The 4 "P's" of Mise en Scene

Point of View - the perspective that the camera and director give us on a character, location, or object. Two common camera angles are the low angle (tilt-up) and the high angle (tilt down). Neither perspective is neutral nor does the implication of using such a shot help the audience construct meaning.

High angle - implies weakness, vulnerability, loss of power

Low angle - or tilt-up conveys power and authority

Posture - Posture or body language are key clues in reading a character's mood and reaction. Watch closely at the way that the character acts and reacts physically to others or the environment around them. This can give clues to how the character is dealing with inner struggles and may foreshadow upcoming events.

Example: arms and legs crossed suggest a restrained temperament, while arms out and in motion suggests a more impulsive disposition.

Props - When everyday items are shown from a privileged perspective, it serves as a message form the director "This is important; I am telling you something here!" Composing the frame to include props gives special attention to what might be overlooked in a wider context.

Position - Position refers to the placement within the frame in relationship to other elements. Examples…

Above or Below - placement of a character above or below (on a staircase or in a building) another character is a common positioning tool within a scene.

Personal Space - a tight space can make one feel claustrophobic while an open space can make one feel abandoned.

Fantasy theory and the mobile gaze

The concept of a more mobile gaze was explored by Elizabeth Cowie in her article 'Fantasia' (1984), in which she drew on Laplanche and Pontalis's influential essay of 1964, 'Fantasy and the Origins of Sexuality'. Laplanche and Pontalis established three original fantasies - original in that each fantasy explains an aspect of the 'origin' of the subject. The 'primal scene pictures the origin of the individual; fantasies of seduction, the origin and upsurge of sexuality; fantasies of castration, the origin of the difference between the sexes' (1964/ 1986:19). These fantasies - entertained by the child - explain or provide answers to three crucial questions: Who am I?' 'Why do I desire?' Why am I different?' The concept of primal fantasies is also much more fluid than the notion of fantasy permitted by apparatus theory, which inevitably and mechanistically returns to the Oedipal fantasy. The primal fantasies run through the individual's waking and sleeping life, through conscious and unconscious desires. Laplanche and Pontalis also argued that fantasy is a staging of desire, a form of mise-en-scène. Further, the position of the subject is not static in that positions of sexual identification are not fixed. The subject engaged in the activity of fantasizing can adopt multiple positions, identifying across gender, time, and space.

Cowie argued that the importance of fantasy as a setting, a scene, is crucial because it enables film to be viewed as fantasy, as representing the mise-en-scene of desire. Similarly, the film spectator is free to assume mobile, shifting modes of identification- as Cowie demonstrated in her analysis of Now Voyager (USA, 1942) and The Reckless Moment (USA, 1949). Fantasy theory has also been used productively in relation to science fiction and horror-genres in which evidence of the fantastic is particularly strong.

Pamela Church Gibson, Oxford University Press, 1998

The Oedipal heroine

Drawing on Freud's theory of the libido and the female Oedipal trajectory, feminists extended Mulvey's application of the theory to argue for a bisexual gaze. Perhaps the spectator did not identify in a monolithic, rigid manner with his or her gender counterpart, but actually alternated between masculine-active and feminine-passive positions, depending on the codes of identification at work in the film text.

In a reading of Hitchcock's Rebecca (USA, 1940), Tania Modleski (1982) argued that when the daughter goes through the Oedipus complex - although she gives up her original desire for her mother, whom she blames for not giving her a penis, and turns to the father as her love object - she never fully relinquishes her first love. Freud also argued that the girl child, unlike the boy, is predisposed towards bisexuality. The girl's love for the mother, although repressed, still exists. In Rebecca the unnamed heroine experiences great difficulty in moulding herself to appeal to the man's desire. When she most imagines she has achieved this aim, the narrative reveals that she is 'still attached to the "mother", still acting out the desire for the mother's approbation' (1982: 38). Recently, the notion of the female Oedipal trajectory has been invoked in a series of articles published in Screen (1995) on Jane Campion's The Piano (New Zealand, 1993), which suggests that these debates are still of great relevance to film theory.

Other work raised related issues. In The Desire to Desire (1987), Mary Ann Doane turned her attention to the 'woman's film' and the issue of female spectatorship. Janet Bergstrom, in 'Enunciation and Sexual Difference' (1979), questioned the premise that the spectator was male, while Annette Kuhn, in The Power of the Image (1985), explored cross-dressing, bisexuality, and the spectator in relation to the film Some Like it Hot (USA, 1959).

