In this paper, I will write about “Thelma and Louise” (1991) movie. I choose a last scene of the movie which the police came to arrest them in the Grand Canyon (from 122 to 125 minutes).
The scene starts with the medium shot of Thelma and Louise’s face while they are being amazed by The Grand Canyon. Although they had almost fallen off a cliff, their faces were not scared but amazed by the beauty of the Grand Canyon. However, when hearing the helicopter, Louise's emotion changed, the camera closed up to Louise’s face with full of nervousness and surprise and looked at Thelma. The camera tilts up following the helicopter in the next shot, Hal is sitting in the helicopter and looking at Thelma and Louise, his face is shot in a low angle camera. When the next scene was when Louise backed off, the camera was converted to a wide-angle lens and chosen long shot, which enabled a panoramic view of Louise's car to the police helicopter.
Following that, the director used the wide angle to pan from left to right to shoot the entire polices come to arrest Louise and Thelma. This implicitly insist that they are no longer simply the suspects of killing Harlan, now they are becoming dangerous criminals and wanted in two states. Thelma's and Louise's panicked faces were once shown through the close up shot. Her first reaction when she saw the police was to run away, camera close-up her hands spinning the steering wheel in order to turn the car and escape. The director chose long shot to shoot the car reversing and turning to get ready to run away.
In the next scene, the director chooses the telephoto lens to be able to take a shallow focus on the hands of the police are putting bullet into the gun, and camera pans left to right to show that there are many polices ready to shoot them if they do anything dangerously. Back to the girls, their panic and fearful faces were shown through a medium shot. Their faces now also partly reflect the chaos in their thoughts. They still have not figured out why so many policemen came to arrest them. Perhaps, they knew that murder fled was a serious crime but they probably never thought that they the police side needs a large force as an army to capture two girls.
Dolly track is used in the
The camera follows the elders of the block, Da’ Mayor and Mother Sister, as they talk in her bedroom. For a rare moment in the film Da’ Mayor’s and Mother Sister’s eyes are at exactly the same level, showing that as different as the two may have seemed, they are very much the same. Then the camera slowly pulls out as the two stand and sluggishly walk down a hallway toward a window. Now, where a director would typically have to cut and setup a new shot, Lee pulls the camera straight out of the window as Mother Sister and Da’ Mayor survey the block. The audience would expect to see next exactly what Da’ Mayor and Mother Sister are looking at, but instead Lee quickly pans over in the opposite direction to reveal Mookie standing in the street bellow. By doing this Lee makes a connection that both the elders and Mookie are, in the words of Mother Sister, “still standing.” The shot is not particularly tight but still has a cramped feel due to the clutter of things in the background, the heavy shadowing, and the red tint on the lighting. The red lighting gives sense of volatility to the shot, which is contrasted by the slow camera and character movements. These slow movements are analogous to the block as, regardless of how slowly, it too will go on and life will continue. This shot is in the tradition of mise en scene advocates like Bazin in that,
The camera follows the helicopter at a side view all the way up the canyon. This adds almost a menacing feeling to the clip (Emerson 1). When Thelma and Louise see the helicopter a look of sheer terror fills their faces. They seem lost, frightened, and delusional all at one time. The police cars that fill the vast space behind them make the two realize that their time has run out. The view of all the officers approaching in their patrol cars is also a panning technique (Emerson 1). By using panning here, the viewer gets a better idea of how many men there actually are and that Thelma and Louise are, in fact, surrounded.
Lee makes excellent use of these shots as a way of bringing the viewer into the action of the movie. His use of high and low angle, point of view shots both heighten tension and give the feeling that the characters
The opening scene of Vertigo starts off with a close-up shot of the criminal climbing up the ladder, and zooms out as he climbs onto the roof, providing a broader view of the night-time rooftop background, as well as providing more depth and motion to the scene as the criminal runs across the roof. After the criminal, the policeman, and detective Ferguson have all climbed up, the shot cuts to a broader extreme long shot of the city skyline, while panning to the left to follow the rooftop chase. The shot then cuts back to a long shot, with the camera remaining stationary as it captures the criminal, the policeman, and Scottie jumping to the next roof. However, when Scottie’s grasp slips, the camera cuts into a medium close-up shot of him hanging onto the roof to better capture his reactions and his dread as he glances down below.
