Mouthscreen

"Rosebud..."

This is when a person's mouth and lips are pretty much all showing on the screen. Potentially it can be a sign of mystery, used to hide the identity of the person speaking. Otherwise it can just be to emphasize the mouth such as showing a pretty girl putting on lipstick.

This is a sister tropes of Eyedscreen, which features a screen shot of a pair of eyes. Compare Eat the Camera and Mouth Cam.

---

Examples:

Advertising

• Any commercial hawking teeth whitening or toothpaste is prone to this.
• This Blistex commercial :[1]
• This Coors Light commercial from 1997. [2]
• Diet Pepsi: This commercial from 1984 is an example: [3]
• This IBM AT commercial from 1986 showcasing their experimental voice recognition. [4]
• The numerous Pepsodent commercials such as this one: [5]
• An 1980s child abuse PSA, one of the first against verbal abuse, features a series of mouths shouting harmful insults at children.
• Twizzlers had a bunch of commercials with a claymation mouth advertising the product.
• The "Remarkable Mouth" radio station commercials featuring numerous female models such as this one featuring Mark Harmon's younger sister Kelly. [6]

Anime

• In nearly every Case Closed episode, there is a point where we get a closeup of a character's mouth talking ominous like. Sometimes making their debut or when they're saying something important.
• The same thing can be true with Dragon Ball Z, more specifically in the Frieza and Garlic Jr. sagas.
• It happened in a few episodes of Hamtaro as well. Case in point, here with Maxwell.
• Lady Jewelpet did a closeup of Luea's mouth in Episode 22.
• Mewkledreamy did this with the main villain, Yuni.
• Robot Girls Z A closeup of Baron Ashura's mouth, with a chibi man in her throat hitting her uvula with a hammer.

Asian Animation

• In Season 7 episode 50 of Happy Heroes, when Kalo says "Goodbye to you all" as he is about to self-destruct himself to destroy invading spaceships, the shot is a close-up of the character's mouth.
• In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Joys of Seasons episode 44, Wolffy sees the goats through his telescope, and as he tells Wolnie they're having goats to eat, the camera is zoomed up to his mouth. When he finishes talking, one of his fangs shows a brief twinkle.
• Baby Shark's Big Show!:
  • In "Baby Tooth", a close up of Baby Shark's mouth was seen twice. When his tooth first became loose and after his tooth came out.
  • At the beginning of "Live From the Shark House", we see the camera zoom up to Baby Shark's mouth, revealing that he has kelp in his teeth.
  • In "Best Fin-Ship Day", as Baby Shark is calling out to the clams, there's a close up shot of his mouth as he says, "Fly".
  • In "Buds at First Bite", as Goldie is telling Penny what she can count to, she mentioned that Penny can count the times she says coral, and there's a close up shot of Goldie's mouth when she says, "Coral".

