Barry Salt is able to encapsulate a significant portion of my thoughts about the 180 degree line in his book “Film Style and Technology: History and Analysis”. He summarises the rule by stating that “the camera should be kept on the same side of the line joining two actors who are interacting when it’s position is changed between two successive shots of them.” Not only does he describe the history and definition of this rule, he also questions it’s necessity.

One of the recurring thoughts I’ve had on this topic is whether an audience of casual movie watchers would even notice, let alone feel disoriented if the line were to be crossed in a dialogue scene. I have struggled myself to find a wide variety of examples a line cross, but I am certain that I would have experienced it plenty of times before, and yet not noticed that a ‘rule’ of cinema was being broken. Salt also addresses this issue, noting that the cross is “certainly not noticed by even habitual non-professional film viewers, and it can even be difficult for an expert to be certain whether the rule has been rigidly observed”.

Whilst delving into this topic, I am constantly finding myself replaying conversations in films, checking to see if the line has bee crossed. Whilst some of the examples I have referenced in other blog posts have been obvious and deliberate crosses, I am sure that this sometime simply just occurs by mistake. If this mistake were to occur in every single dialogue scene, perhaps even the rare cinema-goer would begin to sense that something is wrong, but how significant is a rare cross? As my ability to break this rule improves, I hope to try and show footage of my own and scenes from films to some friends who don’t study media, and ask if they notice anything drastically wrong with the scene. This could be a good little personal investigation into the true gravitas of the line cross.

References:

Salt, B 1983, Film Style and Technology: History and Analysis, 1st edn, Starword, Michigan