Cinematography technique · used in 6 films
Using camera angles and framing to show who has power. A low angle makes a character look bigger and a high angle makes them look small. The balance can shift between shots.
Examples
Akira Kurosawa · 1963
Kurosawa separates the film's moral opposites by height. Gondo's hilltop villa can be seen from the slums below. He frames every scene so the vertical distance between rich and poor also measures the moral gap between them.
Where to see it: The kidnapper looking up at Gondo's house. He stands in the streets below. The villa is lit and far away, and the slum is dark and close.
Michael Mann · 1995
One man is a cop and the other is a criminal, but Mann keeps framing Hanna and McCauley the same way. He uses similar angles, similar distances and gives each the same weight in the shot. That is, the camera refuses to put cop above criminal or criminal above cop. The film judges them on the same terms.
Where to see it: The coffee shop conversation. The 2 men are framed identically across the table. The law puts them in unequal positions, and Mann's shots make that gap disappear on screen.
Tom Hooper · 2010
Tom Hooper uses wide-angle lenses and deep space so the royal palaces look cavernous and isolating. Bertie is always small inside his own privilege. Logue's therapy room, on the other hand, is close, cluttered and sized for people.
Where to see it: Bertie in Buckingham Palace's long corridors. The architecture dwarfs him, in contrast to the cramped warmth of Logue's rented consulting room.
Oliver Stone · 2016
The camera shows how small one employee is next to the agency. His CIA boss Corbin appears huge on a video screen while Snowden stands below him. The size gap shows who holds the power before anyone says a word.
Where to see it: The Geneva video call. Corbin O'Brian watches Snowden on a giant screen on the wall.
Steven Spielberg · 2017
Graham is often framed among men in suits who talk over her. The staging makes her look small in rooms where she holds the most power. When she finally decides, the framing changes.
Where to see it: The board meeting: Graham sits among male advisers who push her to avoid publishing.
Yorgos Lanthimos · 2025
Lanthimos shoots Teddy from low angles, so he looms with an authority that exists only in his head. Michelle is often framed from above, which shrinks her despite her corporate power. When the balance of power changes, the camera's position changes with it.
Where to see it: The first interrogation scene and its mirror scene in the third act. In the later scene, the roles start to flip.
Questions