Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

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In films such as The Wolf Man (1941; dir. Waggner) and Dracula (1931; dir.
Browning), eye/camera shots are conspicuously rooted to the tripod. In Dracula,
Count Dracula approaches a girl selling violets immediately after he arrives in
London. As he walks up to her, she looks at him and the scene cuts to an eye/camera
shot from her point of view: Count Dracula from a low angle, looking directly at the
camera, before he moves in for the attack. The camera does not move at all, keeping
Count Dracula in the same position within the frame for the entire shot. In the
climax of The Wolf Man, Gwen, the love interest of Larry, the protagonist and
eponymous wolf man, runs into the forest in an attempt to help Larry. The Wolf
Man/Larry sees her and begins stalking her until she turns around and sees him. The
Wolf Man is then seen from Gwen’s eye/camera, and as he moves forward and
attacks, the camera moves only through a tilt upward, and The Wolf Man stays
centred in the frame, and there is a vertical movement of the camera. While this
tendency to keep the camera bound to a tripod, including movement, is typical of the
majority of eye/camera shots of the period, The Last Laugh helped the development
of moving eye/camera shots. An innovative example can be seen in Rouben
Mamoulian’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931). In the opening sequence, and
throughout the film, the camera assumes extended one take first person shots, in
which the character, Dr. Jekyll, moves through rooms, watches himself pick up
objects and look into a mirror. Lady in the Lake (1947; dir. Montgomery) is another
notable film that uses extensive and intricate eye/camera shots. The film is shown
entirely through eye/camera. Another example can be seen in Fritz Lang’s film You
Only Live Once (1937), when the heroine, Joan Graham, in tears sees a pay phone
and through a bleary lens, the viewer sees Joan’s point of view with the camera
moving toward the telephone as she prepares to make the phone call that