Week 97: Socials Roundup
Posts from 11 Nov - 17 Nov 2024
Week 97 posts include shots from Tell No One (2006); Person of Interest (2001-2016); The Little Hours (2017); Mona Lisa (1986); and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976).
Mona Lisa
This scene inside a car uses colour, shadows, and a frame-within-a-frame to emphasise how seperate and at-odds George (Bob Hoskins) and Simone (Cathy Tyson) are.
The medium two-shot shows cooler white light on George and more red seat leather around Simone. But it's the singles which really bring it home: George's single is cool blue with his mouth more lit and his eyes mostly shadowed. Using the rearview mirror to frame Simone lets the in-focus section show mostly red ,and highlight her eyes.
The Little Hours
This match cut from The Little Hours gives us three euphemisms in one!
A hand hitting the bed turns into a literal pounding, the clear placement of that handle to suggest Massetto (Dave Franko) is 'polishing his axe,' and Sister Alessandra (Alison Brie) walking her clean white dress to the edge of a hole where it's clearly about to get dirty.
There's also several logs of wood nearby, the sound of repeated thwacking . . . okay so at least a half-dozen euphemisms.
The way both shots are framed to continue our 'eye trace' across shots is good, too.
Tell No One
Check out how this dialogue-less chase scene in Tell No One shifts POV.
Sometimes we're in the runner's exact POV (0:31 whippan; 0:46), sometimes the chaser's (0:26, 1:02) sometimes third-person-omniscient (0:05-0:08; cutting between all the vehicles crashing).
It's an audacious sequence, but note it always ties the first-person POV to 1. the proper angle and motion of his eyes 2. a shot of the runner *looking* — although at 1:12 that 'looking' shot doesn't come until after the POV.
Mostly the franticness puts us 'in his shoes,' breathless and confused and just barely keeping up with what's happening.
Person of Interest
We take a brief Noirvember detour as Mel looks at the coffee-laden symbolism in this Person of Interest scene.
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie uses a lot of handheld closeups to closely follow characters. So when Cosmo walks towards a crime he has no desire to commit, the choice for a long, slow pan really juxtaposes with the moments which came before.
The camera holds as he pauses, then (0:29) there's a quick cut to a contrasted scene of people cheerily going about their night before the scene comes back and watches Cosmo trudge towards the house.
As he walks, a multitude of shadows going every-which-way show how torn and divided Cosmo is.