After discussing a few aspects of film last week, I have decided to write about point of view and how important it is to the direction of a film. Point of view is a term that film shares with literary and visual arts, much like other terms such as narrative. According to the text, “In the broadest sense, it refers to the position from which something is seen and, by implication, the way that point of view determines what you see.” (46) If a house on the corner is what you need to see, then that is what you will see and you will see it from a certain person’s eyes depending on the story line that is being shown. There are however some instances in which there seems to be no individual point of view, but rather a broad, almost more accurate point of view that is necessary to communicate a certain point. One of these instances that the text discusses is the point of view of battle scenes in the film Gone with the Wind (1939) in which there seems to be a very broad point of view that shows the battle in a more accurate and unbiased light. The use of point of view is vital to film and depending on the plot and story line is one of the most effective tools that there is in film.
