Laura

Otto Preminger - 1944
Time, memory, desire, tracking shots, voiceover; 'Marienbad', 'Ambersons'... now Laura?
Tracking shots bring us in as the voiceover expresses the desire for what is dead. Voiceover that is false but reconsiders the image. Tracking and panning throughout the mis-en-scene, one usually the dominant move, to frame in at least two shots the interlocurs. Yes, cuts in, but always tracking around and into scenes, smooth and often along one axis but also able to move. SRS once we are in, though always tracks, and pans, often slow, to move across those who are set up in the room. Shadows in a fine presentation, relation of people to the background, complex patterns.
Changes of staging, turning away, moving into the distance. The whole film could operate byy who sits and who stands; yet the 'power' position isn't stable.
The structure here; we think we are piecing it together, a 'whodunnit?', but we are proved wrong, though it is still a 'whodunnit?'. It is a conventional narrative, piecing events, looked back at from the past. Yet we know no character's intentions, throughout they lie, always the impression of not giving us. Incredibly restrained, quiet acting and presentation. Mystery, no histrionics. We know no goals beyond vague ones, can barely decipher. Cinema of the present tense, of discovery.
The entire second half as a dream. Cut to the door ('Vertigo' would have used a pan, to keep in the time?). You desire who is dead. The policeman succeeds in turning time backwards, the rich man only can shoot the clock, hide the clock, though time marches on. Necrophilia, desire for the dead lover, courtly love, unreal. Finding new items in the mis-en-scene. Clear, short, pure. A masterpiece.