Good Scene / Bad Scene:

Chosen By Damien O'Donnell, The Director Of 'Heartlands'

Good: 'Anatomy of a Murder' (Otto Preminger, 1959)

Attorney Claude Dancer (George C Scott) is questioning Laura Manion (Lee Remick), whose husband has been accused of murdering a man who had allegedly raped her. There's a great use of blocking when Scott moves from one side of the room to another. He is trying to block Laura's view of her husband's lawyer (James Stewart), who he thinks is giving her signals. Scott's every step is precise, and he blocks Stewart, who keeps moving his chair to see past him, about six times. Finally, Stewart stands up and his head appears over Scott's shoulder, far in the background. It's very subtle and artful, but it involves a lot of timing, and no unnecessary camerawork. Both the foreground and the background are in focus, there's action – Scott and Stewart – in both, there's depth of field, and a sense of being in the courtroom.

Bad: 'Amelie' (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)

It's the moment when the identity of a man with whom Nino (played by Mathieu Kassovitz) is obsessed, and who leaves his passport photograph in booths around the city, is revealed: he's simply fixing the machines. When the repairman suddenly appears, there's a punctuation of sound to let you know that something important is about to happen. Then there's a 360-degree tracking shot around Nino's face as the man's identity dawns on him, and the camera rotates on a horizontal axis so that his face turns upside down. It doesn't allow the actor to do his job. It drags the audience through the story rather than letting them find their own way. It suffocates the story.