Film

• Cuts of the Czech Alice that have the mouth shots used them extensively, for her "Said X" lines.
• Always Crashing in the Same Car features several close-ups of Paul McGann's mouth.
• Barbie (2023): After Stereotypical Barbie becomes human, her mouth is the only thing that can be seen aside from the background. She then lets out a breath.
• Batman & Robin: When Poison Ivy is seducing Robin in her lair, there is a brief close up shot of her lips as she whispers "for luck" when requesting a kiss from him, and lingers for a bit afterwards as she smiles. It is implied that this is a brief POV shot from Robin's perspective, with him staring at Ivy's lips and unable to resist from kissing them anymore.
• Carry On Up the Khyber. The British have been thrown into an Afghan prison, so Brother Belcher demands to be let out as he's a priest.
  Brother Belcher: Let me out! You can't do this to me! I'm a man of the cloth!
  [Afghan guard charges up so close we can only see his blackened teeth]
  Guard: What do you want, Engleesh PEEG?!
  Brother Belcher: Err, I was going to ask you for the name of a good dentist, but I don't think I'll bother.
• Catch Me If You Can: When Carl realizes Frank has "no one else to call", we get a close-up of Carl's mouth.
• One of the most iconic examples is in Citizen Kane (pictured above). The first we see of the title character is a close up of his lips as he says his last words: "Rosebud"
• In David Lynch's Dune (1984), Doctor Yueh's mouth is shown in a closeup flashback reminding Duke Leto about the poison gas tooth intended to kill Baron Harkonnen.
• The Florida Project has this serve as the final shot of Halley, as she screams, "FUUUUUUCCCCCKKKK YOOOOOUUUUUU!!!!" to Child Services, who believe she isn't fit to take care of her daughter.
• The theatrical poster to Inside Deep Throat depicts a woman's mouth with the movie title in between the half-open lips.
• Kung Pow! Enter the Fist: As Chosen One confronts Betty with "Black Betty" playing on the stereo.
  "You killed my family." [mouth-shot] "And I don't LIKE that kind of thing."
• The Little Mermaid (1989): "What I want from you is...your voice."
• Little Shop of Horrors: "Say 'ahhhh!'" "Ahhhhh!" "Say 'AAAHH!'" "AAAHHHH!" "NOW SPIT!"
• The first shot in Original Sin (2001) is Angelina Jolie's lips.
• A closeup of Patricia Quinn's mouth lip-syncing to "Science Fiction Double Feature" is used for the opening credits of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
• See No Evil, Hear No Evil: When someone calls the deaf protagonist David a "fucking idiot", we get a close-up of his mouth.
• Shrek
  • Shrek: The iconic bird song where Fiona sings a high note with the camera focusing on her vibrating uvula.
  • In the same film, the last shot of Shrek drawn out scream, shows his mouth roaring before it was finished.
  • Shrek Forever After: Played for Laughs. When the ogres serve Donkey a bowl of eyeballs, he makes two of them come out of his nose and we get a close-up of his mouth.
• The Spongebob Squarepants Movie: When SpongeBob and Patrick arrive in Shell City, they're happy to see other sea creatures until they realize they're dead. We get a close-up on SpongeBob's mouth when he says "dead".
• Status Update has a few shots of this when Kyle performs an operatic solo.
• Stutterer opens with a tight closeup of Greenwood's lips. Greenwood has a severe stutter, and at that moment he is trying but failing to get out a question regarding his Internet bill, to the customer service rep on the other end of the line.
• The teaser trailer for the 1995 film Strange Days briefly shows a shot of Ralph Fiennes' mouth. [7]
• Superman: The Movie: When Zod says "your heirs", we get a close-up of his mouth.
• In Turning Red, this is used to show Grandma Wu putting on lipstick as she talks to Ming.
• Videodrome has a scene where Max, in a surreal moment which may or may not be a hallucination, sees his lover Nicki in a television broadcast begging for him sexually, and early on the view zooms in on just her gasping lips, making the scene even more uncomfortable and Max's state of mind that much more suspect.
• In the 1985 film, Weird Science, a scene in which Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith are having a conversation in the shower stall during a party, we get shots of their mouths.

Live-Action TV

• In an extremely minimalist production by the BBC of Samuel Beckett's play Not I, this is all that can be seen of actress Billie Whitelaw as she performs the extended monologue, of a woman on the brink of insanity describing her life. The camera never moves from a full-screen shot of her lips and moving mouth.
• In an episode of Red Dwarf, Lister and the Cat desperately try to con a human-hating genocidal killer into thinking they are an uninteresting alien species. They rig a telecommunications camera so all it can see is an upside-down shot of their lower faces, with false eyes glued to their chins. They conduct their side of the dialogue as disembodied alien mouths. The killer Simulant is not deceived and teleports over anyway.
  • The First Series finale also features a sendup of Citizen Kane.
    Rimmer: Gazpacho soup...
• In an early episode of M*A*S*H, they do this with Margaret complaining to Col. Blake about something, and Blake completely hung over while she's ranting.
• Mimpi Metropolitan: Mami Bibir's first scene is back-and-forth between a close up on her lips reprimanding Prima and Over the Shoulder shots, hiding her full face and foreshadowing her name (bibir is Indonesian for lips).
• A 1990's documentary on Australian gun culture called Guns had an excess of shots like this, causing a writer to viewer reaction program BackChat to quip that it should have been titled Gums instead.

Music Videos

• Freddie Mercury: "Don't Stop Me Now" have more than one close-up of Freddie Mercury's mouth singing to the tune filling up the entire frame.
• Rick Springfield: "Bop 'Til You Drop"
• LL Cool J: "Going Back To Cali"
• and this parody from Colin Quinn: [8]
• Frank Zappa: "You Are What You Is" [9]
• One of the many, many shots in "Dare to Be Stupid" is "Weird Al" Yankovic's head, upside down and with googly-eyes stuck on his chin, with the camera pulled up close to the mouth.
• A pair of lips sings the opening phrase in the video for Poison's "I Want Action".
• The introduction to Meghan Trainor's "Lips Are Movin'" shows a few screenshots like this.
• "My First Kiss" by 3Oh!3 and Ke$ha makes use of several of these shots throughout the video, a lot of which focus on Ke$ha. At the end of the video, the camera pans out to reveal that the members of 3Oh!3 are inside Ke$ha's mouth. She then slams her mouth shut and eats them before smooching at the camera.
• The lyric video for Lit's "Mouth Shut" is an up close shot of a woman's mouth as she lip syncs to the song. Much like the cover the album it's from, she has on glittery gold lipstick.
• Played with in the videos from the Pink Floyd album, "The Final Cut". The videos show singer Roger Waters sitting in the dark except for a light on his mouth.
• Chicano Batman: "Black Lipstick" [10]

Pinball

• The Edutainment Game The Brain has a close-up of the mouth and tongue, to represent the sense of taste.

