Absolutely they can. My roommate in college was studying film, and in the classes on cinematography they taught about compositional rules such as rules of thirds, etc. The fact that the picture now has motion in it doesn't negate how we emotionally process a picture. The feeling of dynamism is enhanced when the camera is moving diagonally along a road that is also diagonal through the scene. The same as the fact that the same effect is minimized when the movement is horizontal.

Essentially, in cinematography you have a few more compositional tools available to you. There are two classes of shots:

• Static camera with some elements moving on screen. Common example would be dialog shots.
• Moving camera with changing perspective. Common example would be panning shots across the scene.

The static camera cases can directly apply the rules of photographic composition, which we in turn stole from the art community. If you pay attention in most of the major films, you will rarely if ever see the speaking actor's head centered in the middle of the screen.

The moving cases will provide some new compositional rules to apply, but the basics don't change. In fact the static compositional guidelines provide a good framework to plan out moving camera shots before investing the film to see if they work out.

A couple more thoughts about cinematic composition: I've seen movies where the diagonal was used for the path of actors. For example battle scenes where two armies are clashing, and you can see the line of soldiers. In other words, the action can be placed on the "power lines" that we might use in static composition. The camera is still stationary, but the movement in the scene is more grand.

Also, when you consider musicals and dance movies, that is where all the cinematic composition stops get pulled out. We've all seen the aerial shot with the dancers making patterns on the dance floor. That's using the compositional technique of repeating shapes to lend more interest applied to moving objects.

What I'm getting at is that while we photographers have to capture everything in one shot and imply the sense of motion, cinematographers are not limited by that and can actually capture motion. The rules of composition can help with the staging and planning of the scenes. It's not uncommon for directors to take input from their top cinematographers, knowing that if it doesn't look good on film people won't watch it.