180-degree Rule - Style

Style

In professional productions, the applied 180-degree rule is an essential element for a style of film editing called continuity editing. The rule is not always obeyed. Sometimes a filmmaker will purposely break the line of action in order to create disorientation. Stanley Kubrick was known to do this, an example being the bathroom scene in The Shining. The Wachowski Siblings and directors Tinto Brass, Yasujiro Ozu, Wong Kar-wai, and Jacques Tati sometimes ignored this rule also, as has Lars von Trier in Antichrist. In the seminal film of the French New Wave, À bout de souffle ("Breathless"), Jean-Luc Godard breaks the rule in the first five minutes in a car scene that jumps between the front and back seats, improvising an "aesthetic rebellion" for which the New Wave would become known.

English television presenters Ant & Dec extend this continuity to almost all their appearances, with Ant almost always on the left and Dec on the right, as does the Japanese pop duo Puffy, with Yumi Yoshimura on the left and Ami Onuki on the right. The same follows with Irish twin brothers John and Edward Grimes, better known as Jedward, with John on the left and Edward on the right.

Another "rule" concerning the axis is that the closer a camera is placed to the axis, the more emotionally involved the audience will be.

In the Japanese animated picture Paprika, two of the main characters discuss crossing the line and demonstrate the disorienting effect of actually performing the action.

In Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Gollum has a conversation with himself or with his other personality. Because the filmmakers use the 180-degree rule, and have the "good" Gollum looking left as he speaks while the "evil" Gollum looking right, the audience perceives Gollum as two different characters talking to each other. This effect builds gradually during the scene: the first few times Gollum shifts between personalities, he is shown starting to turn his head, though the camera changes angles mid-turn. As the argument between the split-personalities intensifies, the editing gradually changes to using jump cuts, not showing Gollum turning his head.