The Grand Budapest Hotel: Cinematography

A blog analysing the cinematography of chapter 21 of the Grand Budapest Hotel (the checkpoint 19 escape.)

The scene begins with a wide angle shot of the checkpoint gate, in which a car pulls up and the door swings open to show two centralised frames within each other. The camera then whip pans ninety degrees right to the manhole, which is clearly the main subject of the shot from the spotlight above it. As Zero enters the shot from the left, he too looks at the cover to show it is obviously the focus (being both central and purposefully lit.) In many of Andersons’ shots, the characters are captured by entering and leaving instead of the typical tracking to capture action. Next the camera pushes in closer to the cover and mid motion moves to Gustave’s location.

The prison room is completely symmetrical and shown in deep focus to establish the new location and eventually the people in it. The room is visibly lit by the window and the ceiling lamp reminiscent of the spotlight from the pervious scene (connecting the two through cinematography and not just story.) Once the characters have congregated, the classic oil style lamp moves down through the hole in the floor into a dark room and stops on the floor in a low angle shot; captured by a pedestal shot. From the low angle we see the characters running as the camera eventually pedestals back up slight to give a wider and deeper focused view of the prisoners running.

This then cuts to an iris shot with the spotlight focusing on a button, and then moves to a mid shot of the dumbwaiter slightly to the left of the fame but after the character gets out and moves right the composition returns to its usual symmetry. The camera then crabs left to show the other inmates as they are let through the bars, and the quickly crabs left down the hallway after the characters. When the camera comes to a stop, the characters renter the frame carrying a comically large ladder horizontally central.

Next the symmetrical prison gallery is captured through a very shallow depth of field to focus on the ladder being lowered in the foreground. Like many of Andersons static shots there is still movement within the frame. The characters then climb down from with the camera shooting from the left side; however, in the next shot it switches to the right side to show the window opening on a cell to the left of the ladder- breaking the 180 degree rule for no particular reason but not confusing the sequence. The conversation between the inmates is through a shot reverse shot interaction and then moves back to a wide shot from the bottom of the gallery as the characters run forward, followed by a focus pull.

The camera then whip pans again 90 degrees to the left and rests upon the guardroom door as the inmates enter the frame from the right. Movement into frames during the film is never random but always on an axis to mimic the camera- giving the action an overall cartoony and unrealistic effect. It then pushes forward through the door; showing a frame within a frame and changing the focal depth from the shallow door to the long room. As the characters move through the room they are shown climbing on the rafters at a high eye line, crawling under the beds in low eye line and jumping over the guards at mid eye line.

There is then a wide shot of the side of the prison with a square bar window centralise as the inmates crowd around from inside and try to pick their way through. Once the bars are removed a pov Birds Eye view shot looks down at the snow covered terrain below. After an extreme wide establishing shot as their silhouettes climb down the building, the camera returns to a crab shot following their movement right and down the laundry shoot (that conveniently happens to be on the outside of the building?)

Inside the laundry room the characters fall into shot and then the camera pedestals down to focus on a trapped door in shallow focus as the inmates move into the low angle frame. There is then a worm’s eye view of the prisoners looking shocked, which is quickly responded to by a bird’s eye view of the guards looking up from a card game. As one of the inmates jumps down, no violence is show but only the concerned reactions of the inmates looking down through the door.