Is it possible to acheive the same kind of focus depth with a camcorder like you get with film?

What I mean is that with a camcorder if one person is stood right behind another you would really only be able to focus on both of them where as in a film camera you are able to focus clearly on the front person and the person behind would be more out of focus.

This may be something to do with lenses and if so does anyone have an answer?

Sorry if I've not explained this very well, but it's kind of an odd question.