In filmmaking and photography, the Dutch angle, also known as Dutch tilt, canted angle, or oblique angle, is a type of camera shot which involves setting the camera at an angle so that the shot is composed with vertical lines at an angle to the side of the frame, or so that the horizon line of the shot is not parallel with the bottom of the frame.^[1] This produces a viewpoint akin to tilting one's head to the side.^[1] In cinematography, the Dutch angle is one of many cinematic techniques often used to portray psychological uneasiness or tension in the subject being filmed.^[2] The Dutch angle is strongly associated with German expressionist cinema, which employed it extensively.^[1][3]

Etymology

The Oxford English Dictionary connects "Dutch angle" to other phrases which have "an opprobrious or derisive application, largely due to the rivalry and enmity between the English and Dutch in the 17th century", the period of the Anglo-Dutch Wars. Another example is "Dutch courage".^[4][5]

The "Dutch angle" is also known as a "German angle" due to its popularity in silent-era German films that popularized the shots, although one of the earliest recorded occurrences of the camera technique is to be found in the Edwin S. Porter American film Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906): itself based on Winsor McCay's comic strip of the same name, already known for its use of surrealist and oblique angles in its drawings.^[6][7]

Method

The Dutch angle is a shot in which the camera has been rotated around the axis of the lens and relative to the horizon or vertical lines in the shot.^[8]

The primary use of a Dutch angle is to cause a sense of unease or disorientation for the viewer.^[9] Dutch angles are often static shots, but in a dynamic (moving) Dutch angle shot, the camera can pivot, pan, or track along the established diagonal axis for the shot.^[3]

History

Dziga Vertov's 1929 experimental documentary Man with a Movie Camera contains uses of the Dutch angle, among other innovative techniques pioneered by Vertov.^[10]

The angle was widely used to depict madness, unrest, exoticism, and disorientation in German expressionist films. Montages of Dutch angles are often structured such that the tilts are horizontally opposed in each shot – for example, a right-tilted shot will be followed with a left-tilted shot, and so on.^[11]

In Hollywood's classic age, one filmmaker who used Dutch angles often was Alfred Hitchcock, whose early career included time at UFA studios in Germany; examples include Suspicion (1941), Notorious (1946), Strangers on a Train (1951) and The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956).

The 1949 film The Third Man makes extensive use of Dutch angle shots, to emphasize the main character's alienation in a foreign environment. Director Carol Reed has said that William Wyler gave him a spirit level after seeing the film, to sardonically encourage him to use more traditional shooting angles.^[3][12]

Dutch angles were used extensively in the 1960s Batman TV series and its 1966 film spin-off; each villain had his or her own angle, as they were "crooked".^[3][11]

Dutch angles are frequently used by film directors who have a background in the visual arts, such as Tim Burton (in Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood), and Terry Gilliam (in Brazil, The Fisher King, 12 Monkeys, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Tideland) to represent madness, disorientation, or drug psychosis. In his Evil Dead trilogy, Sam Raimi used Dutch angles to show that a character had become possessed by evil.^[11] In Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss (1982), a Dutch angle is used to convey the odd tension that strangers are exerting on the main character.

Tom Hooper frequently uses dutch angles in his work in more creative ways and to reflect the time periods and settings of the stories, as seen in his work on Les Misérables (2012) and The King's Speech (2010). In the 2008 miniseries John Adams, Hooper uses dutch tilts to contrast the American scenes with the more traditional-looking cinematography of the scenes in France.^[13]

Power Rangers used Dutch angles frequently under former stunt coordinator and executive producer Koichi Sakamoto.

The Dutch angle is an overt cinematographical technique that can be overused.^[14] The science-fiction film Battlefield Earth (2000), in particular, drew sharp criticism for its pervasive use of the Dutch angle. In the words of film critic Roger Ebert: "the director, Roger Christian, has learned from better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he has not learned why".^[14]

Dutch angles are often used in horror video games, particularly those with static camera angles such as early entries in the Resident Evil and Silent Hill franchises.^[15] Similar to their use in movies, these angles are used to bring about a feeling of unease in the player.^[15]

Examples