Pamela Church Gibson, Oxford University Press, 1998

Developments in psychoanalysis, feminism, and film

Mulvey's use of psychoanalytic theory to examine the way in which the patriarchal unconscious influenced film form led to heated debates and a plethora' of articles from post-structuralist feminists. Theorists such as Joan Copjec (1982), Jacqueline Rose (1980), and Constance Penley (1985) argued that apparatus theory, regardless of whether or not it took questions of gender into account, was part of a long tradition in Western thought whereby masculinity is positioned as the norm, thus denying the possibility of a place for woman. They argued that there was no space for the discussion of female spectatorship in apparatusbased theories of the cinema. Responses to Mulvey's theory of spectatorship followed four main lines: one approach was to examine the female Oedipal trajectory; another approach, known as fantasy theory, drew on Freud's theory of the primal scene to explore the possibility of a fluid, mobile or bisexual gaze; a third concentrated on the representation of masculinity and masochism; and a fourth approach, based on Julia Kristeva's (1986) theory of the 'abject maternal figure' and on Freud's theory of castration, argued that the image of the terrifying, overpowering woman in the horror film and suspense thriller unsettles prior notions of woman as the passive object of a castrating male gaze.

Pamela Church Gibson, Oxford University Press, 1998

Psychoanalysis, feminism, and film: Mulvey

Psychoanalytic film theorists, particularly feminists, were interested in the construction of the viewer in relation to questions of gender and sexual desire. Apparatus theory did not address gender at all. In assuming that the spectator was male, Metz examined desire in the context of the male Oedipal trajectory. In 1975 Laura Mulvey published a daring essay, 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema', which put female spectatorship on the agenda for all time. As Mulvey later admitted, the essay was deliberately and provocatively polemical. It established the psychoanalytic basis for a feminist theory of spectatorship which is still being debated. What Mulvey did was to redefine, in terms of gender, Metz's account of the cinema as an activity of disavowal and fetishization. Drawing on Freudian theories of scopophilia, castration, and fetishism, and Lacanian theories of the formation of subjectivity, Mulvey introduced gender into apparatus theory.

In her essay, Mulvey argued that in a world ordered by sexual imbalance the role of making things happen usually fell to the male protagonist, while the female star occupied a more passive position, functioning as an erotic object for the desiring look of the male. Woman signified image, a figure to be looked at, while man controlled the look. In other words, cinematic spectatorship is divided along gender lines. The cinema addressed itself to an ideal male spectator, and pleasure in looking was split

in terms of an active male gaze and a passive female image.

               Mulvey argued that in a world ordered by sexual imbalance the role of making

               things happen usually fell to the male protagonist, while the female star occupied

               a more passive position, functioning as an erotic object for the desiring

               look of the male. Woman signified image, a figure to be looked at, while man

               controlled the look.

She argued that, although the form and figure of woman was displayed for the enjoyment of the male protagonist, and, by extension, the male spectator in the cinema, the female form was also threatening because it invoked man's unconscious anxieties about sexual difference and castration. Either the male protagonist could deal with this threat (as in the films of Hitchcock) by subjecting woman to his sadistic gaze and punishing her for being different or he could deny her difference (as in the films of Joseph von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich) and fetishize her body by overvaluing a part of her body such as her legs or breasts. The narrative endings of films, which almost always punished the threatening woman, reinforced Mulvey's argument about the voyeuristic gaze, while the deployment of the close-up shot, which almost always fragmented parts of the female form for erotic contemplation, reinforced Mulvey's argument about the fetishistic look.

Whereas Freudian and Lacanian theory argued that the castration complex was a universal formation that explained the origins and perpetuation of patriarchy, Mulvey demonstrated in specific terms how the unconscious of patriarchal society organized its own signifying practices, such as film, to reinforce myths about women and to offer the male viewer pleasure. Within this system there is no place for woman. Her difference represents - to use what was fast becoming a notorious term - 'lack'. However, Mulvey did not hold up this system as universal and unchangeable. If, in order to represent a new language of desire, the filmmaker found it necessary to destroy pleasure, then this was the price that must be paid.

