are related mainly to time. But movies manipulate
space and time equally well and are thus both a
spatial and a temporal art form. Movies can move
seamlessly from one space to another (say, from
a room to a landscape to outer space), or make
space move (as when the camera turns around or
away from its subject, changing the physical, psy-
chological, or emotional relationship between the
viewer and the subject), or fragment time in
many different ways. Only movies can record real
time in its chronological passing as well as subjec-
tive versions of time passing—slow motion, for
example, or extreme compression of vast swaths
of time.50 CHAPTER 2PRINCIPLES OF FILM FORM
3(^12)
Movement in The MatrixFor Andy and Lana Wachowski’s
The Matrix(1999), special-effects supervisors Steve Courtley
and Brian Cox employed a setup much like that used by early
pioneers of serial photography (see Chapter 10). They placed
120 still cameras in an arc and coordinated their exposures
using computers. The individual frames, shot from various
angles but in much quicker succession than is possible with a
motion-picture camera, could then be edited together to
create the duality of movement (sometimes called bullet
time) for which The Matrixis famous. The camera moves
around a slow-motion subject at a relatively fast pace,
apparently independent of the subject’s stylized slowness.
Despite its contemporary look, this special-effects technique
is grounded in principles and methods established during the
earliest years of motion-picture history.