hind them. They also seem at slightly cross purposes. Like the directions of the doors, they seem both nearly in the same direction, but also skewed on an angle to each other. The geometry of the scene also suggests things about their personal relationship. It also helps characterize Mike Hammer: he is a man who likes to have his back scratched, like a cat. Some people like to stand so that a door is rubbing them in their back: Hammer is one of them. The hospital scene shows an astonishing composition formed by tilting the camera. One component of this composition: a screen. The screen is placed at an angle jutting out of the wall. This is not so unusual if the scene were filmed straight on, but tilted as it is, it makes a very unusual planar projection into the surface. One is reminded of the early three dimensional reliefs of Picasso and then Tatlin, which also use a basically flat background, such as Aldrich's hospital wall, with other planes jutting out at slight angles, such as Aldrich's screen. 4) A scene in a bedroom shoots a table and its contents at an angle. The camera is turned at an angle that does not align with either of the perpendicular axes of the table. But, a clock on the table is turned so that it is exactly parallel to the plane of the shot. The clock is a very small space, but it becomes the center of the shot, because it is in such geometric alignment with the camera frame. The effect is to underline visually the various planes of the shot. It emphasizes the contrast between the camera plane, and the planes of the room and the table. The viewer becomes much more conscious of them then if the table were merely shot at a slightly off angle. ...
