Cinematography technique · used in 3 films
Filming characters from far away with a telephoto lens, which flattens the space between things. It feels like a documentary, with the camera as an uninvited witness to something real.
Examples
Thomas Vinterberg · 2012
Vinterberg and cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen often watch the town from across rooms and across streets. It feels voyeuristic, like you're spying on a village from outside. That matches the film's point that judging your neighbors is a kind of surveillance.
Where to see it: The Christmas church scene. The camera watches the congregation as Lucas confronts Theo. You can read the mood of the room before anyone speaks.
Todd Haynes · 2015
Ed Lachman shoots much of the film through glass: windows, car windshields and rain-blurred surfaces. His telephoto lenses flatten the space and pull distant things close. The women's world feels intimate and watched at the same time, and desire is always seen from somewhere else.
Where to see it: Therese photographing Carol through her camera. The long lens flattens the distance between them, and taking the photograph becomes a way of possessing her.
Jane Campion · 2021
Ari Wegner's cinematography uses long lenses, which shoot from far away, to watch Phil from across the ranch. The distance makes it feel like surveillance. This fits the story. Someone Phil has not taken seriously is watching him and sizing him up, and the long lens puts you in that watcher's position too.
Where to see it: Peter watching Phil from a distance. The telephoto lens squeezes the space between the watcher and the watched. It gives you a picture of how carefully the 2 are studying each other.
Questions