Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

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early shorts are framed and composed like a stage show, and Méliès addressing the
camera is meant to remind the audience of a theatrical experience. The final shot in
the Porter film, however, is framed as a medium shot, and in terms of the audience
eye, the action is aimed directly at the viewer. While this is not an eye/camera shot,
it does contain a direct address to the camera, which is a common trope of the
eye/camera – it combines point of view, mise-en-scène and the apparatus itself to
directly involve and engage the audience in the narrative events.
While it is by no means the first horror film, F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu is a
significant early horror film, and contains an instructive example of the way the
genre uses the eye/camera, while marking compositional variations of its
development. This can be revealed through an examination of one of the most
recognizable scenes in the film: Hutter’s first night in the castle of Count Orlock.
When the clock chimes midnight, Hutter moves to the bedroom door, opens it a
crack and peers out. At this point, the image cuts to Hutter’s perspective: at the end
of a long, dark hall, in an extreme long shot, Count Orlock is standing, looking
directly at the camera. This image dissolves to a long shot of Count Orlock, filling
the centre of the screen still looking directly at the camera. There is a cut to Hutter
shutting the door. He runs to the window to look for a way out, but the climb down
is impossible. Hutter gets in his bed and watches as the door to the room opens on
its own. He looks away. There is then a cut to the doorway. On the opposite side,
we see in long shot Count Orlock walking directly towards the camera, looking
straight ahead the whole time. The image cuts to Hutter as he looks toward the door,
and then he covers his head with a sheet. The image cuts back to Count Orlock in a
long shot standing in the doorway. He gazes steadily at the camera as he steps inside
the room. While this sequence seems to engage the audience without drawing the