What of the female spectator? In a second article, 'Afterthoughts on "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" Inspired by King Vidor's Duel in the Sun (1946)'(1981), Mulvey took up the issue of the female spectator. Since the classic Hollywood text is so dependent upon the male Oedipal trajectory and male fantasies about woman to generate pleasure, how does the female spectator experience visual pleasure? To answer this question, Mulvey drew on Freud's theory of the libido, in which he asserted that 'there is only one libido, which performs both the masculine and feminine functions' (1981: 13). Thus, when the heroine on the screen is strong, resourceful, and phallic, it is because she has reverted to the pre-Oedipal phase. According to Freud, in the lives of some women, 'there is a repeated alternation between periods in which femininity and masculinity gain the upper hand' (quoted in Mulvey 1971: 15). Mulvey concluded that the female spectator either identifies with woman as object of the narrative and (male) gaze or may adopt a 'masculine' position. But, the female spectator's 'phantasy of masculinisation is always to some extent at cross-purposes with itself, restless in its transvestite clothes' (in Mulvey 1981: 15).

It is this aspect of her work that became most controversial amongst critics, such as D. N. Rodowick (1982), who argued that her approach was too reductive and that her analysis of the female character on the screen and female spectator in the auditorium did not allow for the possibility of female desire outside a phallocentric context. 

Pamela Church Gibson, Oxford University Press, 1998

Apparatus theory: Baudry and Metz

The notion of the cinema as an institution or apparatus is central to 1970s theory. However, it is crucial to understand that Baudry, Metz, and Mulvey did not simply mean that the cinema was like a machine. As Metz explained, 'The cinematic institution is not just the cinema industry... it is also the mental machinery - another industry - which spectators "accustomed to the cinema" have internalized historically and which has adapted them to the consumption of films' (1975/1982: 2). Thus the term 'cinematic apparatus' refers to both an industrial machine as well as a mental or psychic apparatus.

Jean-Louis Baudry was the first to draw on psychoanalytic theory to analyse the cinema as an institution. According to D. N. Rodowick, one 'cannot overestimate the impact of Baudry's work in this period' (1988: 89). Baudry's pioneering ideas were later developed by Metz, who, although critical of aspects of Baudry's theories, was in agreement with his main arguments. Baudry explored his ideas about the cinematic apparatus in two key essays. In the first, 'Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus' (1970), he argued that the cinema is ideological in that it creates an ideal, transcendental viewing subject. By this he meant that the cinema places the spectator, the 'eye-subject' (1986a: 290), at the centre of vision. Identification with the camera-projector, the seamless flow of images, narratives which restore equilibrium-all of these things give the spectator a sense of unity and control. The apparatus ensures 'the setting up of the mirror stage refers to the pre symbolic, the period when the infant is without language.

Nevertheless, Metz advocated the crucial importance of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory for the cinema and stressed the need to theorize the screen-spectator relationship- not just in the context of the Imaginary, but also in relation to the Symbolic. To address this issue, Metz introduced the notion of voyeurism. He argued that the viewing process is voyeuristic in that there is always a distance maintained, in the cinema, between the viewing subject and its object. The cinematic scene cannot return the spectator's gaze. Metz also introduced a further notion which became the subtitle of his book: the imaginary signifier. The cinema, he argued, makes present what is absent. The screen might offer images that suggest completeness, but this is purely imaginary. Because the spectator is aware that the offer of unity is only imaginary, he is forced to deal with a sense of lack that is an inescapable part of the viewing process.

Metz drew an analogy between this process and the experience of the (male) child in the mirror phase. (Metz assumes the spectator is male.) When the boy looks in the mirror and identifies for the first time with himself as a unified being he is also made aware of his difference from the mother. She lacks the penis he once thought she possessed. Entry into the Symbolic also involves repression of desire for the mother and the constitution of the unconscious in response to that repression. (Here, Lacan reworks Freud's theories of the phallus and castration.) Along with repression of desire for the mother comes the birth of desire: for the speaking subject now begins a lifelong search for the lost object - the other, the little 'o' of the Imaginary, the mother he relinquished in order to acquire a social identity.

As the child enters the Symbolic it acquires language. However, it must also succumb to the 'law of the father' (the laws of society) which governs the Symbolic order. Entry into the Symbolic is entry into law, language, and loss - concepts which are inextricably bound together. Thus, entry into the Symbolic entails an awareness of sexual difference and of the 'self' as fragmented. The very concept of 'I' entails lack and loss. 

