Camera Angles

The choice of camera position also affects how an audience perceives the characters. We will discuss this in more detail when we talk, later in this chapter, about The Godfather, but it is certainly true that a low-angle shot creates more of a sense of power than a high-angle one. The high-angle shot, which looks downwards onto the characters, gives a sense of a lack of power.

You’ll notice that the shots from Contempt were taken at eye level, the way most films shoot their actors. However, later in the movie, in a crucial 20-minute scene in the couple’s large, modern apartment, the shooting style changes. The scene, in which the couple begin to discuss their problems and Camille tells Paul that she cannot love him anymore, is played entirely in wide shots for the first six minutes. It is only after Camille refuses to tell Paul why she is “acting weird” (as he puts it), and he hits her, that the scene uses its first close-up.