Exploring Cinematography - This Is England and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

 With close reference to each film sequence, explore how cinematography as a key element to film form creates meanings and generates responses in the spectator.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Schnabel, 2007)



Cinematography: 

camera acts as his eyes - blurry and opening; unfocused
distant voices
extreme-close ups of doctor's face


Meanings and responses: 

the extreme close-ups of the doctor's face shows how limited Jean's worldview is - focusing on eyes - one of the few things he can use to communicate with the world

spectator's POV is Jean

This Is England (Meadows, 2006)



Cinematography:

close-ups on Shaun as he is getting the most out of the situation

music is fun and soulful when the mood is positive but it's sparse and discordant when tension rises and crescendos with the action

long-shots make the audience notice the character's insecurities and fears, making the spectator uncomfortable

Two-shot of young boy and older man shows contrasting characters 

Meanings and responses:

racism is bad

the poverty in England leads to children being in adult situations and to adults acting like children as neither were granted the opportunity to formally grow up


COMPARISON ESSAY

One way in which The Diving Bell and the Butterfly uses cinematography as a key element to form a response from the spectator is by putting the spectator into the POV of the main character who has locked-in syndrome. By having the camera emulate his eyes, with blurred vision and fading in and out of black, the spectator can understand what the character is experiencing with the syndrome. Moreover, the cinematographer uses extreme close-ups on the doctor's face to make the spectator feel uncomfortable and claustrophobic. The camera stays still and doesn't use the space of the room, really capturing the feelings of locked-in syndrome.Similarly, in This Is England, the camera stays still for lots of shots, creating an enclosed feeling, evoking the experience of being trapped in lower-class England in the 1980s. The close-ups on the characters' faces allow the spectator to feel trapped in the room with them.

Another way in which cinematography is used in these films is to create meaning and make the spectators understand the implications of the characters' situation. In This Is England, the relationship between characters is signified by the way the camera groups them together. Early in the scene, the characters are in pairs and sitting next to each other but, as the scene progresses, the camera does close-ups on their faces, isolating the characters as tension builds. This effect indicated to the audience how friends living in poverty can easily turn against each other due to the large amount of angst and frustration that they harness. This technique is used slightly differently in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly where the camera changes it's focus from trying to see characters to giving up on looking directly at them as the man with locked-in syndrome realises that nobody can hear him. This shift in focus shows the spectators that the character is quite calm and level-headed despite his predicament but also that there's nothing you he can do in the situation.

Comments

  1. Lisa SocratesSeptember 15, 2020 at 12:37 AM

    Daniel, you offer several detailed observations which demonstrate a keen eye for cinematography. A major strength of this work is your ability to analyse the individual uses of the camera (shots, angles, movement), to discuss how meanings unfold and how these impact on our responses as spectators. Another strength is the inevitable distinctions is the films' aesthetic which begin to emerge from your exploration. These are both very distinctive films making use of the same medium, same shots and/ or angles, but as you bring out in your study, they create very different meanings.
    An excellent start to our study of many varieties of filmmaking and how key elements of film form deliver storytelling.

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