Mise -en -scene

Mise-en-scene in movies: setting, lighting, staging, acting, space, and time

Know these definitions:
     mise-en-scene (French: "place in the scene") means "all of the elements placed in front of the camera to be photographed"

Roger Ebert says, simply: "movement within the frame"   [What about sound?];
    diegesis: the world of the film's story [So how is this different from "mise-en-scene" and "narrative"?]  
    narrative: a chain of events in cause-effect relationship occurring in time and space
    plot: all of the events presented directly to us [How is this different from mise-en-scene? Because it is about events, not places.]
    story: the viewer's imaginary construction of all the events of the narrative; what we hear AND what we infer.

Classic example: Casablanca ("He's a smoker. . .")  A good example of mise-en-scene is the moment at the beginning of Casablanca when the character Rick Blain is introduced.  We see a receipt delivered to his hand, then we seen him sign his name to the receipt, then we see the table where is sitting (but not yet his face), which has an ashtray, an empty champaign glass, and a chessboard (he is playing both sides--no opponent).  Then the camera pans up to his face.







Credits as mise-en-scene:

Saul Bass (short video).  The graphic designer Saul Bass revolutionised the "credits" in film.  Before unions, when the number of names ballooned, one or two pages would list all the names, but as the number of names that had by agreement to be listed at the beginning of all movies got longer and longer, Saul Bass decided that that time should not go to waste, and the credits could introduce themes, and visual interest to the film.

Many Movies begin with the arrival of a powerful force:
(Big Country, Bad Day at Black Rock, The Deer Hunter).

In other words, the relative balance or equilibrium of the town or main character is about to be upset.  Remember how most narratives are structured in this way as well.  The credits can make this powerful force visual (and music also works to establish setting, genre, and to arouse expectations).

More examples of Mise-en-scene:

Rear Window (POV2), Butch Cassidy, Star Wars, Contact, Sons of Katie Elder, Amadeus, Otto e Mezzo, A trip to the Moon, The Color of Money, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Frankenstein.


Mise-en-scene means staging an action within the frame, according to Bordwell (Film Art, chapters 6 and 10).

Historically, it had to do with directing plays, and the term later became applied to film to express how the material in the frame is directed.

It signifies the director's control over what appears in the film frame.

As you would expect, Mise-en-scene includes aspects of film that overlap with the art of the theater: setting, lighting, costume, and the behaviour of the figures.

The director stages the event for the camera.

 Mise-en-scene is really the sum total of all the director's choices and accidents.

Most actions are controlled, but some are unplanned--like an approaching thunderstorm in the monument valley that director John Ford took advantage of in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.


Roman Holiday, with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn features a scene (The "Mouth of Truth") which was totally spontaneous .



 Mise-en-scene can also be broken up into small elements...

Setting:


The fictional and non-fictional setting of the film.  The director may use a "location" or construct the set, and these can be very elaborate.  Many directors seek authenticity, as in All the President's Men, where a complete duplicate of the newsroom of the Washington Post was constructed.  The West Wing built a totally new White House in LA, and part of the Roman Colosseum was built for Gladiator.  See also the elaborate constructed sets in Journey to the Centre of the Earth or  Cliffhanger.

Setting shapes how we see the action.

Props (property) is another aspect of setting:  Many examples would include the paper weight in Citizen Kane, the clocks in High Noon, the curtain in Psycho.

What are the most famous props in movie history?

When does a prop take on enough personality to become a character?  Examples?

Costume and Makeup:  See this transformation of Marlon Brando in The Godfather.





Makeup originally had a practical purpose.  Do you know what that was? [Film was not "panchromatic."]  Dark glasses in 8 1/2, broken glasses in Chinatown.  Makeup can aim at realism (Lawrence Olivier as Othello), or Edward Scissorhands, or The Fly.  Or the Mummy--several versions.  Frankenstein's monster.  Etc.  Can you give more examples of outstanding makeup?  The best makeup goes unnoticed!

Staging: movement and acting.  One can express emotion in movement and facial expression.  Well, duh.
How did they stage R2D2 and C3PO?

Space and time  How mise-en-scene creates and manipulates space and time.
Realism in mise-en-scene

The issue of "Realism" in film.  Realism is not so easy to define; it varies across times and cultures, and it blinds us to other possibilities.  There are many styles of film presentation (like the "expressionistic" style in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari--and it's imitator Frankenstein).  It is better to think about the function of mise-en-scene: which can be realism, but might be terror, comedy, beauty, or any other convention.

Méliès and the discovery of mise-en-scene: Georges Méliès, having watched the demonstration by the Lumiere brothers in 1895 of their short films, made a camera of his own.  Méliès was filming the Place de l'Opera. As a bus passed, his camera jammed. He quickly repaired it and carried on filming, although by now a hearse was passing the Place. Upon watching the film, it appeared as if the bus had "transformed" into a hearse.   So he prepared these effects in later films.   This demonstrated the power of mise-en-scene, something which was to enrapture Méliès for much of his life.  (watch DVD--if time).

The director can choose to set the film in a real environment to suggest the quality of a documentary--as in The Grapes of Wrath, which has a deliberate "Farm Security Administration" documentary look (see the famous photographs of the Dust Bowl by Dorthea Lange and Walker Evans), or in a constructed one--the studio set.

Although the human characters are (usually) the most important features in the setting and narrative, they are not the only features. The organization and manipulation of all objects in the frame are important, regardless of whether the film is shot on set or at a "real" location. Realism is a fairly grey area in setting, as it always has been, since its incarnation by the Lumière brothers.

Realism in mise-en-scene depends on an number of factors:
    Historical period.  What may have seen very realistic and innovative at the time, may seem stylistic and 'forced' if seen by future audiences.
    Personal attributes. The director may have certain ideas, altering the overall image and portrayal. One person's fact is another's fiction.
    Visual style. The objects can possess differing colors - not only to each other, but to themselves at different stages of the film.
        A character can dress with different colors, depending on her mood and feelings.
    Special effects.  Think of Jurassic Park, the computer-generated dinosaurs running amok around a real landscape.

More on setting and location in movies.

Choose a place where movies are made and discuss the role of that place in the total effect and meaning of the movies made there. Sometimes the setting is a huge part of the effect of the film, as in Lawrence of Arabia, and all Westerns--a film genre that is defined by setting, although many movies set elsewhere are really Westerns in disguise (or crypto-Westerns), like the Dirty Harry movies or Roadhouse.  Give more examples and discuss them.

Suggestions:
 
    The City and Cities:
        New York
        Paris
        Rome
        London
        Los Angeles/Hollywood/New York versus Hollywood
        San Francisco
        Inner cities
        Suburbia
        Farms
 
    Buildings as characters:
        Empire State Building (King Kong, Carey Grant movie (?), Sleepless in Seattle)
        The Statue of Liberty    
        The Del Coronado
        Mount Rushmore
           
    The West
        Monument Valley
        The Prairie
        Wilderness
        The road

    Sports arenas
    The sea/ships
    Trains
    The battlefield

    Imaginary Places:
        Space/outer space/other worlds
        Utopia/Distopia
        Airplanes
        The battlefield

    Exotic locations:
        The beach
        Islands
        Latin America
        Africa
        Arctic/Antarctic
        The Far East
        The Middle East/ the desert

Taken from:http://puffin.creighton.edu/fapa/Bruce/0New%20Film%20as%20Art%20webfiles/all%20texts%20and%20articles/mise%20en%20scene.htm