Found Scene (Week 11)

The scene from ‘The Passenger’ directed by Michelangelo Antonioni in 1975, is all about camera angles, camera movement and the movement and positioning of the actors. Antonioni has created a scene that draws in the audience’s attention, not giving everything away all at once. The first shot is of a piece of fruit still connected to a fruit tree, where a hand then comes into the frame from the right side, followed by a woman’s face. By just having the frame focused on the piece of fruit on the tree, suggests to the audience the location of this shoot. As the woman picks the fruit, the camera follows her actions, revealing more fruit trees. This cue tells the audience that this is taking place within an orchid. The found scene from week 10 talked about how Antonioni got the characters to determine the cuts by walking in and out of frame; and this scene does the same thing. The female walks out of frame while the camera is positioned behind her, then the shot cuts to her walking into frame with the camera positioned in front of her. This is done to prevent continuity issues, which will be of use in the post-production stage. Antonioni has her walking behind trees, showing a more realistic approach. The camera then follows the female’s eyes to show to the audience what she is looking at, however this is done slowly. The camera pans from her to the fruit on the tree, and then keeps slowly panning until the camera reaches the man laying in the grass. The slow panning creates suspense, and the audience is lead to suspect that something is going to come of this. The conversation between the two characters starts with a wide shot of them both, and then cuts to the female who is in the right of frame looking to the left; then panning to the male who is in the left of frame looking to the right. This is another example of external composition. By the way the characters are positioned, we know they are talking to one another, even if the audience didn’t see the previous wide shot. The camera then cuts to a medium shot of the two and then pans upwards, the same time the woman stands up. This is an example of how Antonioni makes the actors determine the shot types, angles and pacing, through their movements. Within the final shot we see the back of the man, and the front of the woman. This allows the audience to speculate that she is more important, and the lines she delivers need to be emphasised. This female character is the one who dictates the entire scene, and when she walks away from the man in the final shot, the camera follows her and only her. It is as if we are seeing her story and nobody else’s.

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