Cinematic language could be two different
things. On one hand, a director is going to use verbal cinematic langue to his actors and camera
crew. This equates cinematic language to vocabulary. Knowledge of this vocabulary will help
everybody involved in the filming process to be on the same page as to what the director is
ordering. This language could be something as simple as the director saying "action"
or "cut."
The other possible meaning of cinematic
language is wider in scope. An author is going to use vocabulary words in a text, but
what words are used and how they are used can control things like mood, tone, , pace, and so on.
Movies are likely to use spoken language to do those same things, but movies can also
show audiences things that can convey more than just words on a page. What the
director chooses to show and how to show it involves the usage of cinematic language, and
audiences are becoming quite savvy at understanding the cinematic language. For example,
audiences routinely understand the emotional difference between static shots and tracking shots.
Another example is the "Dutch Tilt." This occurs when a filmmaker intentionally has
the camera rotated off of the horizontal. It's very disconcerting to audiences, and it
immediately conveys that something isn't quite right with the actions that are happening on
screen. This is why it is commonly used in the horror genre. All of these various filming
techniques are tools of a greater cinematic language that help to tell a particular story to
audiences.
A great example of how cinematic language can be used to
drastically alter preconceived notions about a story is the opening scene in Baz Luhrmann's
Romeo and Juliet. The camera is all over the place with quick zooms, quick
cuts, low angles, and more. This opening scene and the way that it is filmed let audiences know
that this isn't going to be the slow-paced story they read in English
class.
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