Week 86 posts include shots from A Single Man (2009); ALIAS (2001-2006); Wild Rose (2019); Solaris (1972); and Wings of Desire (1987).
Solaris
When Psychologist Kris Kelvin arrives at a space station, he feels someone is watching him.
As he pauses at a door, the framing tells us he IS in fact being watched, by putting him directly between two large eye-like window fixtures.
Wild Rose
As Marion (Walters) and Rose-Lynn (Buckley) argue, they're at the further side of their own individual frames.
The camera keeps them L / R even as they come together, moving from light to darkness; but even as they share a frame, they're divided by the vertical line of the window.
As the scene ends, they part ways; as Rose-Lynn despairs alone in the house, we hear "where are we going?" — a line which turns out to be a prelap from the next scene, Rose-Lynn's kid asking a question which serves as an existential 'button' to her fight with Marion.
Wings of Desire
Love how this shot juxtaposes mundane and mortal with the sublime and immortal.
Peter Falk plays The Filmstar, a former angel who became a man; the way he stands here smoking late at night casts an angel-wing shadow over a humble food truck, showing who he used to be along with who he embraces being now.
ALIAS
ALIAS 1.06 "Reckoning" sets up Sydney wearing a green dress in an all-white white maze, being chased by a Thug Guy all in black. When she finds herself at a locked door . . . *crash zoom, cut to commercial*
The return from commercial follows Thug Guy into the room where Sydney hides, full of parallel lines and white spaces. The cat-and-mouse search is accomplished with economy of camera work alternating high/low angles, and in wholly silent storytelling, drama intensified by the fact we see the PIPES HOT! sign but know Sydney can't make a sound, or else.
It's a classical ratchet-ratchet-ratchet of tension until release with a Gymnastics-esque stunt . . .
then a comedic button with Dixon to complete the escapade!
A Single Man
Colour is a huge component of A Single Man, as is the fact George (Colin Firth) feels scrutinised by society. This 'establisher' is a a beautiful, surreal shot layered with meaning, pop culture, and barely-sub-text.
The scene opens on a 'closeup' stark blue flat picture of eyes reminiscent of The Great Gatsby; fitting as George lectures on classical literature. We're unsure how large the eyes are are until George's car drives into frame to give us context.
When George gets out, his yellow car interior, brown suit, and the warmth he's lit in distinguish him from the cold stark background; as he walks out of frame we see the iconic yellow lettering of the Psycho poster, a 1960 film starring notoriously queer Anthony Perkins who would have been familiar with the issues of A Single Man (set in 1962, the novel published 1964).
The shot demonstrates what Nicholas Hoult's Kenny says (as the camera focuses on his stunning, intent eyes): we're trapped in our own bodies and point of view, able to observe others but never fully, truly know them.