Carter Schaeffer

1A) is from Einsenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1923), and the viewer is treated to a

closeup of the Potemkin’s gun. The gun casts a shadow on its bottom side, but overall the frame

is very well lit, with an almost angelic glow, appropriate for the Potemkin crew’s role as the

ultimate heroes of this film, saving what would then be Leningrad from Tsarist terror.

1B) is a medium-wide frame from Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick, 1963). Here, George C.

Scott’s character and his mistress are in a bedroom with several mirrors, the mistress sitting

slightly up, but still on her back, while George C. Scott is being summoned to the war room. The

scene is dark but illuminated with lamps, suggesting the physical intimacy between the

characters, and the mirrors suggest either an inflated ego on Scott’s part, or kinky happenings

between him and the mistress. Perhaps both.

In both frames, we see a phallus taking command of the scene, one being the gun of the

Potemkin, the other being what’s in George C. Scott’s pants. One oozes militant masculinity,

while the other teases the idea of male sexuality. In this sense, both shots are about masculinity

and male bravado, but in very different contexts. One is heroic, valiant, and the other is intimate

and a little gross.

2A) is a medium-close up from Do The Right Thing (Lee, 1989). Here, Radio Raheem

gives the viewer his Love and Hate monologue, explaining how he sees the relationship between

the two, and how they always keep each other in balance. The gold from Raheem’s knuckles

reflect sunlight as he punches at the camera, accentuating the already brightly lit street, bringing

greater credence to the film’s theme of the sun and its heat.
 2B) is, once again, from Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick, 1963), but this time it’s a wide shot of

the airfield in flames during the army’s siege. “Peace is our impression”, the sign reads as there

is an active fire and a tank right in front of it in broad daylight.

Both shots are about the contrast between war and peace, but whereas Kubrick delivers

the contrast through ironic juxtaposition, I feel as though Spike Lee has offered me a window

into Professor Raheem’s philosophy course. Kubrick is sending a satirical message from a

distance about militaries somehow keeping the peace while constantly shooting each other and

destroying property, while Lee is speaking directly from the heart to the audience by having the

message in their face.

Both of these are the same type of shot, that being the medium-close-up, and with very

similar subject matter, but the tone and intent are vastly different. Both shots suggest a looming

danger about the prospect of family and their future, but whereas Ben is maybe looking to marry

his love interest in The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967) and is suddenly realizing he maybe

doesn’t actually want that, Jack Nicholson seems to have already decided that he’s going to chop

up his family with an axe in The Shining (Kubrick, 1980).

Both 4A) and 4B) close-ups are from lower angles, lending their subject power in the

larger scene. Both subjects are even at what seems to be slight Dutch angles, creating tension for

the viewer. Of course, the darkness of 4A) suggests a greater sense of menace in Jack D. Ripper

from Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (1963), who has conspired to effectively end the world for the

sake of his impotence, while Radio Raheem is trying to do what his film’s title suggests: Do The

Right Thing (Lee, 1989). He is in a brighter light, and even with the darkness outside, he’s trying

to do something heroic.
 The viewer doesn’t quite know it yet from the medium shot 5A) from David Fincher’s

Fight Club (1999), but these scenes are both about alter egos and assumed identity. With the

context of the truth of Tyler Durden in mind, that much is obvious, as Tyler suffers from a form

of DID. In Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958), Madeline is tormented not by herself, but by her own

actions, and Jimmy Stewart. Stewart leans her against the window in this confrontational scene,

begging her to confess her crime and the coverup, and even as she looks away, her alter ego of

the false Madeline appears in a green tint, like a ghost compelling her to admit her sin. Tyler

Durden is also haunting the narrator, but is still acting as the friend. The shot is well-lit and

they’re both equally as large in the frame, conveying that they are equals. Jimmy Stewart is

decidedly not Madeline’s equal.

6A) is an extreme close-up, with some colorful animation, from Vertigo (Hitchcock,

1958). This is of Jimmy Stewart’s eye as his character suffers a vertigo episode, imagining an

eternal spiral he cannot escape. This paranoid and dizzy feeling is captured by the bright red tint

of the shot, throwing the viewer out of their comfort zone and into what might be another world,

and the spiral, of course, spins, making our minds spin with Jimmy Stewart, whose eye suggests

confusion and fear.

6B) is a medium-wide shot of Danny and the hotel lobby from The Shining (Kubrick,

1980). Danny had just been playing with his toy vehicles when a ball had been rolled to him. For

an agonizing 30 seconds we are kept unaware as of the source, but we can guess, as can Danny

when he looks up at Room 237. Danny is writ small in this scene, a powerless child in a large

ocean. The lighting offers a false sense of security, but the dread lingers through the camera’s

framing of Danny and the ball that is decidedly not like his other toys.
 David Fincher once said that his Fight Club (1999) was The Graduate (Nichols, 1967)

for thirty year olds, and these two shots suggest truth in that statement. 7A) shows a medium

close-up whereas 7B) is a close-up, but both subjects are projected against what can be said to be

bland, drab environments, and the shots emphasize their isolation from whatever world they’re

expected to belong to. Benjamin is letting life guide him along, while Tyler Durden actively

rebels against it, smoking a cigarette in an office where that obviously isn’t allowed. Neither

scene is particularly well lit, suggesting the presence of some darkness, and both subject’s faces

are sullen and grim. The main difference seems to be that, by the nature of shots, Tyler taking up

a larger portion of his frame suggests greater power over his fate than Benjamin might have over

himself.