As noted in Mary Stewart's Launching the Imagination, by alternately showing two or more events, in a technique known as crosscutting, a connection can be made between them (303) and that something can be made more intense by observing it closely (302). These concepts were used together to make a battle scene in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King far more intense and violent without being graphic.
In one scene, a human army is riding toward an army of Orcs, and they're attacked and brutally slaughtered. No blood or gore is shown in this scene, but it is made effective by crosscutting with a scene of a king eating. We are shown a close-up of just his open mouth eating chewing. By alternating the two scenes, what is happening to the food in his food becomes a metaphor for the slaughter of the soldiers on the battlefield. The close-up is crucial. A wider shot of the king eating would have seemed boring, lowering the intensity of the scene, or even portrayed apathy on his part, which would have been intense as well but wouldn't have left the audience with the same impression.
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