Altering & Cheating the Rules of Filmmaking.

When film became a prominent story-telling medium, filmmakers realized two important things. One, they had to maintain seamless continuity from shot to shot, and two, that every shot counted. To this end, filmmakers would carefully craft together stories and various shots to tell said story. This didn't happen over night either. Through years of trial and error, filmmakers were able to concisely tell stories, and subsequently also creating meaning. Essentially, directors realized that displaying something does not necessarily mean that they are telling you what you want or need to know. For example, as mentioned in the article, Alfred Hitchcock hides the reactions and movements of his characters building tension. While on camera we see something entirely different. If we saw a character disappear behind a wall and only heard noise, this could be effective, but consistently, it becomes boring. So, Alfred Hitchcock uses clever camera movements and angles to produce distinct emotions. 

In one scene of Rear Window, Hitchcock displays a woman inviting a man into her apartment, but through camera work shows how this woman is actually imagining the man and is delusional and lonely. However carefully through various camera angles, Hitchcock makes us feel for the woman as opposed to be weirded out. As at the end of the movie she finds love.

Hitchcock is known for cleverly using camera angles and movements to imply, but that is only one way to work within the context of filmmaking. Another approach is cheating the rules. Although there are not necessarily a strict code of rules, Filmmakers tend to follow these guidelines for aesthetic reasons. In the French New Wave film Breathless, there are several cuts that are very troubling to the eye, but at the same time is also very dynamic in storytelling. Breathless takes advantage of the jump-cut, which violates the 90 degree rule. The rule implies that one should move 90 degrees in one direction or another to make the shot seem seamless. However, Breathless often maintains the same position but inserts the cuts as the characters 'jump' from one place to another, which disrupts the continuity within the film. From all of this, we can learn that ways to film are very malleable and it isn't always as simple as having a full shot of two characters.

The following clip is from Happy Together, a film by Wong Kar Wai which explores human perspective through camerawork. Yet another variant function of decisive style.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09i5JpuZf5U