Being made the same year as the invention of the zoom lens, “Love Me Tonight” contains the first zoom shot in a feature film. In the opening scene, when establishing the early in the morning in Paris, the camera zooms in on a couple of chimneys. At the end of the zoom, the chimneys let out smoke, before the movie proceeds to the next shot of the scene.
“Love Me Tonight” is using the crane to liberate the camera into movements in space. In the scene where we are introduced to the protagonist, the camera floats mid-air through his window into his bedroom. It is as possesses a life on its own, it is an active part of the narrative. This effect is used through the movie as the camera rather tilts and turns from a situation to the next. Most notable is this effect in the scene at the chateau, where the camera floats through the bedroom and then tilts down the sleeping protagonist, as through the eyes of a person moving through the room.
What these examples shows is that in classic cinema the films took advantage of new technical solutions as they got available to them, and used them to explore the camera narrative as well as to liberate the camera in terms of spatial movements. This shows that the idea of a free roaming camera existed in the 1930s’ cinema.
“Love Me Tonight” also employs effects such as slow- and fast-motion shots. Fast-motion is used to increase the feeling of intensity of when the princess is riding her horse to catch the train. Slow-motion is used in the scene when all the horse riders are on their way to ride offscreen, to enhance the dramatic shot of all the galloping horses and to give the viewer time to read what is happening onscreen.
This shows that it was a clear distinction between a special effect shot and regular shot also in classic cinema.
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