Middle School Media
The best thing @ St Andrews
Mise-en-scene
Mise-en-scène explains why feature films are packed with information and every shot looks so rich in meaning. The expression is French for ‘put in the scene or frame’ and refers to all the visual details a filmmaker can include in the screen image. Although the term is widely used, it is of relatively recent origin. French film critics coined it during the French New Wave of the 1950s. They saw mise-en-scène as a unique mode of expression for an auteur (author/director).
Mise-en-scène is the film’s way of communicating a mass of information and is equivalent to the descriptive passages in a novel — that is, everything in the novel except the spoken dialogue. One way to think of mise- en-scène is to imagine a still image from a feature film. If you sat down and pored over this image, extracting every bit of meaning from it and noting every detail, then you would be analysing the mise-en-scène. You would be studying every prop, every detail of furniture and every aspect of costume. As you did so, it would probably also become clear to you that almost nothing is in that image by chance. It was all put there!
The main elements of mise-en-scène are setting, costume and make-up, acting and lighting. It is best to consider mise-en-scène as being what the director has control over. This would normally exclude the script, for example.
Setting
The setting establishes the place and time of the nar- rative. According to film theorist André Bazin, setting is much more important in television and film than it is in theatre. Theatre, he argues, is all about human beings. ‘The drama on the screen can exist without actors. A banging door, a leaf in the wind, waves beating on the shore can heighten the dramatic effect.’
Settings can be either natural or specially con- structed for the purpose. From the setting the audience can construct an array of meanings about the story, the characters and the genre. For instance, a Monument Valley setting immediately conjures up the western genre.
In the mise-en-scène, the décor and props are also considered part of the setting. In Psycho, both props and décor become motifs. A motif is a recurring element or theme that is important in the narrative. The shower curtain starts as décor but its repeated appearance makes it a motif. The newspaper initially is just a prop but then it too is used in the narrative as a motif.
Costume and make-up
Costumes and make-up work in a similar way to setting in providing information about the place and time of the narrative. Like setting, they can also be realistic or completely stylised and artificial. An example of a film with highly stylised make-up and costume is the German expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919).
Costumes and make-up are also important in the development of character. Costume changes can indicate mood changes or changes in status of the characters. For instance, in The Godfather (1972) both costume and make-up are used to show the aging of Don Corleone.
Acting
The director has considerable input into the acting in a film. Therefore acting is considered a part of the mise-en-scène. Acting is made up of body language, physical appearance and facial expressions, and the sound element of voice. Acting for television or film is very different from acting in the theatre, say film aca- demics David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson. Facial expression is much more important on the screen than it is on the stage because of the use of the camera close-up. But it is also true that we can be much further away from an actor in a movie — even to the point where they are just a dot in the landscape.
