Film Clichés that have got to go: Mirror Shots

Lucas Versantvoort / June 2, 2015

If you watch movies on a regular basis, chances are you’ve seen shots that include mirrors. Shots like these can be set up in such a way that you don’t know you’re viewing the action through a mirror until the camera pans, zooms out, etc. or they can be rather straightforward like when the camera shows both the character and his/her reflection. What prompted me to write this little rant is just how many films, series, etc. seem bent on using mirror shots. It’s like all cinematographers had a big meeting and decided to employ these shots as much as humanly possible.

But what really gets to me is the supposed ‘symbolism’ of a shot like this and I use that term very loosely. Typically, a mirror shot has a psychological function, to convey something about a character’s inner world. The meanings can vary, but it’s usually something like suggesting a character has an ulterior motive, a guilt-ridden psychological makeup, a split personality and so on. While I'm all for symbolism, the problem for me is that these shots are often so mind-bogglingly obvious in their intentions that I wonder why filmmakers even bother to use them. Even worse is that it’s so obvious the filmmakers want you to notice their precious little mirrors. Usually, the camera will be positioned in such a way as to explicitly emphasize the reflection, as if saying ‘do you see the reflection? Do you see it!?’The filmmaker might as well just walk up to you and say, ‘you see how his reflection in the mirror ‘reflects’ his troubled personality? Golly, ain't I clever?’ 

Gee, I wonder what all those reflections mean...

And these shots are everywhere. Somehow, filmmakers across the globe have gotten it into their collective noggins that mirror shots are clever, a watermark of high quality cinema. I just don’t understand it. You’d think that new ‘psychological’ shots would be invented after the previous ones have been run into the ground, but no, we’re still aiming our cameras at mirrors in a last ditch effort to give our films a semblance of quality. Just last week, I saw Andrew Niccol’s Good Kill which was a pretty decent film, but even there Niccol couldn’t resist throwing in a couple of mirror shots. Especially funny is the scene after an argument between the protagonist and his wife during which he smashes the mirror with his fist—because that’s what guys do when they’re angry, they smash mirrors with their fists… Afterwards he sits alone and we see his fragmented reflection through the fragmented cracks of the mirror, conveying to us his guilt-ridden, 'fragmented' mind…get it?

To me, mirror shots have become as infamous as the 360° shot (where the camera rotates around one or a couple of characters). It might've been impressive back when Orson Welles made Citizen Kane, but people need to wake up, take a long hard look at themselves in the mirror (heh heh) and realize that mirror shots aren’t clever or subtle, not anymore at least; they draw too much attention to themselves for that. The way I see it, the concept's been pretty much run into the ground.