But Mr. Frank, deliberately or not, seems to favor a flat, compressed scene, viewed head-on.
Now and then a heron will panic at my approach and labour up the air to lodge amid the rare verticals in this super-flat scene: a few ragged concrete stelae, the odd rufous clump of steel.
One reason may be that monsters are inherently dramatic and cinematically easy: A shaking fist or a smack across a downy cheek can goose up even the flattest scene.
Recently, Motoyoshi and colleagues reported that image histogram moments (denoted IHM, e.g. the skewness of luminance distribution on images) account for the perception of lightness and glossiness of surfaces in nearly-flat scenes viewed binocularly [45].
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After a punchy first few minutes, the center of the play cannot really hold, with a long stretch of flat, eventless scenes where the comedy flags.
Catalina Sandino Moreno delivers a strong, sympathetic performance and, though the action in New York is somewhat flat, the scenes of Maria filling herself up with drugs are wince-inducing and brilliant, and earn their place among the most memorable moments, not just at the festival, but in any cinema this year.
The vibrant panorama of New York City in 1840 that Randall Silvis spreads before our eyes in ON NIGHT'S SHORE (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95) bears little resemblance to the flat, static scenes that unroll like so much wallpaper in most historical mysteries.
These days, the king and queen of the flat-screen scene are LCD and plasma displays, but the future is much brighter.
On the flat screen, scenes of war flash by, inspiring them, giving them ideas.
