This is the movement of the camera along its axis, horizontally or vertically. The panoramic shot is probably the first camera movement to emerge in the history of the cinematographic language, and its functions have not changed over time. They are to describe the space or follow a moving character or object. It is often associated with the point of view shot when the panoramic shot relates to a character's gaze, as in the sequence of the enlargement of the photographs in Blow Up (1966), by Michelangelo Antonioni, when the photographer looks carefully from the sofa and in the next shot the camera moves in panoramic shot showing the enlarged photographs hanging from the wooden beams.
The panoramic is probably the first camera movement to arise in the history of cinematographic language, and its functions have not varied since its origin: describing space or folowing a character or an object in movement
Panoramic shots used to describe a space are normally seen at the beginning of cinematographic stories or at the start of sequences, to provide all the information to the audience about the location where the story is set. For example, in Rear Window (1954) by Alfred Hitchcock, the first three minutes are devoted to describing the backyard of the building of the main character, a photographer, through various panoramic shots.
One of the first panoramic shots in cinema history can be seen in The Great Train Robbery (1903), a Western by Edwin S. Porter, when the camera tracks the bandits in the forest getting on their horses and fleeing, moving both horizontally and to the left.
Rear Window
Rear Window / Fenêtre sur cour | Alfred Hitchcock, 1954, U.S.
Forced to have complete rest after breaking his leg in a serious accident, the press photographer L. B. Jefferies (James Stewart) copes with his tedious confinement as best he can by looking through the window of his apartment with his binoculars to see what is happening in the houses opposite. Due to a series of strange circumstances, and with the help of both his girlfriend and his nurse, he begins to suspect a neighbour whose wife seems to have disappeared.
I get very annoyed when people criticise my films because of their content. It is as if someone who is looking at a still life said, I wonder if those apples are sweet or sour. Above all cinema is form
Alfred Hitchcock
(1899-1980)
Throughout a career that lasted over half a century, Hitchcock created a distinctive and highly recognisable cinematic style that led him to be recognised as the undisputed "Master of Suspense". Considered one of the most important and influential artists of the Seventh Art, all his films without exception (53 in total), both silent and sound, and both those of his British era and of his even more successful American era, still fascinate cinemagoers worldwide. A tireless innovator and experimenter, Hitchcock gave body and soul to his art, producing models and sophisticated sketches for each of his scenes before filming them. When he made his first partially sound film in 1929, Blackmail, he was already considered one of the leading British film directors. After a series of successes such as Murder! (1930), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935), Sabotage (1936) and The Lady Vanishes (1938), Hitchcock travelled to the United States to try his luck in the Hollywood studios, hoping this would give him much more creative freedom and popularity. His first American film was the Oscar winning Rebecca (1940). In the United States Hitchcock made more than one film per year, a pace that only slowed down after Psycho (1960). Some of his classic films from this period are Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Notorious (1946), Strangers on a Train (1951), Rear Window (1954), the remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Vertigo (1958), North By Northwest (1959) and The Birds (1963). In 1968, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded him the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial, to make up for the terrible mistake of never having awarded him an Oscar despite him having been nominated five times. In the ceremony the director simply said thank you. In Europe, meanwhile, the work of Hitchcock had already become a reference and guide for a whole new generation of critics and directors, among which it is worth mentioning Francois Truffaut, one of the writers of Cahiers du Cinéma. The long talks between the two artists gave rise to a legendary book in which the British film-maker reflected extensively on his life, cinema in general and his work in particular.
