War Of The Worlds: The 1953 Film Byron Haskin

In the 1953 film War of the Worlds, director Byron Haskin utilizes a variety of different camera angles and movements to convey different feelings to the audience. This can be shown in the main battle scene when the alien ships fist emerge and destroy the US forces camping out there. In one shot, the camera is on a vertical tilt above the priest walking towards the alien ships. This allows the shot to convey a sense of weakness and fear within the priest as he walks closer to the Martian ships. While the camera is in a vertical tilt, it is also showing a motivated shot, panning to the right as the priest walks, thus showing the confidence the priest has in his himself and in god to stop the aliens from attacking. Next the camera is on a tilt
to show the alien ships above, this implies the power that the Martians have over the humans. The shot then revers back to the priest with a close up, before returning back to the alien ship with an extreme close up of the laser right before it vaporizes the priest. The camera then reverts back to a close up to the soldiers in the bunker as the fighting commences between the humans and the aliens. The close up shot allows for the expression of fear in the soldier’s eyes as they realize that nothing they can do can get past any of the alien barriers and damage the ships.