III chapter. «The Unity of the Frame»

Wes Anderson «The Grand Budapest Hotel» Alejandro González Iñárritu «Birdman» Paweł Pawlikowski «Cold War» Robert Eggers and Max Eggers «The Lighthouse» Roy Andersson «About Endlessness»

What beautiful shots in this film. How carefully the mise-en-scène is arranged. What perspective, what colors. How gently the camera moves. The shots look like Renaissance paintings. In this chapter, the author turns to the unity of the frame, to cinematography. What is a theatrical camera, and how does it create distance and convention? Let those who have eyes, see. Viewers who have the gift of seeing understand the world through their eyes. As many eyes as there are, there are just as many opinions and visions of the world. In film, this «Virgil» is first of all the cinematographer.

Perfect movement. A theatrical camera is unlikely to be handheld or shaky. More often, a carefully composed frame and the use of a dolly, tracks, stabilizer, or crane create the effect of distance between the viewer and the action. A person in real life sees the world with a slight shake because of walking. This tool is not theatrical by itself, but it supports «theater in cinema.» For example, Andrey Zvyagintsev and Mikhail Krichman create very precise visual compositions in their films, even though Zvyagintsev’s cinema is not theatrical but highly realistic.

Wes Anderson’s films often become key examples in discussions of movement and composition as constructed by the director and the cinematographer. To help the viewer understand the composition, symmetry, and perspective, the author of the visual analysis introduces a grid that makes it possible to see just how carefully structured and precise the frames are. Despite this mathematical precision, the film does not feel lifeless; on the contrary, it feels alive. This is achieved through the variety of costumes and props, as well as through the animation of the mise-en-scène shaped by the cinematographer. In frames from The Grand Budapest Hotel, the viewer can see that different planes and the slightly imperfect symmetry in the arrangement of figures produce a vital effect: the image comes alive. At the same time, the carefully constructed mise-en-scène makes it possible to describe the camera in this film as theatrical.

Single-shot staging. The viewer is accustomed to editing in cinema, yet is almost always fascinated by the single take. One may recall the long takes in the films of Tarkovsky, Godard, and Greenaway, and how beautiful they are.

The single take immediately animates the camera, turning it into another character: a silent observer, a spectator of the performance. After all, during a theatrical performance editing is absent, or, условно speaking, appears only in the intervals, when the curtain falls and rises again, or when the stage goes dark.

The action of Birdman takes place in a theater, centered around the staging of a play. Yet its theatricality comes not only from this setting, but also from the single-take camera, which moves through space like a human being, or even like a bird, observing the characters.

As a result, the action is perceived as almost continuous: the viewer follows the process much as one watches a stage performance, with almost no visible cuts or ruptures in time. It is hard not to recall one of the «golden rules» of classical dramatic unity: the unity of time.

The camera becomes a spectator within an immersive performance; it enters the characters’ inner space and at times simply observes the action.

Overall, the camera in Birdman can be described as an involved spectator, another character with its own perspective on what is happening, one that seems to experience emotions and feelings. This is confirmed by the collapse of distance between the one who acts and the one who watches.

Parallel movement. One of the principal devices for conveying theatricality in film is the camera’s parallel movement. In cinema, perspectival camera movement is more often used to follow a character through space.

To create a sense of theatricality, the camera, like the spectator’s eye in a stage performance, moves in parallel; most likely, in such movement, the cinematographer keeps the scene in a wide or long shot.

These limitations and this strictness produce their own effect. The viewer finds it easier to perceive and accept the rules by which the camera lives, and therefore the rules of the illusory world as well.

Overall, Cold War can hardly be described as theatrical, yet it is impossible to overlook the work of the cinematographer in this film.

The camera functions like a spectator seated in a theater chair. It does not intervene in the action or influence it; it only observes. This is also expressed through the rare movements of this «spectator.» Only parallel movement is used. The camera does not move with the characters, but watches them on the same plane, without moving closer or farther away.

If one were to draw an analogy with theater, one might imagine several spectators seated in different rows and levels. Accordingly, the changes in shot scale can be seen as shifts between different viewers, between different optical positions from which the action is observed.

At the same time, the camera work is better described as stylized and distanced rather than strictly theatrical.

Format. Directors and cinematographers often choose narrower aspect ratios, such as 1:1 or 4:3, to create a sense of theatricality and a less conventional way of observing the world—one that is more portrait-like than panoramic.

In everyday life, however, the viewer more often sees landscapes, whether natural, urban, or interior.

Narrow frame formats help concentrate the action across the entire image area. This is much harder to achieve in widescreen composition, since a much larger portion of the frame must be activated by the action.

In relation to The Lighthouse, it is more fitting to speak of stylization and distance than of theatricality.

Artists often experiment with aspect ratios. One may recall Gaspar Noé, Federico Fellini, and Xavier Dolan, all of whom have turned to different image formats in their work.

The Lighthouse uses the unusual 1.19:1 frame, a format that lies between the more familiar 4:3 and 1:1. It is worth noting that for a film centered on only two characters on a small island with a lighthouse, this is a successful choice, since nothing feels excessive. It solves two tasks at once: creating striking portraits and landscapes that emphasize the claustrophobic nature of the setting.

Such a choice increases the viewer’s involvement in what is happening on screen, yet at the same time creates stylization through the optics of the observer—the camera. The filmmakers impose visual boundaries and remove color in order to focus the viewer’s attention and establish a certain distance from the events onscreen.

Static camera. Camera movement in any direction is so familiar to us that stillness becomes just as important a device in creating theatricality, especially when everything unfolds in wide or long shots.

Let us recall the position of a theater spectator. The spectator remains seated in one place, just as the camera chooses a fixed point from which to observe the development of the mise-en-scène.

This device represents a conscious stance, a visual decision of the film, and a bold and powerful one at that, since the entire crew and the actors must hold the viewer’s attention without relying on editing, which is usually a highly effective tool for sustaining engagement.

The static camera in cinematography can be described as the most theatrical device of all: there is no editing, no variation in shot scales, no unusual image formats, no movement. There is only the tripod and the camera, a closed aperture that keeps the entire frame in focus regardless of whether the object is closer to or farther from the lens.

Roy Andersson is one of the very few directors in the twenty-first century who continues to shoot statically, in wide or long shots. The camera’s optics closely resemble the perspective of a spectator seated in a theater auditorium. The very staging, the arrangement of figures within the frame, points to the stylization of what is taking place. Such a camera may be called the most lifeless, yet at the same time the most honest. The scene unfolds on a single plane. What appears on screen is theatrical action, while the film viewer finds themselves at the intersection of theater, cinema, and painting.

In these frames, one can see how precisely mirrors and views through windows are used. An alternative, yet entirely plausible life unfolds across the whole surface of the image. Chance can hardly exist here, since the angle onto the scene remains the same from beginning to end.