camera angles

Try to find good examples of camera angles used to create atmosphere or alter the meaning of a scene or shot. Consider viewpoint, relationship with the characters on screen, status of the character on screen, suspense, tension of expectation. Does it create a particular feeling or mood?

I have chosen Psycho as a clear example of the use of camera angles. 
In frame 1 shown below we can see Norman Bates and his stuffed birds from a low angle. This is the scene where we can first see that Norman mental state might not be very sane. The low angle is unnatural within the scene, but show him as a threat, emphasised by the menacing wings of the owls behind. 
The second shot, frame 2, shows Lila Crane in the shower from a high angle, and the perspective allows to see that someone has got into the bathroom. The camera angle helps to imply how fragile she is in that moment. Suspense is created as the main subject is giving her back to the peril. 
Frame 3 shows Norma Bates with a knife from a very low angle. This is again not natural point of view. Nothing in the scene would be located there to help the angle to be a POV from a subject in the scene (Lila, the shower head, Norma bates) but it makes the killer look bigger and more  frightening. Lila would be in front of Norma's character and is not shown. These scene is accompanied by the famous music that creates the terror environment. 
Frames 4 to 6 are taken from a high angle, and it is clear for the viewer how powerless is the woman against her killer. The frames are maintained very little time and there is a great deal of action. The scene achieves that viewer would feel anxious.

powerful, emotive frames

Find some examples of powerful, emotive frames. What feeling you get and how the framing has contributed to this?

Frame 1
Jeff Wall, A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai), 1993. Image from www.tate.org.uk

The image is a very wide shot, where the landscape and the action of four people affected by a sudden gust of wind is depicted. The detail of who or how the people are is difficult to identify due to the wide frame.
The picture is hilarious in a way. It makes me feel both happy for the beauty of the moment with the objects flying around, and amazed at the same time, for the opportunity that it seems that the photograph had and cached so brilliantly. As it sometimes happens, the image is not casual, and it is actually a collage of staged pictures taken in a period of 5 months, therefore the very formal composition is not an accident.
The very wide frame is critical to give sense to the image, as the action of the wind needs to be shown from afar. A midshot of any of the will make a poor picture and the link between the elements would be lost.


Frame 2
Film The Shawshank Redemption

The character of Brooks Hatlen, played by James Withmore, has been released from prison after doing time for most of his life. He feels like a fish out of water in the outside world, and also feels lonely and miserable, what makes him decide to take his own life.
In this scene we can see how Brooks dress up, stands on a table, signs on the wooden beam "Brook was here" and then shakes the table to end up hanging in the air. I find the close up of the feet, showing some dust from the carved wooden beam, a very moving frame. It needs to be understood with the whole sequence, and possibly with the whole film, but it's a subtle and kind of poetic way of depicting the character's death, showing nothing else than his feet and a close up of his satisfied smiling face, looking at his carved message.  I feel that showing a wider frame would be less subtle and less intimate.




Frame 3
Un chien andalou by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali

This extreme close up, part of the surrealist short movie by the spanish artists Buñuel and Dalí, shows the detail of a man with a razor blade cutting the eye of a woman. In this frame you have seen the man sharpening the blade, and you know therefore what is in this hand. The woman looks calmly at the camera and makes a very strong, powerful (and very disgusting) image.