Uncomposed: unconventional cinematographic composition in cinema and television

Uncomposed: unconventional cinematographic composition in cinema and television

The rules of composition for cinematography are an entrenched system of mathematical frame division that have remained unquestioned since the advent of the cinema medium. The rules have become convention to a point that, when broken, the result appears radical and stark to both critics and viewers. This article explores several of the leading examples of unconventional composition in the contemporary cinema and television drama genre, including Tom Hooper's 'The King's Speech' (2010) and 'The Danish Girl' (2015), and, briefly, the television series Mr. Robot (Esmail, 2015). The author compares the use of composition in these media to the use of it by the painters Edward Hopper and Vilhelm Hammershoi to suggest that the industrialisation of cinema has restricted the ability of filmmakers to experiment with the form.

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