The use of unexpected camera height choices in this scene from THE GRAY MAN (Russo Bros, 2022) reminded me of what I still insist is the finest scene in any MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movie...
...which is, of course, the restaurant scene in De Palma's entry. The whole scene can be found here. Give it a watch.
The scene is comprised mostly of two sets of coverage: fairly conventional eye-level shots and these extreme, call-all-attention-in-the-world-to-your-camera-placement type low-angle shots.
The 'conventional' coverage, aside from being 'invisible' because we're used to stuff like this, uses vertical lines to emphasize a sort equilibrium. Medium-length lenses, medium shots. We'll call this coverage set 1.
The low-angle De Palma coverage (set #2) is tense and off-putting for all the obvious reasons; notice how they're arranged to contrast with one another - the geometry of Cruise's single leans sharp left, while Czerny leans right. Immediate graphic opposition! The cuts are felt!
The way that De Palma and Hirsch structure the scene is the central reason why it works as well as it does, though.
First: Cruise and Czerny enter. Both appear (relatively...) at-ease, which, unbeknownst to us, is a mutual ruse. The coverage follows suit.
Cruise is the first to tip his hand: "follow me around the room" accompanies a jarring cut to coverage set #2. He's on the attack. Czerny is suddenly on alert, as evidenced by the coverage switch on his end.
Czerny makes the first of two de-escalation attempts as he explains himself. It works, this time: we're back to coverage set 1 as he leans into his chair.
Czerny can't help himself, of course: he's back in attack mode as we return to coverage set 2 as he gleefully twists the knife... Cruise briefly panics, the music swells, and Czerny thinks he's got him cornered.
Czerny again de-escalates, but Cruise is having none of it; notice how Cruise's coverage immediately returns to set 2 while Czerny's remains in set 1 until he finally loses his patience...
...at which point all the metaphorical cards are on the table and we return to the uber-tense coverage while bombs go off!
(Here's where I point out the lovely bit of set design that is the shark tank in the ceiling - communicate your angles to your art team, folks!)
That was fun! Now, I wouldn't be very on-brand as a teacher if I did all the work here, so I invite anyone who's gotten this far to, with all this in mind, take a look at this scene from THE GRAY MAN again.
Why do the Russos move from medium frontal shots to profile medium close-ups to high-angle shots? Why do they immediately go back to frontal close-ups? Intent aside (author dead, etc), what is the aesthetic object we have in front of us and is it effective?
These are of course (within the universe of spy movie reverse shots featuring dudes sitting down) two different scenes with two different purposes, and yet I cannot help but look at them and despair a little about the state of pop cinema's meat-and-potatoes scenes.
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