This incisive analysis by Natalia Williams made me think about how Brian de Palma uses split-screen effects in Carrie:

‘What we call “Carrie” is not a character; it is a catastrophic conductor, a point of systemic stress condensation. It gathers and localises distributed forces: shame, discipline, surveillance, sexual anxiety, and resentment economies. […] Carrie, in this sense, is not an agent or victim; Carrie is threshold mechanics. She marks the point where a community’s affective architecture, its ostracism, containment, and demonstration of virtue all fails, generating a localised point of catastrophic overflow.’

The more I watch this film, the more I’m struck by the power of the moment when Chris and Billy spectate the aftermath of their prank. It’s easy to see them as cartoonish villains, but there is something really affecting about the look of horror in their faces, as if they cannot quite absorb what they are seeing.

The gym teacher, Carrie, and the bullies are not simply juxtaposed through the language of shot/reverse-shot. This terrible event mashes them all together, blurring the distinctions between them. We have seen enough to understand why this is happening, and yet the catastrophe exceeds the capacity of our eyes – or of the single camera-eye – to process it.