When the boy mistakenly imagines his mother (sisters, woman) is castrated, his immediate response is to disavow what he has seen; he thinks she has been castrated, but he simultaneously knows that this is not true. Two courses of action are open to the boy. He can accept her difference and repress his desire for unification with the mother on the understanding that one day he will inherit a woman of his own. He can refuse to accept her difference and continue to believe that the mother is phallic. Rather than think of her lack, the fetishist will conjure up a reassuring image of another part of her body such as her breasts or her legs. He will also phallicize her body, imagining it in conjunction with phallic images such as long spiky high heels. Hence, film theorists have drawn on the theory of the phallic woman to explain the femme fatale of film noir (Double Indemnity, USA, 1944; Body Heat, USA, 1981; The Last Seduction, USA, 1994), who is depicted as dangerously phallic. E. Anne Kaplan's edited collection Women in Film Noir (1978) proved extremely influential in this context.

The Oedipal trajectory, Metz argued, is re-enacted in the cinema in relation not only to the Oedipal nature of narrative, but, most importantly, within the spectator screen relationship. Narrative is characteristically Oedipal in that it almost always contains a male protagonist who, after resolving a crisis and overcoming a 'lack', then comes to identify with the law of the father, while successfully containing or controlling the female figure, demystifying her threat, or achieving union with her. The concept of 'lack' is crucial to narrative in another context. According to the Russian Formalist Tzvetan Todorov, the aim of all narratives is to solve a riddle, to find an answer to an enigma, to fill a lack. All stories begin with a situation in which the status quo is upset and the hero or heroine must - in general terms - solve a problem in order for equilibrium to be restored. This approach sees the structures of narrative as being in the service of the subject's desire to overcome lack.

Pamela Church Gibson, Oxford University Press, 1998

1970s psychoanalytic theory and after

One of the major differences between pre- and post-1970s psychoanalytic theory was that the latter saw the cinema as an institution or an apparatus. Whereas early approaches, such as those of Tarratt, concentrated on the film text in relation to its hidden or repressed meanings, 1970s theory, as formulated by Jean-Louis Baudry, Christian Metz, and Laura Mulvey, emphasized the crucial importance of the cinema as an apparatus and as a signifying practice of ideology, the viewer-screen relationship, and the way in which the viewer was 'constructed' as transcendental during the spectatorial process.

Psychoanalytic film theory from the 1970s to the 1990s has travelled in at least four different, but related, directions. These should not be seen as linear progressions as they frequently overlap: The first stage was influenced by apparatus theory as proposed by Baudry and Metz. In an attempt to avoid the totalizing imperative of the structuralist approach, they drew on psychoanalysis as a way of widening their theoretical base. The second development was instituted by the feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, who contested aspects of the work of Baudry and Metz by rebutting the naturalization

of the filmic protagonist as an Oedipal hero, and the view of the screen-spectator relationship as a one-way process. The third stage involved a number of feminist responses to Mulvey's work. These did not all follow the same direction. In general, they included critical studies of the female Oedipal trajectory, masculinity and masochism, fantasy theory and spectatorship, and woman as active, sadistic monster. The fourth stage involves theorists who use psychoanalytic theory in conjunction with other critical approaches to the cinema as in post-colonial theory, queer theory, and body theory.

Pamela Church Gibson, Oxford University Press, 1998

Pre-1970s psychoanalytic film theory

One of the first artistic movements to draw on psychoanalysis was the Surrealist movement of the 1920s and 1930s. In their quest for new modes of experience that transgressed the boundaries between dream and reality, the Surrealists extolled the potential of the cinema. They were deeply influenced by Freud's theory of dreams and his concept of the unconscious. To them, the cinema, with its special techniques such as the dissolve, superimposition, and slow motion, correspond to the nature of dreaming.

André Breton, the founder of the movement, saw cinema as a way of entering the marvellous, that realm of love and liberation. Recent studies by writers such as Hal Foster (1993) argue that Surrealism was also bound up with darker forces - explicated by Freud - such as the death drive, the compulsion to repeat, and the uncanny. Certainly, the films of the greatest exponent of cinematic Surrealism, Luis Buñuel (Un chien andalou, France, 1928; The Exterminating Angel, Mexico, 1962; and That Obscure Object of Desire, France, 1977), explore the unconscious from this perspective. Not all theorists used Freud. Others drew on the ideas of Carl Gustav Jung, and particularly his theory of archetypes, to understand film. The archetype is an idea or image that has been central to human existence and inherited psychically from the species by the individual. Archetypes include: the shadow or the underside of consciousness; the anima, that is the feminine aspect in men; and the animus, orthe masculine aspect in women. But generally, Jungian theory has never been widely applied to the cinema. Apart from Clark Branson's Howard Hawks: A Jungian Study (1987) and

