Pan shots

[tim.iles@utoronto.ca]

I think the pan is one of the best ways of contextualising "space" in a
film--and, granted, the ways to do that are limited: either the
cinematographer uses an extremely wide-angle lens, or the camera has to
move. It can move in only so many ways--side to side, up to down (odd
English, that!) or the opposite. There's something about a "sweeping
vista" that suits the Western (especially the spaghetti kind), but then
again, some of the most _effective_ pan shots that come to mind occur in
Japanese films--the very opening sequence of Mizoguchi's _Gion no shimai_
where the sense of loss is so well conveyed by the camera sweeping over
the auction (okay, okay, strictly that's a dolly shot, I know), or in
Ichikawa Kon's _Sasame yuki_ where the camera pans the main room of the
_honke_ before revealing Tsuruko on the telephone. The pan _places_ and
_roots_ the scene so concretely within a given space--interior space, in
both cases. In this regard Ozu really is an unusual director, capturing
interior space without the least camera movement at all (but using a
wide-angle lens)--on the other hand, a recent film, _2LDK_ does a very
good job of dealing with interior space using cuts rather than pans...

Nervous across the Mississippi? Yikes! ^_^ How do you handle the subways
in Tokyo?


Tim Iles
University of Victoria