IV

		film the infamous pan-and-scan technology. Practically then, unlike painters and photographers, filmmakers have continually worked with less than secure markers.

		III

		Regardless of the size and shape of the gate, do all professionals organize their images the same way? Is there a governing principle justifying what they do? What is composition really about? For Vilmos Zsigmond, clarity is the most important job of the cinematographer. "It's very important," he tells us, "where you place the main actors within the composition so that the eye will be attracted to them right away. . . . It helps sort out what things the eye wants to see and in what order it wants them." 11 For him then the first job of composition is to simplify the view, to isolate what is important in it, dramatizing it to some extent. So far so good: nobody in the American Society of Cinematographers would disagree with him. Where we get into something of a squabble is with the other motifs that also influence the composition of a shot. For Gordon Willis, for instance, there is also the impact of "symmetry, first of all. . . . After that, the rest of these elements finish it off and make it right. But the initial thrust of it is always on symmetry.''12 Conrad Hall, however, is not so sure. To him this way of thinking is old fashioned:

		I think it's valuable to learn how to compose the way Michelangelo or other great painters did. . . . They're great artists, no question about it . . . but hell, you've got to be able to do it yourself. You've got to be able to do it the way you want to and know why it is you're doing it. And at least if you don't know intellectually, you know emotionally that it's right. It feels right to you.13

		John Bailey shares that view as well: "I think that for any given shot there are a number of elements that, at different times, may have greater or lesser value. . . . So there's really no formula for it." In his view, the important elements in composition are "color, the focal length of the lens, movement, structural balance and focus."14 But that is not all, as Laszlo Kovacs is quick to add, for "the major criterion of a good composition is whether it supports emotionally the scene and its dramatics. . . . You don't make beautiful compositions just for the sake of making compositions."15