In this film, Louis Bloom, portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal, struggles with his life. He is pretty desperate for work and begins shooting footage of crimes in Los Angeles. He then sells his film to a local news channel, becoming a stringer. During this film, he secretly sabotages both crime scenes and other news reporters. Louis tampers with the evidence to make the scene appear more gruesome or more attractive to viewers. This film shows the shady side of the media by telling Louis Bloom’s story. He lies to keep a job, and much of the crime scenes are not accurate at all. This creates insecurity in American culture because how much of the media is telling the truth?
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The way Gilroy and Elswit use lighting in this film is very compelling, as it helps tell a story through Louis’ eyes. The lighting is very dark, shadowing Louis’ life, as well as the corrupt world of American media: the lighting highlights the way that Louis is feeling. Towards the beginning of the film, Louis is sitting alone in a dark room, and the only light is the brightness from the TV screen. The scene is cavernous and dimly lit. Louis is desperate for a job during this part, and things are not looking great for him, so the tone seems appropriate.
As he becomes more renowned as a stringer, the lighting becomes brighter to highlight his success. The high-key lighting shows that his life is at a high point. In the opening scene, his home looks pretty unwelcoming. Each follow-up scene that takes place in his house seems more welcoming and not so foreboding. It, in a way, reflects Louis’ state of mind. When the lighting is dark, his mind is down and pretty depressed, but when he is in a better state of mind, the lighting is brighter.
The film demonstrates that it would be harder to see the transition of Louis’ life without the lighting because as Louis’ life progresses, the lighting does too. In a particular scene, Louis is about to steal a bike to get money for a camera. The camera begins showing a man on his bike, and there are no cuts. As he moves, so does the camera. As the man goes put his bike away, the camera pans right, following this man, but as it pans, it runs into a profile of Louis. Elswit evokes fear while following the bicyclist’s every move, then ultimately landing on Louis.
Along with the lighting and camerawork, John Gilroy’s editing is quite fascinating, being subtle yet so realistic. In one scene, Louis is watering a plant, which is the brightest part of the frame. This is telling because due to this, Gilroy is evoking importance on this plant. This scene is a little long, just so the plant becomes noticeable. It subtly and slowly fades into the next scene: Louis at a restaurant, who is in the same spot that the plant was at. Yet again, the editing depicts importance on a single object, but this time Louis.
When interviewed for Film Doctor, Gilroy delved into his editing process: “When it came to the cutting room, it was really very surgical, how it just dropped right in because we had worked it out against the cut ahead of time.” Just by watching the film, one can tell how adequate and precise Gilroy was with his editing to make the shots perfect.
In the scene where Louis confesses his love of night crawling to his love interest Nina, he slowly moves closer to her, without the camera zooming in on him. This entire scene is one long take, with very subtle editing. At the end of this scene, Nina leaves. The camera focuses on Louis standing alone, with a screen of Los Angeles behind him. As he is leaving the screen of Los Angeles, this is also telling a story of Louis himself. He is literally leaving the reality of his world to the foe reality of television, with the lurid drive that entails; Louis leaving his life into the shady side of the media. With the editing, the film shows the dark side of media, and even though the lighting gets lighter as he becomes more successful, the editing displays the darker side of his success.
In the end, Nightcrawler displays a haunting vision of pop culture. The scenes where Louis is tampering with evidence make viewers question how much of the news is 100% accurate? Gilroy did a terrific job of subtle editing to make the film appear as realistic as possible, and Elswit’s lighting highlights Louis’s state of mind.
