I thiiiink that I was first shown this scene in a class of Dr. Butler's. And I remember the entire class being like, "whooooah. oooooh. ahhhhhh."
This scene from Orson Welles' Touch of Evil is downright iconic for its use of camera movement. In fact, some dude writing for AMC called it the "grandaddy of all tracking shots" I remember the first time I watched it, just wondering "...how?!" Oh to be a fly on the camera and move with it. It's beyond fair to say that this movement is effective. It sets pacing to a fast and suspenseful level, exposes our location, reveals objects that our protagonists can't see, and keeps us glued to the screen by being one long shot.
So I know that this is sort of cheesy, but I can't help but adore this next kind of camera movement that I want to focus on. After a little bit of googling, I have come to find that's it's even been given a cute name! The "Orbital Kiss" shot is one where two characters kiss and the camera rotates a full 360 degrees (or more!) around them. As films had been produced over time using this trope, modern audiences have come to interpret this movement as predictable, obvious, cheesy, overkill, etc. But I can imagine that the first few times it was done, people had to be impressed, incredibly touched, and not gonna lie, probably turned on by what this movement achieves. According to tvtropes.org, the first known use of the orbital kiss was in a 1968 film called the Thomas Crown Affair, staring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. You can glimpse the shot at the 22 second mark in this clip:
The orbital kiss movement creates a tight encapsulated sort of feeling around the two characters who are embracing and heightens their emotion. It's often used when this kiss is one that the audience has been waiting on for a long time, as sort of an "at last!" sort of reward to the viewers.
Sidenote, one should never use the orbital kiss to be discriminatory! When Star Trek aired television's first interracial kiss in this same year, they partially hid the view of Kirk and Uhura's lips meeting behind a slight orbital camera movement. I mean, they did what they had to do to get it aired though! Props for that of course.
A last of my favorite types of camera movement is one that is less obvious to the viewer. The vertigo shot. This shot is achieved by zooming in on a subject while moving the camera away from it and racking focus. This changes the depth of field of the image while maintaining the subject in focus, creating a weird, disorienting sort of stretching effect on the image. Hitchcock used it first in his film, Vertigo, hence the name. Here's an example from Apollo 13, the shot comes in around 25 sec.
For my scene analysis, I've chosen a scene from Mad Men season 3, episode 3 entitled, "My Old Kentucky Home." Mad Men is of course a TV show on AMC set in a 1960's American advertising agency. This scene is set in the home of Joan, a secretary from that agency, and her husband Greg. Greg has invited some of his medical colleagues and their wives over for dinner. He expects not to be embarrassed in front of them, and for Joan to be a perfect, entertaining host. This scene centers around Joan's reactions to her husband's behavior. In the three minutes (and 58 shots) that the scene lasts, the message is communicated that Greg puts Joan into situations to do things that she does not want to do and is extremely proud, and yet that Joan is aware of these moments where he uses her as a trophy and is perfectly capable of calling him out for it. You can watch the full scene on instant netflix if you have it, or the majority of the scene here on youtube. (the acting is amazing!)
SCENE ANALYSIS
There are 58 shots in total in this scene, I tried to speak to each camera setup at least once, so that explains why there are sections where I haven't said anything. Keep on scrolling through til the end to read everything!
The first shot of the scene is a medium two shot of Joan and another woman in Joan's apartment. Because Mad Men uses multiple protagonists to tell multiple stories in each episode, this shot immediately establishes for the regular Mad Men viewer that it's Joan time and that the focus will be on her.
The next shot establishes more of Joan's company
This is the widest angle of coverage in the whole scene and establishes a full view of the room. The perspective of being on the outside of the circle looking in creates a sense of distance and outsiderness that is relevant to Joan's feelings in this scene, as she is an outsider to the conversation taking place between her husband and his colleagues. This is also the first shot that shows her husband, Greg.
Greg's first medium shot show him places solidly in the frame, occupying a good amount of space. His dominance in the frame will come to match his domineering behaviors as the scene progresses. This over the shoulder shot is also meant to match eyelines with the next shot of Joan.
Greg's shoulder intrudes much more into Joan's frame than the shoulder entering Greg's frame above. This makes her appear much slighter, intruded upon, and much more gazed upon. This is appropriate because Joan is under observation by the entire group for the duration of the scene. All eyes will come to be on her as she is expected to perform.
It is revealed through dialogue that this is Greg's boss. He is given a lot of importance and boss-man space allowance in the frame.
