Week 25.14 - Socials Roundup
Posts from 31 March - 06 April 2025
Week 25.14 posts include shots from The Fountain (2006); A Different World (1987-1993); The Sisters Brothers (2018); Sorry to Bother You (2018); and Good Cop / Bad Cop (2025-current).
Sorry to Bother You
A lot (!) is contained in this short clip from Detroit’s (Tessa Thompson) art show.
Shot of Detroit’s boots is framed in a similar size to her face, but from a 180 angle, and really drives our anticipation — what’s happening in the rest of her that we can’t see — while for her Big Reveal the shots from a lower angle emphasise her as standing above the crowd, and us, and . . . everyone, really.
The cuts to the crowd drinking in nonchalant unison, meanwhile, are absurdist gold.
The Fountain
This sequence of Tomás (Hugh Jackman) switches between mediums and wides showing us what’s happening, and POVs showing us what he sees (including his upside-down and hurtling-through-air vision) to put us in his disoriented headspace.
Down to the great use of the upside-down shot, it’s a technique we broke down much further in this scene from Interview with the Vampire.
A Different World
Editing a theme song is an art unto itself, and the timing of this shot — down to the eye movement! — against the line “if we focus on our goals” is certainly no accident.
The Sisters Brothers
At this point in the film we’ve not only met Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal), but been introduced to the technique of using his voiceover for diary entries.
So a shot of him writing with his words playing over it makes sense; it’s the next shot which is really interesting here.
The cut goes to a medium with Morris in the foreground and Warm (Riz Ahmed) in the background. Rather than use a split diopter, or pull focus from the person we’ve already been introduced to in the scene to the ‘newcomer,’ the focus is on Warm.
The next shot makes clear why this is; Warm walks up and speaks, interrupting Morris’s internal-monologue-slash-writing-slash-voiceover.
The scene wasn’t actually about Morris, or what he was thinking; Warm was who the audience was meant to focus on, as he studied Morris before approaching.
Good Cop / Bad Cop
There’s been a cold case slow-burning through the first few episodes of this comic buddy procedural, and the final shot of 1.06 “Explosion” sets up how it will start to boil over the rest of the season.
After a closeup of a necklace engraving, the scene returns to a medium of Lou (Leighton Meester) looking at it, then Sam (William McKenna) reacting, before the kicker: a shot which moves from both of them into the cold case files as music swells, landing on a box of “Unidentified Partial Remains” as the music resolves.
It’s classical shooting, editing, and camera movement, showing us what we already suspect — poor Tommy is likely in, or at least connected to, that box! — in a fun, dramatic way.