Name: Two Ways To Film The Same Scene (#1)
Uploaded: 2026-01-14T17:30:37.000Z
Duration: 8 min 57 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

The second conditional

So if you wanted to see how filmmaking has changed over the years, ideally what you'd want is for two movies made decades apart to have the exact same scene.

Adverbs of degree

You'd want the first movie from, say, 1940, and the second almost 60 years later in 1998.

Adverbs of manner

Well, as luck would have it, that's exactly what we have right here.

On the left, Ernst Lubitsch's classic romantic comedy, the Shop around the Corner, starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan, and

on the right, Nora Ephron's 19801998 remake, you've got Mail, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

Actually, both of these movies were based on the 1937 Hungarian play Parfumerie, which was also made into a movie musical starring Judy Garland in 1949 and a Broadway musical in 1963.

The reason for this many adaptations is because the plot is perfect for romantic comedy.

Two people become anonymous pen pals and gradually fall in love, but

unbeknownst to them, they actually know each other in real life and don't get along at all.

On the day the pen pals finally agree to meet at a cafe, the man who gets there second sees through the window that his beloved is actually his real life antagonist and because of this, doesn't reveal his true identity.

This imbalance of knowledge makes for a marvelous scene of dramatic irony, creating a tension that is at once heart wrenching and hilarious.

Are you deliberately trying to spoil my evening?

All the film adaptations of the play have this scene, the cafe scene, and

they all play out in pretty much the same way.

How the versions differ is in the film language used to stage the scene.

That language tells you something about the director's vision, but

it also tells you something about the conventions of different eras of moviemaking.

Leaving aside the musical, let's compare the 1940 and 1998 versions.

And they are comparable as they cover the same beats and are roughly the same length.

The Shop around the Corner's cafe scene is 8 minutes and 19 seconds long.

And you've got mail's cafe scene is 9 minutes and 43 seconds.

The first and most important thing to notice, the thing that other differences spring from, is the number of shots used to cover this scene.

In 1940, Lubitsch filmed the cafe scene in just 19 shots.

In comparison, Nora Ephron, 58 years later, used 133 shots for the same material.

That is, of course, a massive difference.

The average shot length in the earlier version is a whopping 26.2 seconds.

While in you've Got Mail, the average shot length is just 4.4 seconds.

So where do these 114 extra shots come from in you've Got Mail?

Well, let's look at the setup of this scene, when the man and his friend arrive at the cafe and look through the window for the pen pal in Shop around the Corner.

Lubitsch lets it play in one unbroken medium two shot.

Efron, on the other hand, opts for shot reverse shot, cutting back and forth from the man to his friend.

It's the same throughout the entire scene.

Lubitsch prefers long two shots, while Efron goes for shot reverse.

Now, one of these techniques is not necessarily better or worse than the other.

Shot reverse shot, for example, gives a director greater control of pacing in the editing phase.

And it lets you use different takes and different framings, like close ups, to fine tune the emotional arc of the scene.

Long two shots, on the other hand, tie the editor's hands, but

they convey a palpable sense of time and space, especially the space between the actors.

Every action and reaction in a two shot is real.

Lubitsch and Efron, of course, had personal reasons for their shot selections, but

Films of the 20s and 30s and 40s have much longer shots on average, than films of the 90s or 2000s.

it's partly due to the influence of other media on cinema.

Early filmmaking techniques were influenced by the conventions of stage plays, where many filmmakers began their careers.

Audiences were used to being their own editors, choosing where to look in the frame.

Films of the 80s and 90s were influenced by music videos and commercials, which increased viewer tolerance for more rapid editing, it's tempting to say this change reflects a shortening of attention spans.

But human attention, like cinema, is structured by the wider world.

The sheer amount of information people were expected to consume and digest increased enormously from 1940 to 1998.

So information was condensed into shorter, faster units.

And this seeps into everything, including our movies and their language.

This is obviously not to say there are no long takes in modern movies, but

I think it is true that long takes, especially static long takes, stand out to us in a way that they didn't in 1940.

They feel like an aesthetic choice rather than the invisible norm.

They challenge that anxious feeling way down deep in us, which grows the longer and longer they go on that we're not getting enough information for our time, which is a shame.

I mean, this is not a video disparaging Nora Ephron, who I think is a really good filmmaker and a great writer.

But I do believe that the Lubitsch version of the cafe scene augments the material more.

A two shot like this, for example, visualizes the imbalance of knowledge that Jimmy Stewart knows more than Margaret Sullivan.

And long static takes make even the smallest camera movements incredibly impactful.

Lubitsch does use shot reverse shot, but only when it will sink deepest and do the most damage.

You know, people seldom go to the trouble of scratching the surface of things to find the inner truth.

Well, I really wouldn't care to scratch your surface, Mr. Crowley, because I know exactly what I'd find.

And instead of an intellect, a cigarette lighter, which doesn't work.

By the time we get to the same moment in you've Got Mail, we've already been in shot, reverse shot for a while and the lines don't nearly hit as hard.

If you really knew me, if I really knew you, I know what I would find.

You know, in my opinion, movies haven't gotten better or worse over time.

They've just changed, mirroring the ways that we've become more sophisticated and visually literate, busier, savvier.

In some ways more jaded, in many ways more thoughtful.

But there are unique things about the early decades of cinema that can't really be replicated today.

The good news is that these movies still exist, and

the holiday season is a great excuse to watch one.

So if you're looking for something special to watch with the family this year, let this video be my recommendation.

1940's the Shop around the Corner by Ernst Lubitsch.

A movie that's of its time in its construction, but timeless in its appeal.

Happy holidays and thank you so much for watching.

I just noticed that as of a few days before Christmas 2023, the hardcover of my book of essays is on sale for just $14.24.

If you haven't read the book yet and are looking for something fun and easy to read over the holiday.