Preview

How Does Ron Howard Use Camera Angles In A Beautiful Mind

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
723 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
How Does Ron Howard Use Camera Angles In A Beautiful Mind
A Beautiful Mind
“A Beautiful Mind” by Ron Howard is a drama film which is based on the life of John Nash. Nash is considered to be a genius and is a brilliant mathematician who suffers from schizophrenia. In the beginning of the movie John Nash starts his career off at Princeton University and he slowly moves into new positions. About halfway through the movie, John begins to realize that some of the people he has met are just illusions in his mind. Throughout the film, Ron Howard uses numerous film techniques to show the viewers a glimpse into the life of John Nash. One of the most common film techniques that helps give the viewer a look into John Nash’s life is the angle of the camera. Camera angle helps the viewer get a better look at how John Nash is feeling. In the beginning of the movie, a girl named Alicia walks into John’s office and starts conversing with him. Alicia tries to tell John that she solved one of the problems that he put on the board, but John is positive that there was no way that she could’ve solved it because there was no solution. The angle of the camera is showing that something may be happening in the future between Alicia and John Nash.
…show more content…
Throughout the movie there are many instances where camera movement is a necessity such as when John Nash gets overwhelmed. Nash got an offer to go to the Pentagon and help break codes to locate an atom bomb. When he is looking at the wall, which is covered in numbers and the room began to spin. The camera movement in this scene shows that John Nash is overwhelmed with all of these numbers. In another instance John is surrounded by newspapers in his office. Certain letters began to “light up” and he began to cut portions out of the newspapers. Throughout most of this scene the room seemed to be spinning again. This type of camera movement helps us see the movements where John is overwhelmed or

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Eng110 Unit 3 Assignment

    • 1079 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The camera starts off at a low angle, it brings our attention to the actors while the man is explaining that he can help. There is a high angle on the second half after he says he is going to take her back the Spanish mission. Her job is almost over because that is where they want him to take her in the first place.…

    • 1079 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Often this is done by presenting subjects in a 3/4 view, over-the-shoulder shots, depth-of-field or off-centering the subject to create visual interest. While Wes Anderson doesn’t ignore these traditional techniques, he rarely employs them, opting instead for the planimetric approach.…

    • 1315 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the movie of ‘The Outsiders’, there were a lot of camera movements. At the beginning of the film, the music lyrics restate the word gold, the opening tittles in gold and a golden sun. The first shot establishes the setting of the entire setting. The low angle of the camera makes the story seem like a very personal matter that the audience is nosily watching. Then it quickly turns to the Socs, getting back to their car, and pans quickly back to Johnny and Pony. Then, it zooms in on Pony, to show that he is the main character. For example, there were a lot of close-ups. There was a close up of Johnny’s hand on the knife. The effect it had was that kill someone, so the knife symbolized killing. There was also a close up of Bob’s rings. If someone is watching the film for the first time and they see Johnny’s bruises, they would be wondering why he has those bruises on his face. Since they know that Bob is their enemy, so they would then know that it was Bob’s rings that caused the bruises on Johnny’s face. After Johnny ran up to Bob with violence, the screen was red. The red screen was actually blood and blood signifies violence and death. There was also a view of Bob’s body. First they gave a downward view of his body then there was a real close up of his body. We could see that he had blood on his body and he was not moving, so it meant that he was dead.…

    • 330 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The camera angle of the film emphasize emotion and power. At the beginning of the film, as the men are at a restaurant having small talk, close ups of the men occur, which in a way, introduce them. Furthermore, they show us their emotions and or reactions to certain discussion, which…

    • 1169 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the movie, "A Beautiful Mind", John Nash displays classic positive symptoms of a schizophrenic. This movie does a fair job in portraying the personality and daily suffering of someone who is affected by the disease, although the film does not give a completely historically accurate account. In the film, John Nash would fall into the category of a paranoid schizophrenic, portraying all the symptoms that are typical for this illness. Nash suffers delusions of persecution, believing that there is a government conspiracy against him. He believes that because he is supposedly a secret agent working for the government breaking Soviet codes, and that the KGB was out to get him. In addition to these delusions, Nash experiences hallucinations which are shown from the moment that he starts college at Princeton University. He hallucinates that he has a roommate, when in reality it is uncovered later in the film that he was in a single occupancy room his entire stay at Princeton. Additionally, he frequently has conversations and takes advice from this imaginary roommate. He also imagines a little girl that is introduced to him by his alleged roommate. While going about his daily life, he is constantly surrounded by these inventions. These are classic positive symptoms of the paranoid schizophrenic, which are heavily supported by DSM-IV. Psychological predictions also agree with the behavior John Nash exhibited in the movie. This movie accurately teaches the public the positive affects of a schizophrenic. The movie does not portray schizophrenia as a split of Nash's personalities, rather a split from reality. He imagines other people and hallucinates vividly throughout the movie. Even at the conclusion of the movie, John Nash learns to accept and cope with his psychological disorder. He learns to ignore his hallucinations and is very careful about whom he interacts with. At…