John Izod's The Films of Nicolas Roeg: Myth and Mind (1992), critical works consist mainly of articles, by authors such as Albert Benderson (1979), Royal S. Brown (1980), and Don Fredericksen (1980), which analyse archetypes in the film text. Writers of the 1970s who turned to Freud and Lacan - the two most influential psychoanalysts - were critical, however, of what they perceived to be an underlying essentialism in Jungian theory, that is a tendency to explain subjectivity in unchanging, universal terms.

Many of Freud's theories have been used in film theory: the unconscious; the return of the repressed; Oedipal drama; narcissism; castration; and hysteria. Possibly his most important contributions were his accounts of the unconscious, subjectivity, and sexuality. According to Freud, large parts of human thought remain unconscious; that is, the subject does not know about the content of certain troubling ideas and often much effort is needed to make them conscious. Undesirable thoughts will be repressed or kept from consciousness by the ego under the command of the super-ego, or conscience. In Freud's 4ew, repression is the key to understanding the neuroses. Repressed thoughts can manifest themselves in dreams, nightmares, slips of the tongue, and forms of artistic activity. These ideas have also influenced film study and some psychoanalytic critics explore the 'unconscious' of the film text - referred to as the 'subtext' - analysing it for repressed contents, perverse utterances, and evidence of the workings of desire.

Freud's notion of the formation of subjectivity is more complex. Two concepts are central: division and sexuality. The infantile ego is a divided entity. The ego refers to the child's sense of self; however, because the child, in its narcissistic phase, also takes itself, invests in itself, as the object of its own libidinal drives, the ego is both subject and object. The narcissistic ego is formed in its relationship to others. One of the earliest works influenced by Freud's theory of the double was Otto's Rank's 1925 classic The Double which was directly influenced by a famous movie of the day, The Student of Prague (Germany, 1913). In his later rewriting of Freud, Lacan took Freud's notion of the divided self as the basis of his theory of the formation of subjectivity in the mirror phase (see below), which was to exert a profound influence on film theory in the 1970s.

Sexuality becomes crucial during the child's Oedipus complex. Initially, the child exists in a two-way, or dyadic, relationship with the mother. But eventually, the child must leave the maternal haven and enter the domain of law and language. As a result of the appearance of a third figure - the father - in the child's life, the child gives up its love-desire for the mother. The dyadic relationship becomes triadic. This is the moment of the Oedipal crisis. The boy represses his feelings for the mother because he fears the father will punish him, possibly even castrate him - that is, make him like his

mother, whom he now realizes is not phallic. Prior to this moment the boy imagined the mother was just like himself. On the understanding that one day he will inherit a woman of his own, the boy represses his desire for the mother. This is what Freud describes as the moment of 'primal repression'; it ushers in the formation of the unconscious. The girl gives up her love for the mother, not because she fears castration (she has nothing to lose) but because she blames the mother for not giving her a penis-phallus. She realizes that only those who possess the phallus have power. Henceforth, she transfers her love to her father, and later to the man she will marry. But, as with the boy, her repressed desire can, at any time, surface, bringing with it a problematic relationship with the mother. The individual who is unable to come to terms with his or her proper gender role (activity for boys, passivity for girls) may become an hysteric; that is, repressed desires will manifest themselves as bodily or mental symptoms such as paralysis or amnesia. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (USA, 1960) and Marnie (USA, 1964) present powerful examples of what might happen to the boy and girl respectively if they fail to resolve the Oedipus complex.

Freud's theories were discussed most systematically in relation to the cinema after the post structuralist revolution in theory during the 1970s. In particulars writers applied the Oedipal trajectory to the narrative structures of classical film texts. They pointed to the fact that all narratives appeared to exhibit an Oedipal trajectory; that is, the (male) hero was confronted with a crisis in which he had to assert himself over another man (often a father figure) in order to achieve social recognition and win the woman. In this way, film was seen to represent the workings of patriarchal ideology. In an early two-part article, 'Monsters from the ID' (1970, 1971), which pre-dates the influences of poststructuralist criticism, Margaret Tarratt analysed the science fiction film. She argued that previous writers, apart from French critics, all view science fiction films as 'reflections of society's anxiety about its increasing technological prowess and its responsibility to control the gigantic forces of destruction it possesses' (Tarratt 1970: 38). Her aim was to demonstrate that the genre was 'deeply involved with concepts of Freudian psychoanalysis and seen in many cases to derive their structure from it' (38). In particular, science fiction explores the individual's repressed sexual desires, viewed as incompatible with civilized morality. Utilizing Freud's argument that whatever is repressed will return, Tarratt discusses Oedipal desire, castration anxiety, and violent sadistic male desire.