The scene in which Peg goes to the mansion on the hill in the beginning of the film, uses multiple different film techniques to give feelings of suspense, uneasiness, and worry. When she first walks up to the entrance of the house, a low angle shot is demonstrated here to emphasize the height of the door compared to her, and make it appear
Camerawork in crime dramas tends to be used to create tension and mystery. Not enough is given away for the audience to easily guess who committed the crime. Long shots are used to show the scene, but also close up shots to show emotion, as crime dramas often focus on relationships as well as the actual crime. At the very start of Inspector Lynley, there is a close up shot of some cobwebs where the murder scene took place. This
The plot follows the investigation executed by Marge Gunderson, a pregnant police chief, who is investigating a streak of homicides. The main scheme is occurring from Jerry Lundegaard, a car salesman, who has hired two criminals to undertake a shady scheme that starts as a kidnapping and ends with a series of gruesome death. The opening scene is the first of many with elongated camera shots involving the view on a car driving and emerging closer to the screen surrounded by an intensely snow-covered ground. Not only
Camera shots like the fast moving shots when the participants visit countries like Iraq with many camera shots showing the horrific pictures of more than one thousand people being killed which makes the viewer have a moment of intensity which the director clearly wants to achieve to get the message through. When the director decides to record such videos to convince the viewer how dangerous the country s which leaves the viewer in a sudden shock and director achieves the goal of changing the views of the viewers and make them feel empathy for the refugees therefore allowing refugees to have a new start in their country by convincing the government. The convincing of the viewer is also because of the voice over which gives clear statistics of how many have died and to set the mood by using the correct
The camera motion is discombobulated, edging more suspense and confusion to the audience. The cinematography of the first story is mostly credited to Andrew Lau, his use of camera motion brought a “frenetic energy that suits the film’s first story” (Phipps). By pacing the camera motion to the story line, the audience gains a better grasp of the story. In one scene where the blond wig woman is being chased the camera view is disoriented as if giving the audience a point-of-view of how it would feel to be a character in the scene. As the blond wigged woman was running the colors of the camera are disoriented with certain blue and red undertones which adds to the blur of the scene as if the camera is stalking the blond-wig woman. In contrast, the second story the cinematography is credited to Christopher Doyle. Unlike the frantic energy emitted in the first story, Doyle’s “dreamy, lingering approach” (Phipps) was the main focus of the second story. The camera has a close relationship with Faye especially during the scenes where she is cleaning up Cop 663’s apartment. The montage of Faye cleaning the
The next several shots are focused on Marion as she cleanses herself. These shots are vital because it serves the purpose that by being showered with water is purifying her soul. This shows the audience that Marion is washing away her guilt for stealing $40,000 from a client that requested it be deposited into the bank. The dirt running towards the drain symbolizes her sins being washed away. The last shot before the murder happens is the brilliant use of the over the shoulder shot to heighten a level of anxiety with suspense. It shows the moviegoers what the protagonist cannot see; while the camera is zooming on Marion, the audience's eye is drawn to the arrival of a dark, silhouetted figure behind the
When Ms Trunchbull is talking to Miss Honey or other students, long shots are used. This shows the audience her size compared to others to make her seem more threatening or powerful. In scenes when she confronts children, the camera moves up and down on a vertical axis, this is used to mimic what I child would see and put the audience into their shoes so you can see every scary detail of her. Low camera angles are also used in scenes like this, and it makes her look more strong and powerful than what she would look like in a full shot. In some scenes, the camera zooms from a full shot to an extreme close-up, this can help reveal an emotion change in her face or just for the audience to see the smaller details which show how evil she is.
In "Thelma & Louise" by director Ridley Scott, Ridley Scott uses cinematography such as close-ups and crosscutting to convey this films theme of freedom. The very first scene of Louise calling Thelma on the phone, the director uses crossing cutting to introduce the viewers to the two different characters and their lives. It also shows what the characters are doing at the same time. Louise is shown at work in her waitress uniform, which consists of an apron, cap, and white dress, and looks like she in confined, showing that she is unhappy with life and wants to break out to be free. It shows her as the stereotypical waitress and identifies her as a woman with a low-class job, implying a lack of confidence and self-esteem. Thelma is shown as
We see the cop cars head down the particular alleyway that we knew they would use and pull up to the front door of the main stash house for this gang and right away, we get to our first shot
The extreme close-ups of the hitman as he talks about harming people also add to this suspense because they prevent the viewer from seeing much of the hitman's surroundings at the beginning of the film. Instead, the viewer is forced to focus on the hitman's hardened appearance and his rough voice. However, there are some shots of other characters reacting to what the hitman is saying
The low angle shot of Jules holding the gun towards Brett gives the viewers an idea on how he is feeling. When the camera up close to Jules Winnfield face I feel those are eye level shots because we as the viewers would be looking right at him. Then there is the shot towards the end of the scene where Jules and Vega fire their guns killing Brett, those are also examples of low angle shots, even though we don’t see Brett anymore we as viewer have a feeling on what is going to happen