CI 5472: Entry 4.1 Film Scene Analysis: Some Like it Hot

Link to Video Clip Tango Scene

"Vocabulary"

Low key
High Key
High contrast
Brown Filter
Establishing
Close Up
Bird's Eye
High Angle
Low Angle

So I have spent all this time NOT doing this post because I didn't have the link the the "film techniques vocabulary." But honestly, could these terms be any more intuitive? As if I needed a website to define "over the shoulder" for me. Anyway. My analysis of the Tango Scene from "Some Like it Hot."

We start with an establishing shot to show us the setting, which is a kind of lounge room lit in very low- key lighting, giving the mood of quiet and private intimacy. These feelings are confirmed as a glitter-clad Sugar (Marilyn Monroe) proceeds to try and seduce the geek on the sofa, swaggeringly giving him cocktails and breathing heavily (The geek is a male who is in Sugar's band but has been disguised as a woman -- he is now disguised as a millionaire male). The angle is level with both characters, shot from the side, not favoring the perspective of one character over another.

Suddenly the camera swings to the left, blurring into a lively dance scene with high-key lighting. We get a mostly over the shoulder perspective as a pair (a cross-dressed "Daphne" and the millionaire who has fallen in love with "her") tangoes back and forth across the dance floor. Seeing only one characters face at a time conveys the disconnect between the two characters.

The scene shifts back and forth between the lounge and the dance floor, suggesting two things. One, each scene is happening simultaneously. And second, each man's disguise and romance is as equally ridiculous as the other.

The sharp contrast of high key and low key lighting in the two environments shows the difference between the true and false romances happening in the film. The score as well shows the contrast in the romances -- a slow orchestral piece in the lounge versus an ostentatious Latin tango that sounds, in contrast, absurd.

The camera remains at a consistently eye-level and safe distance from the characters -- the result is that the viewer "sees" the perspective of all four characters equally, not developing too much personal connection to any one character, but builds understanding for each.