Volker Schlöndorff: Self
Quotes
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Volker Schlöndorff : Melville used the shot-reverse shot. He said, "It may not be modern, but it sure does the job." And he wasn't sloppy about it, he used it with a precision unseen with any other director. If he were to do a shot-reverse shot on us, he'd measure the distance between the lens and your eye. 58 cm. For the reverse shot, I'd have to be exactly 58 cm away: the eye in the center of the camera, so that our looks could really meet. And then there was the width of the shots, which he carefully chose. And suddenly taking this shot-reverse shot cliche, the dumbest way to work out a scene, he made it into art.
