Relationships Between Shots

Jeunet's Amelie - Helping A Blind Man
In this scene Amelie appears to be walking towards the camera in slow motion a neutral direction, with diagetic sounds of chirping birds in the background. The nondiagetic sounds of music and the narrator's voice are more distinct and the narrator is especially clear. Within the next few seconds the camera moves to Amelie's left allowing for her to be seen walking with her back facing the camera all still in slow motion allowing for continuity editing. A flock of pigeons fly away with the sound of their wings flapping clearly heard but still in the background to the narrator's voice. The viewer is able to assemble information regarding the setting which is a sunny beautiful day in the more scenic part of the city with trees and symmetrical buildings, paralleling the narrator's information regarding Amelie's feelings of sudden joy and love for humanity. The next shot is a medium close up of a low angle view of a man's legs on the edge of a sidewalk with what is assumed to be his cane hitting the sidewalk several times. The sidewalk as well as the stream of water running along its length underneath it, are at a z-angle creating depth in the shot. The foreground is of the sidewalk, the mid ground is where the man and cane are, in between the foreground and mid ground are several passing legs and feet and the background is a continuation of the street with parked cars and several passersby.
This shot ends at one more clanking sound of the white cane and moves on to the next shot beginning at an overhead of the street, with the camera moving down to what we assume is the blind man with the cane in the middle of the frame. Cars pass by with their sound getting louder then lower and disappearing as they leave the frame showing that there is much more street outside of what we are looking at in the frame. Passerby in the background are moving in slow motion and are blurry as our focus (and the camera's focus) is on the old blind man with a balding head of white fluffy hair moving his head side to side. The next shot comes back to a medium shot of Amelie in the middle of the frame standing in front of a butcher shop, as we zoom in on her dead focus stare. We conclude that she has spotted the old blind man and is has decided to do something. The diagetic stereotypical french instrumental music in the first shot is still with us throughout the shots, adding to the french city ambience. The next shot is back to what we understand is Amelie's focus, the back of the old blind man at the edge of the side walk. This is not left for us to ponder for long as Amelie quickly walks into the frame, now at a normal speed, towards the right side of the man, and begins talking into the man's ear. Amelie tells him to let her help him at their sudden synchronized movement down from the sidewalk and onto the street we understand that she has taken his arm guiding him.
Amelie's voice speeds up, as their walking does and so does the camera movement. She describes a widow wearing her dead husband's drum uniform and the next shot is a POV shot of that lady walking past. We understand from the POV that we are seeing the world through Amelie's eyes just as the blind man is. The next several shots are in a seeming order paired description of surroundings by Amelie with the two characters usually in the shot and an accompanying shot of the described setting. Much of the time we are either seeing the characters from the front, but sometimes from the side at a long shot (as though on the other side of the street) or from behind (as though following them) but always at the same quick speed. The background noise of the busy street seems to get louder as the blind man (that we see periodically with a face expressing what we assume to be awe at the words turing into images in his head in real time) learns more of what his surroundings look like.
The ending shot depicts Amelie letting the blind man know he is now past the news kiosk and at the metro station entrance as the camera pulls away to a long shot and perhaps a crane shot as she runs up the stairs letting us know we are now moving on to another scene and onto another part of the story, but right before the camera comes back on an overhead of the blind man who is now looking up, and suddenly there is light coursing through him as though he is now seeing the world. The light of course was added digitally with special effects after the shooting and gives the audience the sense that Amelie's actions had a larger than life effect on the blind man.