In the Mood for Love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09sYnsT2ENU&t=169s

The scene I choose is from a classical Asian Film called In the Mood for Love, the film tell a story about a women(Mrs Chang) and a man(Mr Chow) whose spouses have an affair together and who slowly develop feelings for each other. I choose this film is because it’s played by very famous actors in China, and I choose this scene because although it is a common restaurant scene, the special camera coverage build the secret atmosphere to the audience.

The director Wong Kar-wai utilize camera movement, the position of the camera and the size of image shows the secret conversation between two protagonists and the inner reflection of Mr Chow. Wong choose to use out focus shot as the beginning and end image of the scene, I think the indistinct image allows the audience to have more space to image and think. There are totally three camera position in the scene, one is at the very back of the restaurant and the other two are facing towards main characters. For the establishing shot, Wong adopts wide angle lens to show the whole environment of restaurant, further, he creates the secret and private atmosphere by positioning the camera behind the chair, with the frame shows almost 1/3 the back of chair and the characters that hiding inside the chairs.

The conversation between two protagonists is showed by cutting two protagonists’ close up shot together, which is a traditional way. At this time, Wong uses a narrow angle lenses showing detail facial expression of two protagonists, which allows the audience to focus on their conversation with no disturb.  However, what different is that Wong adopts a lot panning of camera in the scene. The detail shots of the hands, cigarette and gesture of drinking tea gently is done by panning the camera slowly, which not only shows the gestures of character more naturally but also saves time and machine.

When Mrs Chang asking questions to Mr Chow, instead of cutting the frame back to Mr Chow, Wong chose to pan camera quickly, which enhance the pace of communicate and create anxiety atmosphere to the audience. Moreover, when Mrs Chang asking “what are you getting at?”, Wong makes the camera panning quickly from Mr Chow’s back to inside, which further emphasis this big moment in Chow’s head, this is when he confirm the affair of his wife. I think Wong’s choice of panning shots really makes the conversation far more interesting, it enhance the tension atmosphere and indicate important moment. The far away position of camera in establishing shot and the pan movement of detail shots has been used to disrupt the audience’s attention from the conversation, both way indicates the distance and politeness of the conversation in the scene.

In total, I think different camera coverage helps the director to create different atmosphere and effect he wants. Every coverage is done meaningfully.

Thank you very much!