Parallax view

Spacial parallax is mentioned in entry Unprejudiced information by redundancy as one feature of holography. This entry wants to illustrate the concept of this phenomenon with the help of some movie footage. Simultaneously it wants to show how a feature which is typically for holography, finds its application in other fields. Beyond holography. In this case in the field of film.

Parallax has got a greek origin and means change or divergence. It terms a virtual change of the position of an object due to the change of the observer's position. To make this a little more understandable, imagine your thumb being alternately viewed through left and right eye. The thumb seems to be jumping in front of the background. So this is caused by different angels. Both eyes and thumb form an equilateral triangle with the distance between both eyes as a basic length. In astronomy, where this phenomenon finds its genesis, it is being used for calculating distances between planets. With the thumb being substituted by a planet.

Viewing the photograph of a stake below one can neither let it jump by opening an closing ones eyes alternately nor can have a look what's behind the stake.

In contrast to that viewing the snippet below should make the point.

The Parallax View (1974)

This snippet is the establishing shot taken from movie The Parallax View. With this first scene director Alan J. Pakula visualizes the title of the movie on a level of pictorial language.

In this movie local reporter Joe Frady witnesses a murderous attack on presidential candidate Senator Charles Carroll in a restaurant on the top of the Space Needle in Seattle. Trying to investigate who is responsible for this attack, he reveals that enterprise Parallax Corporation is part of a conspiracy behind that.

"Auf den Film übertragen läßt sich formulieren, wie wenig man sich bei der Sicht der Dinge der Abhängigkeit vom eigenen Standpunkt bewußt ist und wie sehr das Verhaftetsein in der eigenen sozialisierten Identität unser Weltbild bestimmt. Der "Parallax View" - der parallaktisch verschobene Blickwinkel also - macht nicht nur vordergründig die von Frady entdeckte Verschwörung sichtbar, sondern demontiert anhand dieser Perspektivenverschiebung den identitätsstiftenden amerikanischen Mythos, indem er einen Blick auf ein Amerika bietet, dessen Geschichte bis in die Gegenwart als eine Geschichte der Gewalt verstanden werden kann"

[translation: Transferring the concept of Parallax View to the movie, it could be said how little one is aware of dependency of ones own angle regarding to the sight of affairs and how much sticking to ones own socialized identity shapes ones world view. The Parallax View not just uncovers the revealed conspiracy, but also disassemble identity-establishing american myth by offering a view onto America, which history until present time can be understood as a history of violence.]

As mentioned at the beginning the Parallax View is a feature of holography. Depending on the kind of recording, a hologram can offer a vertical parallax as well as a horizontal parallax.