Source: Pamela Church Gibson, Oxford University Press, 1998

Film and psychoanalysis

Barbara Creed

Psychoanalysis and the cinema were born at the end of the nineteenth century. They share a common historical, social, and cultural background shaped by the forces of modernity. Theorists commonly explore how psychoanalysis, with its emphasis on the importance of desire in the life of the individual, has influenced the cinema. But the reverse is also true-the cinema may well have influenced psychoanalysis. Not only did Freud draw on cinematic terms to describe his theories, as in 'screen memories', but a number of his key ideas were developed in visual terms-particularly the theory of castration, which is dependent upon the shock registered by a close-up image of the female genitals. Further, as Freud (who loved Sherlock Holmes) was aware, his case histories unfold very much like popular mystery novels of the kind that were also adopted by the cinema from its inception.

The history of psychoanalytic film criticism is extremely complex-partly because it is long and uneven, partly because the theories are difficult, and partly because the evolution of psychoanalytic film theory after the 1970s cannot be understood without recourse to developments in separate, but related areas, such as Althusser's theory of ideology, semiotics, and feminist film theory. In the 1970s psychoanalysis became the key discipline called upon to explain a series of diverse concepts, from the way the cinema functioned as an apparatus to the nature of the screenspectator relationship.

Despite a critical reaction against psychoanalysis, in some quarters, in the 1980s and 1990s, it exerted such a profound influence that the nature and direction of film theory and criticism has been changed in irrevocable and fundamental ways.

Source: Pamela Church Gibson, Oxford University Press, 1998

The Basics of (Film) Aesthetics

In the mission statement of this blog, I indicated that I would be approaching the field of film criticism from the perspective of a particular school of aesthetics – Romantic Realism. But, in order to establish what is meant by “Romantic Realism”, to explain its principles, and to apply its methods of analysis, there is a little background work that must be done first. There is a hierarchy to the field of philosophy, and we can’t begin discussing Romantic Realism without first discussing aesthetics as a whole, particularly in the context of film. This is the purpose of my first post on aesthetics – to define precisely what is meant by that concept, and to provide a foundation on which we can build more nuanced ideas.

The first question that we will ask is, “what is aesthetics”? Aesthetics is a fancy word for, “The philosophy of art” and seeks to answer the questions pertaining to the definition of art, its role in man’s life, and by what standards works of art can be judged (if any). Different schools of aesthetics have different answers to these questions, and we will not delve into those at this primordial stage of our discussion, except to say that it is important to realize that a certain aesthetic perspective does not arise from a philosophical vacuum, but instead follows from more fundamental philosophical views. Hence, aesthetics is often related and dependent on other important ideas, which leads to these different perspectives on art, itself. These relationships can be very fun to explore, and may be the subject of future aesthetic posts.

While multiple schools of aesthetic thought exist, there are common concepts throughout the field that are fundamental. In all of art, whether a painting, poem, symphony or film, there are two fundamental aspects of a particular work that we can identify: what is shown, and how the artist shows it. The “what” is referred to as the “subject” and the “how” is known as the “style”. The forms on the painting, words of the poem, notes of the symphony, and what appears on screen in a film are the subject, respectively. No matter how definite or abstract, a piece of art must provide us with something to experience at the sensory level, and that which we experience is the subject. Distinct from the subject is the piece’s style, which comprises the many methods used by the artist to show us the subject. Obviously, a piece’s style is largely determined by its medium, and particular forms of art will be associated with particular styles. But, within particular media, there exist myriad stylistic choices which seek to have an effect on the audience and show the subject in a specific way. It is the harmony and interplay between subject and the style which produces the characteristics of a piece of art which generate passionate responses from an audience. The expertise of an artist is to unify a stylistic choice with the subject he wishes to portray and effect a unique message or statement.

