Tree of Life – Scene Analysis
I’m not the biggest fan of analysis, as I usually take in a lot more of the scene as a visual understanding and find it hard to put all of it into words but I will write down for this particular piece what I feel and think and like.
This scene has a combination of both steady shots and hand-held used in conjunction with each other. It connects quite seamlessly which is really nice, knowing that they work together without jarring the audience too much. I really like this scene as it is almost a sort of montage without building up or down to certain point in time. It, like most of the movie, is used to create a certain emotion. The soundtrack is the main emphasis in the scene, with sound bites from what you can see flowing in and out of the soundtrack, with others remaining quite silent. In particularly the scenes that have no subjects in them.
The steady-cam shots work awesome for the slow ‘motion in’ towards an object. The use of blank option juxtaposed with the characters makes you think about what it is trying to say. As a majority of the shots are from a low angle, I like to see it as the ‘first-time experiences’ that the young boy is having. The feel of the curtains, the reflection of the mirror and the textures of his surroundings. Even without the use of dialogue, the scene says a lot. All the shots look as though they are shot on a wide angle lens, which helps capture more of the environment and is quite standard for the cinematic experience.
There are quite a few medium close-ups where the camera is constantly moving, however slight it might be. This is cut with both close-up’s and other medium shots from other angles, The soundscape doesn’t drastically change with the cuts which maintains flow much like the shots. This has made me think more about the scene I want to film, maybe I won’t have any dialogue and just use camera movements and angles to tell the story.
