So, the original "Star Wars" trilogy -- episodes IV,
V, and VI -- has a total runtime of
Each movie is pretty much the same length: a little over
two hours, and they're also the same in another respect:
The amount of time that they feature the series' main villain,
Darth Vader.
In terms of actual screentime,
Vader gets astonishingly little.
In "A New Hope", he's in the film for only eight minutes.
In "Empire Strikes Back", he's in it for twelve minutes.
And in "Return of the Jedi", he tops out at about fourteen minutes onscreen.
Put these all together, and Darth Vader
Maybe cinema's most iconic villain, if not character in general
flashed across movie screens for a total of only
In this video, I want to take a look at Vader's visual footprint in the original trilogy
to see if we can't locate what gives him this
iconic status in such a short time.
In Episode IV, Darth Vader is only in six percent of the movie,
and his scenes are striking in how the character
fades into the background,
both narratively and visually.
For the bulk of Episode IV, Vader is portrayed as
the subordinate of Grand Moff Tarkin.
So, a good portion of his screentime has him in the background
Or off to the side, cut off, sometimes
out of focus.
Even when he's being filmed directly
Vader's black uniform fades into the shadows of the set,
and there is a noticeable lack of separation between
foreground and background.
Now, it's hard to say how much of this is a narrative
or thematic choice, and how much
is down to the constraints of filming.
All of Darth Vader's scenes in Episode IV --
With the exception of the first --
Take place in or around the Death Star.
Gilbert Taylor, the cinematographer,
was famously annoyed with filming these scenes
because he didn't like the black and grey sets made
by John Barry, which provided little opportunity
for targeted lighting.
Taylor was actually forced to cut holes in the sets
and outfit them with quartz lamps
that lit the environment evenly for flexibility in shooting.
Flexibility, but not specificity.
This is not to say that Darth Vader
doesn't make an impact in Episode IV
I mean, this is the film that
launched the whole thing.
And visually, the movie does make a bold statement out of the gate
by introducing Vader right away
as a menacing, jet-black presence against
the white interior walls of the Rebel spaceship.
But I do think that there's more iconic Vader imagery to come.
You see that right away in Episode V,
"The Empire Strikes Back"
The first time Vader appears onscreen,
you get this iconic helmet shot from behind.
What's so cool about this shot is that it's essentially
black on black.
And yet, director Irvin Kershner and cinematographer
Peter Suschitzky find a way to make Vader stand out
with reflections and texture and shape.
All throughout the film, they find ways to key into the
elemental quality of Vader as an archetype
or representation of evil.
And they up the ante on the work done in Episode IV.
In that movie, Vader's helmet --for example-- is dirty, smudged, used.
This might have something to do with Lucas's desire
to have a naturalistic, documentary
feel to the movie, something he often argued about with
Gil Taylor.
But in "Empire", the helmet is as smooth as volcanic glass
and always spotlessly clean so that it features these
fat, white reflections which highlight its shape.
Kershner and Suschitzky seem to understand that
visually, Vader increased in dramatic weight
the less naturalistic and more pure that he seemed.
After all, the most iconic symbols in our culture
are the ones that can be boiled down to their basic shape
and still be instantaneously recognizable.
Episode V takes advantage of this with the masterful use of silhouette.
It's in these moments that Vader transcends his role
as a character in a movie and becomes
a symbol for something much deeper.
...and much more universal.
"The Empire Strikes Back", I think is inventive
with its Darth Vader imagery in a way that
both of the other films aren't as much.
With only twelve minutes of screen time, the filmmakers
do a lot to add to the mystique of the character,
and the film features those images of Vader that have
seared themselves onto my mind from the very first time I watched it.
Episode VI: "Return of the Jedi"
largely holds onto that pristine look from "Empire",
even copies some of the "Empire" shots exactly.
But overall, "Jedi" is
less inspired when it comes to Darth Vader cinematography.
He often looks flat against backgrounds, and
the framing and lighting isn't nearly as compelling
as Kershner's work on Episode V.
Kershner was so devoted to his own vision that
he didn't shoot master shots, which meant that Lucas
would have to edit the scenes roughly how Kershner intended them.
By most accounts, Lucas hired Richard Marquand as a sort of
"working man's director" for Episode VI,
somebody who could bring the film in on time and within budget
*and* give Lucas enough options to construct
the film in the edit.
As a result, Episode VI lacks the character work that was a signature
of Kershner's style.
What "Jedi" does give us is that famous final scene,
where Darth Vader is finally unmasked.
It's a moment that brings the archetype down to earth.
The actual face of evil is just the face of a broken man.
More pathetic than anything, and in that way deeply human.
Of course, the legacy of Darth Vader isn't all in the visuals.
The writing, costume, and James Earl Jones' vocal performance
contribute hugely to the character's continued fame
even his breathing is iconic.
But film is a visual medium, and when all
these things are wrapped in the right image
the effect can be mythic.
What's amazing is that Lucas and Kershner achieved
this in just a handful of minutes,
and the impact...
speaks for itself.
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