Yes!  Joe & Wolfgang; even more specifically; a zoom-in, establishing shot.

Psycho!  good one!  also thought of:  The Birdcage (terrific opening zoom
right into the club); Saturday Night Fever (not exactly zoom in); The Dark
Knight; (are there others?)

Alternatively: there is the amazing scene in Gandhi zooming out from the
funeral.

-hb

On Thu, Aug 25, 2016 at 4:08 AM, Wolfgang Hochbruck <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> ...actually, I feel like i should chime in here because Joe said "Zoom
> in" first, and then "establishing shot", and he is right on both counts,
> only that narratologically "establishing  shot" is the general category,
> including also bird's eye, pan(orama) shot etc.  The really wild thing
> is that what Twain uses here - and what Belasco adapted for the theatre
> -- is really a cameratic technique before any camera could do something
> like it. Like with a number of other developments, the technology here
> followed the writer's imagination.
>
> best  wishes,
> w
>
> Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hochbruck
> Department of English /
> Centre for Security and Society
> Albert Ludwigs University
> 15 Rempart St.
> D- 79098 Freiburg
>
> Am 25.08.2016 08:18, schrieb Joe Alvarez:
> > Establishing shot, that's probably the closest one yet. The description
> from=
> >   Life on the Mississippi reminds me of the opening--establishing
> shot--of Al=
> > fred Hitchcock's Psycho.
> >
> > Joe Alvarez
> > 900 Havel Court
> > Charlotte, NC 28211-4253
> > Telephone: 704.364.2844
> > FAX: 704.364.9348
> >
> > Sent from my iPad
> >
> >> On Aug 25, 2016, at 1:47 AM, Peter Salwen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >> =20
> >> What you called the"birds-eye view" might also be called an establishing
> >> shot
> >> Not by Twain, though.
> >> =20
> >> On Aug 25, 2016 1:27 AM, "Joe Alvarez" <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >> =20
> >> How about "zoom in"? That is what is happening in your description.
> >> =20
> >> Joe Alvarez
> >> 900 Havel Court
> >> Charlotte, NC 28211-4253
> >> Telephone: 704.364.2844
> >> FAX: 704.364.9348
> >> =20
> >> Sent from my iPad
> >> =20
> >>> On Aug 24, 2016, at 8:33 PM, Wesley Britton <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >>> =3D20
> >>> =3D20
> >>> =3D20
> >>> I have a question about one passage in Life on the Mississippi. I
> suspect=
> >> i=3D
> >> t
> >>> will be very familiar to many of you.
> >>> =3D20
> >>> =3D20
> >>> =3D20
> >>> It's the passage where we first get a birds-eye view of a place along
> the=
> >>> river before Twain narrows his focus to one town, then one street, then
> >> on=3D
> >> e
> >>> house, then a sleeping man on a porch.
> >>> =3D20
> >>> =3D20
> >>> =3D20
> >>> Back in grad school, a professor used a term to define this technique
> of
> >>> moving from the general to the specific, but I can't figure out now
> what
> >>> term he meant.
> >>> =3D20
> >>> =3D20
> >>> =3D20
> >>> Any ideas?
> >>> =3D20
> >>> =3D20
> >>> =3D20
> >>> =3D20
> >>> =3D20
> >>> =3D20
> >>> =3D20
> >>> =3D20
> >>> =3D20
> >>> Dr. Wesley Britton
> >>> =3D20
> >>> Author, Beta-Earth Chronicles
> >>> =3D20
> >>> www.drwesleybritton.com
> >>> =3D20
> >>> =3D20
>



-- 
Prof. Harold K. Bush
Professor of English
3800 Lindell
Saint Louis University
St. Louis, MO  63108
314-977-3616 (w); 314-771-6795 (h)
<www.slu.edu/x23809.xml>