Since this is a blog focused on the moving pictures, it is critical to enumerate the specific concepts in film used to generate both subject and style (although not exhaustively, obviously). In film, the subject is created through use of story-telling concepts like plot, characterization, and theme. Plot, as defined by Ayn Rand, is “a purposeful progression of logically connected events leading to the resolution of a climax.” (Basic Principles of Literature, The Romantic Manifesto, p82) Characterization involves the process of creating and displaying characters in the story – introducing us to the people who are important to the story and plot and showing us how they react to the events around them. And, finally, the theme of a work is its overall goal or focus; it deals with not what the film shows or how it shows it, but instead what it means to say – what its purpose is.

The style of a particular film is a little more difficult to sum up in such succinct terms, if only because while the concepts involved in generating a subject are fairly broad and limited, those detailing the style of a film are quite specific and numerous. Elements of a film’s style include, but are not limited to: cinematography (which has many sub-parts such as composition, aspect ratio, camera movement, black and white vs. color, etc), acting choices, direction, use of voice-over, method of story-telling and even the particular choices made in editing the film. Critically, it is the interaction between a film’s subject and style which provides us means for informed analysis.

Superficial analysis of a film often leads much to be desired, and while there is some value and merit to merely providing one’s opinion on the worth of film, a proper understanding of subject and style provides us a more objective approach to analysis. This process entails first identifying the subject of a film, especially its theme, and then analyzing how the particular aspects of style are used to express that subject. As a simple example, we could take Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List and his choice to shoot the film in black-and-white instead of color. In terms of the subject of this film, there is clearly much to say, but it will suffice to identify that the plot deals with Nazi concentration camps, many characters in the story are subjugated, and the theme directly pertains to the response of the human spirit in times of great horror and adversity. Given this subject, Spielberg’s decision to show his world in black-and-white has two effects relating to the subject: it creates a bleak, joyless world (the director himself has noted that he sees color as a symbol of happiness), and also establishes a stark contrast between the corrupt and the virtuous characters in the film. Hence, we see that a single stylistic choice portrays aspects of plot, characterization, and theme – and very effectively.

Films that are able to accomplish artistic feats such as these are deserving of our praise and admiration for uniquely utilizing the tools of its medium (style) to tell a compelling, important story (subject). When we analyze a film, it is important for us to look beyond whether or not we enjoyed it, and instead attempt to appreciate its artistic merits, and determine why it elicits that particular response. And, it is absolutely critical to realize that those are two distinct concepts: one may evaluate a film as “great” while simultaneously contending, “I didn’t really like it”. It is the focus of this blog to remark on each idea by providing both well-reasoned arguments and impassioned opinions on films.

Source: wiki, google

Mise-en-scène

The arrangement of everything that appears in the framing – actors, lighting, décor, props, and costume – is called mise-en-scène, a French term that means “placing on stage.” The frame and camerawork are also considered part of the mise-en-scène of a movie. In cinema, placing on the stage really means placing on the screen, and the director is in charge of deciding what goes where, when, and how.David  A. Cook, in his book A History of Narrative Film , points out how a mise-en-scène is formed by all the elements that appear “within the shot itself, as opposed to the effects created by cutting.” In other words, if it’s on the screen and if it’s a physical object recorded by the camera, then it’s part of the mise-en-scène.

From the craftsmen who build bookcases to the cinematographer who chooses where the lights will go, the mise-en-scène is the result of the collaboration of many professionals. Thus in the production environment, the director is more specific with his requests and orders. Is he talking to the prop master, the set designer, the actors, the make-up artists? All of them are part of different departments. But all of them, in the end, have influence in the mise-en-scène.

In the academic realm, the term mise-en-scène is often used when the overall look and feel of a movie is under discussion. Students taking Film Analysis courses should be quite familiar with the term.

Even though many professionals are involved in its creation, the director is the one who oversees the entire mise-en-scène and all of its elements. Not just that, but during the early stages of pre-production, the director or his AD sits down with set designers, prop masters, location managers, costume designers, and scenic artists to determine the look and feel intended.

In some instances, the mise-en- scène is designed to evoke emotions that permeate the whole movie. For example in the German expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), distorted shapes and claustrophobic scenery are implemented to disturb the audience and enhance the horror.

Mike Nichols’  The Graduate  (1967) has been praised by its amazing, colorful, and multi-layered visual design. For this reason, the following segments will shed light on many scenes from The Graduate but also from other pictures.

