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Robinson’s face, and then it zooms out into this shot. Right after Ben comes out of Elaine’s room, we have a closeup of Mrs. The last cinematographic technique I wanted to point out is the use of dramatic zoom such as in this shot of Mrs.
Define montage camera shot free#
They indicate a social pressure for good looks and the presence of leisure in the middle class life, as everyone seems to have the free time to lay down and get a tan. These tans seem to be another artifact of the cloying life that Ben has become disillusioned to. And by the midpoint of the film, we are pretty familiar with Mrs. In the same scene with the sun, we see how much color Ben’s back has.
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It seems every single character has a tan. Speaking of the sun, I wanted to briefly mention the motif of tans I noticed in this film. They are blinding and suffocating, constantly looking down and beating down, like the sun in this shot. This is just another of many shots that illustrates the dynamic among Ben and his parents. We can barely make out his dad’s face because of the sun beating down on the camera: Robinson’s relationship, Ben is lying on a raft in the pool, and his dad starts lecturing him that he needs to do something with his life. After the montage showing the progress of Ben and Mrs. I also wanted to mention the sun glare shot. This editing seems to say that Ben has as much free will as his suitcase on the conveyor belt. There is some parallelism with the shot that follows as we see his suitcase on a conveyor belt moving in the same direction: He is carried in a certain direction by an external force, and this is the current condition of his life. It also seems purposeful that Ben is on a conveyor belt as he gives up control while on it. So Ben being carried leftward at the start of the film indicates that he is not progressing, and it adds to the sense of dread we feel. There have also been psychological studies in film that show that we associate more positive emotions with people moving from left to right in a shot. We already associate moving to the right as progress, and it feels more natural to us as we also read from left to right. One thing I always liked about the opening shot with Ben on a conveyor belt is the fact that he moves from the right side of the screen to the left. I wanted to look at some of the clever shots we did not get to discuss in class. We already talked about a good amount of it in class such as with the aquarium or the scuba diving scene or the claustrophobic conversations Ben has with family friends at the beginning of the film. The Graduate has a ton of interesting cinematography.
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