thinking about how black sails routinely doesn’t let you see their actors full faces during really important scenes. they partially obscure it using lighting or the camera angle or the character turning their back. silver encountering the cook in and you can’t see what his face does because he is so fully entrenched in darkness. max asking anne if she wants to watch her weigh the gold and anne saying she trusts max with her back fully to the camera. silver on the cliffs in 4x10, ‘waiting’ for madi. anne and max in the snow, not facing us. so many other examples. and every time they do this, as a member of the audience and a person invested in the characters, you’re like… well i want to see. i want to see SO badly what this character feels about this event. but the magical part is!!! you already know! you already know exactly what that character is feeling. the show doesn’t need need to spell it out for you. the audience is smart enough to understand the characters and their motivations and the fact they are still human despite their motivations. instead, black sails takes the time to obscure the faces of these characters to show that they are hiding their reaction from the world/the viewers/themselves!!! it is the characters who don’t want the audience to see their reactions in these moments!!! who the fuck was doing it like black sails?? what other shows trusts their audience in that way??? what other show respects their characters in that way??? and they were doing all this on STARZ??? with STARZ money??? when game of thrones was fumbling with HBO money????
