Saturday, November 14, 2015

Graphic match vs. Eyeline match

An Autumn Afternoon (Yasujiro Ozu, 1962)
Ozu is famous for ignoring the 180-degree rule. He didn't break the rule for the disorienting effect. As proof of this, his violation is not temporary. Let us now take a look at the scene in An Autumn Afternoon.




As you can see, both shots of Kawai (Nobuo Nakamura) and Hirayama (Chishu Ryu) have the same composition. They look like looking at the same direction not each other. Why did Ozu do something like this? According to his cinematographer, Yuharu Atsuta, Ozu takes graphic match more seriously than eyeline match. While usual shot/ reverse shot is an alternation between composition and reversed composition (eyeline match), Ozu's is an alternation between composition and composition (graphic match). Ozu's style picked graphic match at the sacrifice of eyeline match.


In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)
Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) is talked to by the landlady as they pass each other in the narrow hallway. For following the rule, you have to film the corresponding shot of A from B', getting rid of the wall. Even if it is possible to put the camera at B' in the set, the background of the landlady from B' is just a stretch of wall. The background of shot B' is flat and boring enough to unbalance shot A. Comparing with that, shot B looks well balanced with shot A regardless of mismatched eyeline. 


How to film shot/ reverse shot of the two lying down facing each other

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (David Fincher, 2011)

Hanna (Joe Wright, 2011)

In The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the alternation of shots and reverse shots makes you gaze right and left following their eyes. It's annoying on a laterally long screen in a theater. On the other hand, in Hanna, graphic match enables you to keep focusing around the same location . Actually, this shot/ reverse shot cannot be true. It was filmed by not changing the camera angles but changing their places. However, who would notice that? Nobody in the world can say that's no way. That's the magic of movies.

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