Web Animation

• Homestar Runner:
  • The Strong Bad Email "from work" opens with a close-up on Strong Bad's mouth as he whispers his plans to check an email on his work computer.
  • The Teen Girl Squad short "4 Gregs" has a close-up on Sci-Fi Greg's gross teeth and stubbly mustache.
  • The Blubb-O's Commercial features a similarly gratuitous closeup of the name of their Thick 'n Nasty burger engraved on Peacey P's solid gold grill.

Western Animation

• The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius episode "The Mighty Wheezers; there is a closeup of Carl's dad's mouth when he's singing a long note before the whole family sings that singing and sitting song.
• In the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog episode "The Last Resort", the camera becomes strangely fascinated with Robotnik's mouth when he comments that he loves sharing a "cozy, hot cup of lapsang souchong tea".
• Aloha, Scooby-Doo! During a water rapids scene, there are a couple frames in which there's a closeup of Daphne's mouth before she's dragged by the current(just barely misses the mark of being considered a reverse Eat the Camera shot). While her uvula is present in this, her palate shares the exact same color as her throat, with only a faded outline making her uvula noticeable.
• The Boss Baby sometimes has a closeup of Ted's Mouth, Tim's Mouth, and Baby's mouth.
• Care Bears: Unlock the Magic did this with Share Bear during viral video about an ice cream addiction.
• Clarence episode "Belson's Sleepover" when Belson announces his second phase in his plan for pranking everyone "The Reaping."
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends:
  • "Mac Daddy" One time with Mac and Bloo when Bloo and Madame Foster acknowledge the pun on Mac and Cheese's names combined. And one more time when Cheese declares him and Bloo's names combined.
  • "Destination Imagination" with Mac and Coco when they try to convince Frankie to come home from the magic toybox world.
• Kim Possible: In “Hidden Talent”, Kim is trying to master a high note. This trope comes into play when she finally masters it while trying to break a layer of ice (complete with a waggling uvula).
• Phineas and Ferb: "Nosebud..."
• Rugrats episode "Stu Gets a Job"; the episode starts with a closeup of Stu's mouth eating chips and drinking soda while watching TV with Tommy.
  • An earlier episode "Runaway Angelica" has a closeup of Drew's mouth shouting out Angelica's name after finding his home-office wrecked, at the beginning of the episode.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • "The Fry Cook Games" After Plankton and Mr. Krabs' give their speeches, SpongeBob and Patrick give off a war cry.
  • "One Krabs Trash" with Mr. Krabs as he announces his plan to scare SpongeBob's #1 hat off of him.
  • "Truth or Square" again with Mr. Krabs as he begins to tell SpongeBob the Krabby Patty formula.
  • Combined with Medium-Shift Gag in "Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy VI: The Motion Picture", where we get a close-up of SpongeBob's live-action mouth saying "Actors.".
• The Simpsons
  • In the episode "Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish"; with Homer while he's eating a piece of toast which he compliments to Marge about.
  • Also happens in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Bart of the Jungle" when he screams "BAAART!!!" after finding him playing jungle in the backyard with his neckties.
  • From "The Old Man and the Key": "You are never driving again! EVER!"
• Thomas & Friends has been using this often as of Season 20.
• Timon & Pumbaa episode "Beast of Eden"; the episode ends with Pumbaa showing he has one of the leader's teeth in his mouth.
• What's New, Scooby-Doo? At the start of Vampire Strikes Back, The Hex Girls film a music video that begins with Thorn rising from a coffin with an open fanged maw, as though she's attempting to either do a vampire bite or eat the camera, stopping before it enters her dark, cavernous mouth. (Same episode as three Eat the Camera moments on the villains and Daphne)
• Zig & Sharko In the episode "Song of the Siren" Marina angrily sings back at a siren to disrupt her voice from seducing Sharko. The camera cuts to a closeup of her shaking uvula that grows a mouth and screams into a mini megaphone held by Marina's tongue to help combat the siren.

Video Games

• Myst: In the Channelwood Age, one of Achenar's holographic speeches to the Tree-Dwellers is a closeup of his mouth. It also contains an Easter Egg when run backwards.
• Obsidian: Used to highlight the inhuman forms of the VidBots that you encounter in the Bureau Realm; Plus, this is used to also highlight how drone-ish each of the "workers" of the Bureau is, without a visual identity of their own.

---