The use of Camera Focus in Miller’s crossing got me focusing on it much more when I was watching movies over the Fourth. I have always enjoyed photography and the powerful nature of carefully framed and thought out images, and a lot of the trouble I have with film is that it is hard to truly appreciate the individual frame, because of the speed of change in scenes. Watching an Inconvenient Truth I noticed that the director played with focus in an interesting way: he chose to focus at times on Al Gore’s computer leaving Gore, the protaganist, unfocused in the background. This had an interesting way of distancing the political, and personally held beliefs of Al Gore, and focusing on the scientific evidence, as symbolized by the computer. For me camera focus, and more importantly unexpected use of focus, can be one of the best ways to evoke an emotional response from the viewer. For me the best directors are able to use focus in such a way that even if you are not actively looking for it you will feel its effects and the movie experience is transformed by it. When we were talking about the difference between literature and film, the immediate thing that jumped to my mind is the ability of film to layer images and choose very rapidly what we should focus our attention on through camera focus, and it is in this instrument that much of the subtext of film can be found.