Explain how the frame can act as an aesthetic device in movies

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: The ideal answer should include:
1. The sensitive director is just as concerned with what’s left out of the frame as with what’s included. The frame selects and delimits the subject, editing out all irrelevancies and presenting us with only a “piece” of reality.
2. The frame is thus essentially an isolating device, a technique that permits the director to confer special attention on what might be overlooked in a wider context.
3. The movie frame can function as a metaphor for other types of enclosures. Some directors use the frame voyeuristically. In many of the films of Alfred Hitchcock, for example, the frame is likened to a window through which the audience may satisfy its impulse to pry into the intimate details of the characters’ lives. In fact, both Psycho and Rear Window use this peeping technique literally.
4. Certain areas within the frame can suggest symbolic ideas. By placing an object or actor within a particular section of the frame, the filmmaker can radically alter his or her comment on that object or character. Placement within the frame is another instance of how form is actually content. Each of the major sections of the frame—center, top, bottom, and sides—can be exploited for such symbolic purposes.