Set Design

The set design refers to the decor of the the set, or how it’s dressed, comprising mainly of the furniture, props, and the set itself. Instead of just placing objects here and there, the director must be savvy to fathom how these elements may bear significance in a deeper level, while also emphasizing themes, creating meanings, and provoking thoughts.

To illustrate: an early scene from The Graduate (1967) opens with a close-up of Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) alone on his bed. Behind him is a fish tank, which symbolically represents Ben’s entrapment in a life that he doesn’t want. Later in the movie, Ben finds himself at the bottom of a swimming pool, thus further elaborating on that concept.

The Production Designer is the professional responsible for building and dressing the set. She works with the Art Director, the Set Designer, and the Prop Master to create and add these physical elements to the filmic space. The Production Designer reports to the Director, and together they conceptualize the look of the film well before cameras start rolling.

In Rear Window  (1954), an enlarged photograph placed in the living room offers exposition on the accident that made L.B. Jeffries (James Stewart) handicap:

Lighting

Unarguably one of the film elements that has the greatest power to evoke emotions, lighting must be manipulated by the director to accommodate his or her desires for the movie. In broad terms, the two types of lighting approaches are: low-key lighting and high-key lighting.

High-key lighting is often seen in romantic comedies and musicals, encompassing an even lighting pattern and avoiding dark areas in the frame. Everything looks bright with little to no shadow at all. High-key lighting has little dramatic effect itself.

Low-key lighting is often seen in horror movies and thrillers, comprising of a lighting pattern that has both bright and dark areas in the frame. The chiaroscuro (Italian: bright-dark) technique, long used by painters, is characterized by strong contrast, often employed to unnerve the audience.

Note that this terminology is counter-intuitive as low-key lighting is high contrast and high-key lighting is low contrast.

Costume

The obvious purpose of costuming is to dress an actor according to his character. Lawyers wear suits, nurses wear scrubs, and a drifter could wear worn out shoes, ragged shirt, and baggy pants.

But, more than that, costuming can also be used to establish someone’s hierarchic level. Regimentals, for instance, bear the status of the person who wears it. And even the color may distinguish an enemy from a friend. In The Good, the Bad and the Ugly  (1966), a comic situation arises when Blondie (Clint Eastwood) heads toward the enemy cavalry that was covered in dust. When the enemy general dusts off his sleeve, his apparently gray uniform turns blue, making it obvious that our beloved protagonist was going into the shark’s mouth.

Costuming may also be used to emphasize a theme. In the first scene at the Taft Hotel in The Graduate, Mrs. Robinson wears a fur coat that makes her look like a predator hunting for her prey. Her coat bears a pattern that resembles the fur of a cheetah. Or could it be a cougar?

Location

In Witness  (1985), on the day after rejecting Rachel’s (Kelly McGillis) seduction, John Book (Harrison Ford) explains to her why nothing could have happened between them the night before. Quite conveniently, the confrontation takes place in a barn, while Rachel is collecting eggs. The location emphasizes Rachel’s responsibilities as a woman. If they had made love and Rachel gotten pregnant, she would have to carry the baby and eventually give birth. Also, during the conversation, John stands outside the barn, thus being physically separated from Rachel by the barn’s door. In this case, the door functions as a metaphor of the social and cultural barriers that keeps them a part.

The final confrontation in The Graduate takes place in a church. Ben tries to prevent Elaine (Katherine Ross) from getting married, but he arrives too late. Nonetheless, when Elaine sees him, she sprints to him, and they run away. When the couple is cornered by infuriated parents and relatives, Ben starts swinging a cross to avoid them. As they exit, Ben uses the cross to hold the church’s doors shut.

The prop (cross) and location (church) offer a comment on religious institutions, perhaps implying that Elaine’s parents are trapped by traditional believes and practices.

For the Future Directors, With Love

As you know, the director on a set has final word on all the creative elements, which means many of your crew members will stop you and ask for approval on this or that: Is the blond wig okay? Can we shoot on top of the building? Can we place the sofa under the window? Where’s is the restroom?

Some of these questions may or may not be the questions you are willing to answer at the time, but remember: everyone is just doing their job. The important thing is to not get overwhelmed and snap at your crew. They are all there for you, working on your film.

If you are on an well-oiled set, your Assistant Director (AD) will be the last barrier before people get to you. He or she will try to answer as many questions for you as they can. And if your AD doesn’t know the answer, at least he or she will be able to prioritize and let you know what needs immediate attention.

Source wiki, google