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Taras K.

Kultura Współczesna. Teoria. Interpretacje. Praktyka

2020

vol. 110

issue 3

136-147

Trying to prove the existence of the mindful camera, a camera that seeks to direct the audience’s attention to what could otherwise be overlooked, the author contrasts the ‘mindful camera’ work with the ‘contemplating camera’. The former is like a partner, even committed to the story, while the latter remains distanced. The mindful camera can be static or dynamic, follow the actor’s moves, or record scenes without people. Although at times it doesn’t contribute much to the action, it always enriches the narrative. What makes the camera work ‘mindful’? Is it a result of the director’s instructions (which also determines the director’s style), the experience of the director of photography, or perhaps the intuition of the camera operator? Examples of films which employ the mindful camera are presented. Shame by Steve McQueen (2011) and Joker by Todd Phillips (2019) are discussed as two features that say a lot about human society in the first two decades of the 21st century. While the former tells the story of the ultimate consumer, the latter focuses on a rebellion of the excluded. The mindful camera shots in Shame confirm the original, often purely intuitive interpretation. In Joker, the mindful camera sometimes sympathises with the loneliness of the main character. In Wojciech Smarzowski’s The Dark House (in Polish: Dom zły, 2009), the nuanced shots of the mindful camera seem to depict not so much a crime scene investigation but a falsification thereof. In turn, Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies (2010) contains merely three, albeit extremely important, mindful camera shots. They inform the viewer of the myth that is being reinterpreted in a specific reality, with the viewer as a witness. Another film by the same director, Sicario (2015), goes even further and offers only two mindful camera shots to show us that in the modern world the individual’s rights don’t exist, whether in a clash with a drug cartel or with the state.

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1 Kultura Współczesna. Teoria. Interpretacje. Praktyka

1 Taras K.

1 2020

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