This three shot that is used often in the scene communicates so much about Joan's relationship to these visitors to her home. She is placed on the edge, as far from the middle of the group as she can be, and in such a position that she has to crane and twist her body in order to be participatory in the conversation. She is smaller, and more distant. She is not on the same level as everyone else both physically in the frame and with regards to the story as she is an outsider to their world.
This wider version of the three shot includes the boss as a framing device. This alters the perspective in that the audience is made more aware of his gaze and point of view. This gives him importance and the feeling of being able to judge the others.
As it is revealed that Greg has not been telling Joan about things that have been happening at work, the shots get tighter as the tension grows. As Greg begins to get nervous and antsy, we get to see more of those emotions read up close on his face. Likewise for Joan's reaction shot a few shots later.
The first medium close up of Joan comes right as the emotion of the scene calls for it and things are beginning to become suspicious. This shot shows Joan wondering why Greg keeps things from her, and its use heightens the connection between the audience and Joan by finally bringing us closer to her when the other shots so far have kept us at a distance. This shot brings you into Joan's head at last.
At the height of Greg's dominance in the storyline, he become huge in the frame. He's looking down on Joan when he speaks to her, and the shot communicates this by being close to Joan's point of view looking up at him.
Meanwhile when it cuts to Joan we are kept right on her level. This makes us more sympathetic to her plight because we've been set up visually to identify more with her perspective. Having Greg literally hold something over her in the frame as she looks up with him creates again the sense of intrusion. We're watching him ask her to do something she doesn't want to do, and the frame reflects this feeling of forcing something upon someone.
Greg just looks super imposing here. The lines leading to his head even make the frame feel like there's no escaping him. He just fills the space up with his presence. And there's the way he's blocking out light that's radiating from behind him and casting shadows on the walls. There is just no escaping him at this point. Though Greg's dialogue reads like he's asking for a favor, this visual implies that he's telling. This and the preceding close-up are really what let the audience know that there is a subtle interpersonal struggle happening between the two of them. Their dialogue really does not speak to it so much as their body language and the composition of these shots.
Joan's body pointing away from Greg in another direction makes it feel even more like she just does not want to do what he's asking her to do. And again, Greg's body as a frame is pushing and imposing upon her.
They then cut to the other couples looking really awkward to open the space and remind you that this tight, intimate tension between Joan and Greg is actually happening in public in the company of other people.
This is the first and only shot in which you're allowed to see Joan and Greg's faces in the frame together and it comes when he is handing her her accordion to perform and entertain when she does not want to. This image lets the audience know that he's forcing it upon her, even though their dialogue alone has seemed relatively polite.
Greg being imposing all over the place with everybody, not just Joan. He's forced them all into this uncomfortable tight space.
The small glimpse of Joan's body sharing the frame with everyone looking at her visually communicates that she is being observed closely.
It becomes obvious that Greg is trying to impress his boss by using his wife as a trophy. His standing behind the seated boss shows him as controlling to Joan and yet accountable to his more important boss.
This shot communicates the feeling of gazing at Joan, as all the other characters are.
Boss man getting importance in the frame again, which cuts to...
Imposing Greg standing behind him looking satisfied...
Matching Joan standing but filling the frame much less, with all the space around her creating the feeling of isolation that she must be feeling.
Meanwhile these folks look delighted, cheesy and oblivious to the drama
And this shot is the crux of the whole scene to me. The idea of the preceding shots of the other couples signifying them being oblivious to the interpersonal drama between Joan and Greg are verified here. This action of Joan giving Greg an amazing "How dare you" look is covered in close ups of the two of them. This really is just between the two of them. This is the closest shot of Joan in the scene and conveys all of her emotion, and her true disdain for Greg in the moment. All of the wider shots of her performing have showed her smiling and playing along, but as soon as we get this close up, we become privy to a view of her that only Greg is seeing, and there are no smiles.
We can be sure that the information in Joan's close up that we're seeing is only seen by Greg in the scene by the way they alternate these two close ups to show Greg's reaction to the fierce look she gives him.
Still fierce. And this proximity to Joan is the only time we see her straight on, not from an outside angle, with no one else being used framing device, and with full light in her eyes (which seem to be a little watery). This angle conveys truth. Because we can see her full on, we know that this must be the truth of Joan and her perspective. The other shots communicate the persona she's putting on for show, but this close up tells us what she's really thinking.
And then we finish back out at a distance in a wide, reminded that Joan has had to do this all to entertain others at the forcing of Greg, who stands watching it all at the edge of the frame, still being imposing.
So there it is. I just love Mad Men and this scene is really, really well done. They manage to do the expected theme of 1960's patriarchal, strict husband crushing his wife's spirit and make it not so expected. The connection they can make the audience forge with Joan with how they cover this is amazing.
