also as the door is swinging shut we can clearly see him in the drivers seat operating the gearshift. Once again though, his face is not to be seen. It is not until one of the final shots that we see the driver, and the shot that is used is ironically a close up of his profile. Anger finally lets us see who the man is, and wants us to know when we do see him, who was in control the whole time. We see his face because Anger let us, which gives a very immaculate feel to all the shots we have seen thus far. I found this movie to be quite a colorful and fun short, but not without a great degree of skill was this shot and put to music.
The sensual nature of a man and his prize automobile is given to us in an almost voyeuristic method as it feels as if this man is involved in some sort of sexual ritual with the car. The editing is clean and the lighting and set all are rather ordinary, which is also key to the polishing of this film. I highly enjoyed this short, and recommend it to anyone as a valuable source for seeing how with the right shots, anything can be given a nature that speaks to the audience, such as sexuality and gender to a car.
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Research essay sample on Buffing Rag Car Shots