    • 1312 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Film Techniques

    • 897 Words
    • 4 Pages

    This shot establishes the exact location of the scene by showing subjects in their surroundings.…

    • 897 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    • The students talk about the Carnegie Prize, which John Nash and Martin Hansen both win.…

    • 2483 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One way the director does this is by the different camera angles he records at certain events in the film. In one scene of the film, the audience may notice that the director displays New York City from a distance, then they zoom up on Theodore in a park all by himself. Another way they use to help the film along is when then they have it in slow motion or fast motion to show the mood of that event, like when Theodore was in the park and the crowd of people were blurry and constantly moving. This is just one sense in the movie that displays how the director uses camera angles to set the mood and to get a point across without the use of words or…

    • 1258 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    At the beginning of the movie “A beautiful Mind” (Grazer, 2001), John Nash is moving into a dorm room at Princeton University in 1947. John Nash appears slightly strange by exhibiting social withdrawal by avoiding people, along with a drop in school performance as he does not attend his classes. Soon visual hallucinations become apparent as Charles; his roommate makes appearances with his niece Marcie throughout the movie, along with Parcher, the head of the Department of Defense, who appears later in the movie as John Nash’s hallucinations become worse. John Nash begins to believe that he is employed by the Department of Defense, deciphering secret codes from the Soviets.…

    • 1443 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    3.9 Film Assessment write up S1: Nash in the pentagon breaking the codes S2: Nash at home with Alicia bathing baby The film “A Beautiful Mind” by Ron Howard is about a mathematician who suffers from Schizophrenia. The film follows John Nash and his story from start of College to end. Howard uses a range of aspects to help show the audience how Nash is feeling. In this essay I will be looking at two different sequences showing these aspects.…

    • 2118 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Beautiful Mind Analysis

    • 1124 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In A Beautiful Mind, director Ron Howard uses symbolism to show the danger of using isolation as a method of coping with problems. This film sheds some light on the horrors of a mental illness and advocates the importance of accepting others’ help. When John Nash is suffering from schizophrenia, the contrast between darkness and bright lighting is a metaphor for the darkness he surrounds himself with despite his wife’s attempts to help. The venetian blinds obscuring his face when he stands at his window symbolize the confinement of isolation.…

    • 1124 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The very first shot of the film is a pair of hands desperately grasping a ladder rung in extreme close up. This connects the audience from the beginning with the desperation and fear that comes from hanging from a great height. This pulls back to reveal a shot of a cityscape, focused on the top rungs of a ladder leading to the roof of a building, as we follow the resolute climb and pursuit of a criminal by Scottie and his partner. This shot establishes the faces of the characters and establishes the stakes; the criminal is panicked, and Scottie and his partner are determined and aggressive. The next shot in this scene is a wide shot of the rooftop where the chase is occurring; the blurry, obscured background indicates great distance, and the dull blue lighting indicates dusk. Combine that with the heights at which this chase is happening, and the scene carries the same unease that is placed in the audience during this…

    • 2743 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Because of the camera framing, the viewer can identify the main characters. The use of close up shots draws attention and focuses on the characters to show their expression and emotion. The use of low angled long shots gives a sense of drama and tension. Also, the body language of the characters helps communicate with the audience in addition to their speech.…

    • 497 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This is a true story about a man by the name of John Nash Jr. who was discovered to have paranoid schizophrenia in his adult life. The story starts with Nash as a student at Princeton University. In a scene where John arrives at Princeton to commence his studies, one of the patterns through his point-of-view shot was when John connects his vision of effulgent lemons, a punch bow, and the pattern of a fellow student’s tie. In this sequence and others in the film, John uses flashes of light in his pov shots to point out his recognition of significant patterns in the world around him, such as the magazines and newspapers lighting p when he thinks he has discovered a code. In another scene, John visits a top-secret regime center to decipher a code captured from the Soviets.…

    • 880 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The camera angles in this scene add to the ideas of the film. The scene is characterised by the use of wide shots which show the contrast between the expanse of the roof and the confinement of the jail. The other shot that is used to effect is the close up of Andy when he has been threatened by the guard, hanging over the edge…

    • 393 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays