9 parts, read articles ask a question for each part, 1-5 sentence/part

The Shot: Mise-en-Scene

f all the techniques of cinema, mise-en-scene is the one with which we are most familiar. After seeing a film, we may not recall the cutting or the cam- era movements, the dissolves or the offscreen sound. But we do remember

the costumes rn Gone with the Wind and the bleak, chilly lighting in Charles Foster Kane's Xanadu. We retain vivid impressions of the misty streets in The Big Sleep and the labyrinthine, fluorescent-lit lair of Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. We recall Harpo Marx clambering over Edgar Kennedy's peanut wa-gon (Duck Soup), Katharine Hepburn defiantly splintering Cary Grant's -eolf clubs (The Philadelphia Ston), and Michael J. Fox escaping hi-eh-school bullies on an impro- vised skateboard (Back to the Future).In short, many of our most sharply' etched memories of the cinema turn out to center on mise-en-scene.

\7hat Is Mise-erl-Scene ? In the original French, mise en sc\ne (pronounced meez-ahn-sen) means "putting into the scene;' and it was first applied to the practice of directing plays. Film schol- ars, extending the term to film direction, use the term to signify the director's con- trol over what appears in the film frame. As you would expect, mise-en-scene includes those aspects of film that overlap with the art of the theater: setting, light- ing, costume, and the behavior of the figures. In controlling the mise-en-scene, the director stages the event for the camera.

Mise-en-scene usually involves some planning, but the filmmaker may be open to unplanned events as well. An actor may add a line on the set, or an unexpected change in lighting may enhanc e a dramatic effect. While filming a cavalry proces- sion through Monument Valley for Sh e Wore a Yellow Ribbon, John Ford took ad- vantage of an approaching lightning storm to create a dramatic backdrop for the action (4.1). The storm remains part of the film's mise-en-scene even though Ford neither planned it nor controlled it; it was a lucky accident that helped create one of the film's most affecting passages. Jean Renoir, Robert Altman, and other directors have allowed their actors to improvise their performances, making the films' mise-en- scene more spontaneous and unpredictable.

rt7

4.1 She Wore a Yellow Ribbon' a thunderstorm in Monument Valley.

Realism Before we analyze mise-en-scene in detail, one preconception must be brought to light. Just as viewers often remember this or that bit of mise-en-scene from a film, so they often judge mise-en-scene by standards of realism. A car may seem to be realistic for the period the film depicts, or a gesture may not seem realistic because "real people don't act that way."

Realism as a standard of value, however, raises several problems. Notions of realism varv across cultures, over time, and even among individuals. Marlon Brando's acclaimed realist performance in the 1954 film On the Waterfrorlr looks st1 lized today. American critics of the 1910s praisedWilliam S. Hart'sWesterns for bein'e realistic, but equally enthusiastic French critics of the 1920s considered the same films to be as artificial as a medieval epic. Most important, to insist rigidly on realism for all films can blind us to the vast range of mise-en-scene possibilities.

Look, for instance, at the frame from The Cabinet of Dn Caligari (4.2). Such a depiction of rooftops certainly does not accord with our conception of normal re- ality. Yet to condemn the film for lacking realism would be inappropriate, because the film uses stylization to present a madman's fantasy. The Cabinet of Dn Caligari borrows conventions of Expressionist painting and theater, and then assigns them the function of su-ggesting the madman's delusion.

It is best. then, to examine the functions of mise-en-scene in the films we see. While one film might use mise-en-scene to create an impression of realism, others might seek very different effects: comic exaggeration, supernatural terror, under- stated beauty, and any number of other functions. We should analyze mise-en- scene's function in the total film-how it is motivated, how it varies or develops, how it works in relation to other film techniques.

The Power of Mise-en-Scene Confining the cinema to some notion of realism would impoverish mise-en-scene. This technique has the power to transcend normal conceptions of reality, as we can see from a glance at the cinema's first master of the technique, Georges M6lids. M6lids's mise-en-scene enabled him to create a totally imaginary world on film.

A caricaturist and magician, Mdlids became fascinated by the Lumibre broth- ers'demonstration of their short films in 1895. (For more on the Lumidres, see pp. 182-1 83.) After building a camera based on an English projector, M6lids be- gan filming unstaged street scenes and moments of passing daily life. One day,

The Power of Mise-en-Scene 113

4.2 An Expressionist rooftop scene created from jagged peaks and slanted chimneys in The Cctbinet of Dn Caligari.

rr4 CHAPTER 4 The Shot: Mise-en-Scene

"When Bunuel was preparing The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, he chose a tree-lined avenue for the recurring shot of his characters

' :in' I' ; :,0 ::: ::,!;-; ;' J ! i,, open country and it perfectly suggested the idea of these people coming from nowhere and going

nowhere. Bufiuel's assistant said, 'You

can't use that road. lt's been used in at least ten other movies.' 'Ten other movies?' said Buituel, impressed. 'Then it must be good."'

4.1 Georges M6lids's desi-en for the rocket-launchin._q scene in A Trip to the Moon and...

4.5 The Merntoicl created an undersea world by placing a fish tank between the camera and an actress, some backdrops, and "carts for monsters."

the story goes, he was filming at the Place de I'Op6ra, and his camera jammed as a bus was passing. After some tinkering, he was able to resume filming, but by this time, the bus had gone and a hearse was passing in front of his lens. When M6libs screened the film, he discovered something unexpected: a moving bus seemed to transform instantly into a hearse. Whether or not the anecdote is true, it at least illustrates Mdlids's recognition of the magical powers of mise-en-scene. He would devote most of his efforts to cinematic conjuring.

To do so wollld require preparation, since M6lids could not count on lucky ac- cidents like the bus-hearse transformation. He would have to plan and stage action for the camera. Drawing on his experience in theater, M6lids built one of the first film studios -a

small, crammed affair bristling with theatrical machinery, bal- conies, trapdoors, and sliding backdrops. He sketched shots beforehand and de- signed sets and costumes. The correspondence between his detailed drawings and the finished shots is illustrated in 4.3 and 4.4. As if this were not enough, M6lids starred in his own films (often in several roles per film). His desire to create magi- cal effects led Mdlibs to control every aspect of his films' mise-en-scene.

Such control was necessary to crcate the fantasy world he envisioned. Only in a stu- dio could M6lids produce The Mennaid (4.5). He could also sulround hirnself (playin-e an astronomer) with a gigantic amay of caftoonish cut-outs in kt Lune (1 tut nfttre (4.6).

4.4 the scene in the fihn.

4.5 The telescope,, globe, and blackboard are all flat, painted cnt-onts tn Lo Lurte ci urte nfttre.

Aspecrs of Mise-en-Scene

4.7 L'Arroseur arrosd.

4.9 Gennatty Yeor Zerc.

115

M6libs's "Star-Film" studio made hundreds of short fantasy and trick films based on such a control over every element in the frame, and the first master of mise-en-scene demonstrated the great range of technical possibilities it offers. The legacy of M6lids's magic is a delightfully unreal world wholly obedient to the whims of the imagination.

Arpects of Mise-eo-Scene What possibilities for selection and control does mise-en-scene offer the filmmaker? We can mark out four general areas: setting, costumes and makeup, lighting, and stagrng.

Setting Since the earliest days of cineffi&, critics and audiences have understood that setting plays a mol€ active role in cinema than it usnally does in the theater. Andr6 Bazin writes,

The human being is all-important in the theatre. The drama on the screen can exist with- out actors. A ban-ein-e door. a leaf in the wind, waves beatin.,g on the shore can heighten the dramatic effect. Some film masterpieces use man only as an accessory, like an ex- tra. or in counterpoint to nature, which is the true leading character.

Cinema setting can come to the forefront; it need not be only a container for human events but can dynamically enter the narrative action. (See 4.124, 4.127, 6.114, 6.124.6.125. 8.135, and 8.136 for examples of settings without characters.)

The filmrnaker may control settin-e in many ways. One way is to select an already existin-e locale in which to sta-ee the action, a practice stretching back to the earliest films. Louis Lumidre shot his short comedy L'Arroseur arrosd ("The Wa- tererWatered." 4.7 ) in a garden, and Jean-Luc Godard filmed the exteriors for Con- tentpt on the resort island of Capri, off the coast of Italy (4.8). At the close of World War II. Roberto Rossellini shot Germany Year Zero in the rubble of Berlin (4.9). To- da)' filmnrakers often -qo on location to shoot.

Alternatively, the filmmaker may construct the setting. M6libs understood that shooting in a studio increased his control, and many filmmakers followed his lead. In France, Germany, and especially the United States, the possibility of creating a wholly artificial world on film led to several approaches to setting.

Some directors have emphasized authenticity. For example, Erich von Stro- heim prided himself on meticr"rlous research into details of locale for Greecl (4.10). All the Presiclent's Mert (1976) took a similar tack, seeking to duplicate the Wash- irtgtort Post office on a soundstage (4.11). Even wastepaper from the actual office

4.8 The filmmakers constructed none of the character placement and framing turn it into a

setting in this shot from Contentpf, but control of nearly abstract composition.

116 CHAPTER 4 The Sl-rot: Mise-eu-Scene

4.10 Details like han-ein-e flypaper and posters create a tavern scene tn Greecl.

412 The Babylonian seqLlences of Intolerctn('e conbined influences from Assyrian history, 19th-century biblical illustration, and modern dance.

4.ll Replicatin-9 an etctt-titl newsroonr in A ll tlrc Pre.siclent's Mert.

4.13 In lyurt the Ten'ible, Part 2, the decor merkes the characters seem to wri-9.-9le from one space to another.

4.15 ln Brant Stoket"s Drac'ulu, apart from the candles, the settin-e of this scene has been obliterated by darkness.

4.14 ln Wings o.f Desire, busy, colorful attention away from the man lyin-e on the

graffiti on a wall draw gror"rnd.

Aspects of Mise-en-Scene IT7

was scattered around the set. Other films have been less committed to historical ac- curacy. Though D. W. Griffith studied the various historical periods presented rn In- tolerance, his Babylon constitutes a personal image of that city (4.12). Similarly, in Ivan the Terrible, Sergei Eisenstein freely stylized the decor of the czar's palace to harmonize with the lighting, costume, and figure movement, so that characters crawl through doorways that resemble mouseholes and stand frozen before alle- gorical murals (4.13).

Setting can overwhelm the actors, as in Wim Wender's Wings of Desire (4.14),, or it can be reduced to nothing, as in Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (4.15).

The overall design of a setting can shape how we understand story action. In Louis Feuillade's silent crime serial The Vampires, & criminal gang has killed a courier on his way to a bank. The gang's confederate, Irma Vep, is also a bank employee, and just as she tells her superior that the courier has vanished, an imposter, in beard and bowler hat, strolls in behind them (4.16). They turn away from us in surprise as he comes for- ward (4.17). Working in a period when cutting to closer shots was rare in a French film, Feuillade draws our attention to the man by centering him in the doorway.

Something similar happens in a more crowded setting in Juzo Itami'sTampopo. The plot revolves aroLlnd a widow who is trying to improve the food and service she offers in her restaurant. In one scene, a truck driver (in a cowboy hat) helps her by takin.-e her to another noodle shop to study technique. Itami has staged the scene so that the kitchen and the counter serve as two arenas for the action. At first, the widow watches the noodle-man take orders, sitting by her mentor on the edge of the kitchen (4.18). Quickly, the counter fills with customers calling out orders. The truck driver challen_ses her to match the orders with the customers, and she steps closer to the cen- ter of the kitchen (4.19). After she calls out the orders correctly, she turns her back to us. and our interest shifts to the customers at the counter, who applaud her (4.20).

As the Tantpopo example showS, color can be an important component of set- tin-es. The dark colors of the kitchen surfaces make the widow's red dress stand out. Robert Bresson's L'Argent creates parallels among its various settings by the recur- rence of drab sreen back..grounds and cold blue props and costumes (4.21-4.23). In contrast, JacqLles Tati's P/al Time displays sharply changing color schemes. In the first portion of Plat, Tirrte, the settings and costumes are mostly gray, brown, and black-cold, steely colors. Later in the film, however, beginning in the restaurant scene, the settings start to sport cheery reds, pinks, and greens. This change in the settin,_9s' colors supports a narrative development that shows an inhuman city land- scape that is transformed by vitality and spontaneity.

A full-size settin-e need not always be built. Through much of the history of the cinema, filmmakers used miniature buildings to create fantasy scenes or simply to economtze. Parts of settin-qs could also be rendered as paintings and combined pho- to-eraphically with full-sized sections of the space. Now, digital special effects are used to fill in portions of the setting, such as cities in The Phantom Menoce and The Frfth Elenrcrt (4.24). Since such special effects also involve cinematography, we look at them in the next chapter.

In manipulating a shot's setting, the filmmaker may create props-short for propet'ru This is another term borrowed from theatrical mise-en-scene. When an ob- ject in the setting has a function within the ongoing action, we can call it a prop. Films teem with examples: the snowstorm paperweight that shatters at the beginning of Citizen Kane, the little girl's balloonin M, the cactus rose in The ManWho Shot Liberty Valonce, Sarah Connor's hospital bed turned exercise machine in krmina- tor 2: Judgrnent Day. Comedies teem with props used for humorous purposes (4.25).

In the course of a narrative, a prop may become a motif. The shower curtain in Psycho is at first an innocuous part of the setting, but when the killer enters the bathrooffi, the curtain screens her from our sight. Later, after the murder, Norman Bates uses the curtain to wrap up the victim's body.

Alexander Payne created a story motif by repeating one type of prop in Elec- tion. The fussy, frustrated high-school teacher begins his day by cleaning out the

4.16 In Les fiame created

Vctmpires, a background byalargedoorway...

4.17 . . . emphasizes the importance of an entering character.

',, "Th€ best sets are the simplest, most 'decent' ones; everything should

, cotltribute to the feeling of the story , and anything that does not do this ' has no place. Reality is usually too ' complicated. Real locations contain , too much that is extreme or

contradictory and always require some simplifying: taking things away, unifying colors, etc. This strength

' through simplicity is much easier to achieve on a built set than in an existing location."

- Stuart Craig, art director, Notting Hill

118 CHAPTER 4 The Shot: Mise-en-Scene

4.18 In kunl)opo, at the start of the scene. the noodle cor-rnter, with orrly two custorners. occr-rpies the center of the action. The widow and her trr"rck driver mentor stand inconspiciously at the lefi.

4.2O When she has triumphantly rnatched the orders, she ,gets il round of applaLlse. By turnin-e her erwery from us, Itarmi once nrore eurpharsizes the counter alea, now filled with customers.

419 Afier the counter is full. the drauratic enrphasis shifis to the kitchen when the widow rises and takes the challenge to nalne the customel s' orciers. Her recl dress helps draw attention to her.

4.21 Color links the home in L'Argent .

. . and later to the prison.

afterward, he picks up hallway litter (4.27). At a he decides to conceal a decisive ballot, which he a wastebasket (4.28). Payne calls this the rnotif of since that's in fact the climax of the film. . So

4.21

facnlty refrigerator (4.26). Soon major turning point in the plot, crllmples and secretly drops into trash, "of throwing things away, we establish it early on."

When the filmmaker uses color to create parallels among elements of setting, a color motif may become associated with several props, ?S in Souleymane Ciss6's

4.22 to the school

Aspccts of Mise-crr-Sccne 119

4.24 Tlte Fi.fih Elemerrl creates a collagelike city using computer graphics to join images from various sorlrces.

4.25 The irresponsible protagonist of Grounclhog Duy eats an enormous breakfast made up of props that dominate the foreground of the diner setting.

Finye (Tlte Wincl, 4.29-4.31). In these and other scenes, the recLlrrent use of orange creates a cluster of nature motifs within the narrative. Later in this chapter, we shall examine in more detail how elements of setting can weave through a film to form motifs within the narrative.

Costume and Makeup Like setting, costume can have specific functions in the total film, and the range of pos- sibilities is huge. Erich von Stroheim, for instance, was as passionately committed to authenticity of dress as of setting, and he was said to have created underwear that would instill the proper mood in his actors even though it was never to be seen in the fihn. In Griffith'sThe Birth of a Nation, apoignant moment occurs when the Little Sisterdec- orates her dress with "ermine" made of cotton dotted with spots of soot (4.32). The costume displays the poverty of the defeated Southemers at the end of the Civil War.

In other films, costumes may be quite stylized, calling attention to their purely graphic qualities. Throughout lvan the Terrible, costumes are carefully orchestrated with one another in their colors, their textures, and even their movements. One shot of Ivan and his advers ary gives their robes a plastic sweep and dynamism (4.33). In Freak Orlanclo, tllrike Ottinger (herself a costume designer) boldly

t70 CHAPTER 4 The Sl-rot: Mise-en-Sceue

4.26 In Elec'tiort, as he discards spoiled leftovers, the teacher is suspicior-rsly watched by the custodian-who will play an important role in his downtall.

4.27 He tosses a scrap of paper into the corridor trash bin.

4.28 A close-up of the teacher's hand discarding the crucial vote for student council president.

4.29 Firtye begins with a woman carrying an oran-qe calabash as the wind rustles through weeds.

4.31 At the errcl. the little boy passes his bowl to someone offscreen-llossiblr the colrple seen earlier.

4.33 The sweepin-e folds of a priest's li-ghtwei_uht black robe contrast with the heavy cloak ancl train of the czar's finery in Ivan the Tert'ible .

As/recrs rf Misc-ctr-Scorc

4.30 Later, the vengeful -grandfather prepares to stalk his grandson's persecutor by dressin.e in oran-ge and nrakin-9 ma-uic before a fire.

4.32 In The Birth qf u ltlutiort, the Little Sister realizes how shabby her dress remains despite her attempts to add festive trtntmtn_9.

tzr

4.14 Stylized costumes in Frectk Orlanclo.

r27 CHAPTER 4 The Shot: Mise-en-Scene

4.36 Hildv's stylish hut with u low- dipping hrinr worn c-ar'lv in Hi,s Girl Fridn\'...

4.37 . . . is rcpllrcccl hv ir "nrascr.rline" hat with its hrin'l puslrr'cl up..journalist- stvlr-. when she re-trrnrs to work.

4.35 ln Bt/z, sun-glasses shield Marcello from the world.

uses costLlmes to display the spectrum's primary colors in maximLrm intensit\/ (4.34).

Costumes can play important motivic and callsal roles in narratives. The film director Guido in Fellini's B1/z persistently uses his derrk -elasses to shield himself from the world (4.35). To think of Dracula is to recall how his billowing cape en- wraps his victims. When Hildy Johnson, in His Girl Fridav su,itches from her role of aspiring housewife to that of reporter, her hats chan-ee as well (4.36, 4.37). In the rLrnaway bus section of Speecl, during a phone conversation w'ith Jack, the villain Howard refers to Annie as a "Wildcat"; Jack sees Annie's University of Arizona sweater and realizes that Howard has hidden a video canreril aboard the bus. A cos- tume provides the clue that allows Jack to outwit Howard.

As we have already seen in Tarnpopo and L'Argert (p. 118). costume is often coordinated with settin-{. Since the filmmaker r"rsually wants to emphasize the hu- man figures, settin.-q may provide a more or less neutral background, while costllme lrelps pick out the characters. Color desi..en is particularly important here. The Freuk Orlando costumes (4.34) stand out boldly against the neutral gray background of an artificial lake. In The Night of the Shooting Sturs, luminous wheat fields set off the hard black-and-bh"re costumes of the fascists and the pearsants (4.38). The di- rector may instead choose to match the color values of settin-e and costume more closely. One shot in Fellini's Casanovo creates a color -eradation that rLlns frorn bri,_eht red costumes to paler red walls, the whole composition capped by a small white accent (4.39). This "bleeding" of the costume into the setting is carried to a kind of limit in the prison scene of THX I l38, in which George Lucas strips both locale and clothing to stark white on white (4.40).

Ken Russell's Wornen in Love affords a clear example of how costume and set- tin-g can contribute to a film's overall narrative progression. The opening scenes portray the characters' shallow middle-class life by means of saturated primary and complementary colors in costume and setting (4.41).In the middle portions of the film, as the characters discover love on a country estate, pale pastels predorninate (4.42). The last section of Wornen irt Love takes place around the Matterhorn, and the characters'ardor has cooled. Now the colors have become even paler, domi- nated by pure black and white (4.43). By integratin..q with settin_e, costume may function to reinforce narrative and thematic patterns.

Many of these points about costume apply equally to a closely related area of mise-en-scene, the actors' makeup. Makeup wers originally necessary because ac- tors' faces would not register well on early film stocks. Up to the present, it has been used in variolls ways to enhAnce the appearance of actors on the screen. Over

4.38 The clirnactic skirrnish of The Niglt o.f'the Shootirtg, S/cr'.r.

Aspecs rf Mise-err-Scene r23

4.39 Casartoln.' subtle color gradations and a drarnatic accent in the distance.

4.41 Bri-eht colors in an early scene of Wtrtten irt Loye -give way . . .

4.40 Heads seem to settings Lrlend in THX

float in space as white costnmes and II38.

4.42 fields . .

to the softer hues t-lf tree's arnd 4.43 . . . and finally to a predominantly white-ancl-bIack schente.

4.45 In lyart tlte Terrible, Parrt l. nrarkeup shapes the eyebrows and hollolvs the eye sockets to empharsize lveln's plercrng gaze.

4,44 Li-uht, blank back-{rouncls focus attention on the actors' faces in many shots of La Pus.siott tle Jeurtrte cl'Arc.

rz4 CHAPTER 4 The Shot: Mise-en-Scene

4.46 ln Heot, Al Pacino's eyebrows and, with the help under his eyes.

maker-rp gives him sli-ehtly of the lighting, minimizes

the course of film history, a wide range of possibilities has emerged. Dreyer's La Passion cle Jeanne d'Arc was famous for its complete avoidance of makeup (4.44). This film relied on close-ups and tiny facial changes to create an intense religious drama. On the other hand, Nikolai Cherkasov did not look particularly like Eisenstein's conception of Czar Ivan IV so he wore a wig and false beard, nose, and eyebrows for lvan the Terrible (4.45). Changing actors to look like historical personages has been one common function of makeup.

Today makeup usually tries to pass unnoticed, but it also accentuates expres- sive qualities of the actor's face. Since the camera may record cruel details that would pass unnoticed in ordinary life, any unsuitable blemishes, wrinkles, and sagging skin will have to be hidden. The makeup artist can sculpt the face, making it seem narrower or broader by applying blush and shadow. Viewers expect that fe- male performers will wear lipstick and other cosmetics, but the male actors are of- ten wearing makeup, too (4.46, 4.47).

Film actors rely on their eyes to a very great extent (see box, p. 134), and makeup artists can often enhance eye behavior. Eyeliner and mascara can draw at- tention to the eyes and emphasize the direction of a glance. Nearly every actor will also have expressively shaped eyebrows. Lengthened eyebrows can enlarge the face, while shorter brows make it seem more compact. Eyebrows plucked in a slightly ris- ing curve add gaiety to the face, while slightly sloping ones hint at sadness. Thick, straight brows, commonly applied to men, reinforce the impression of a hard, seri- ous gaze. Thus eye makeup can assist the actor's performance (4.481 4.49).

In recent decades, the craft of makeup has developed in response to the popll- larity of horror and science fiction genres. Rubber and plasticine compounds create bumps, bulges, extra organs, and layers of artificial skin in such films as David Cro- nenberg's The Fly (4.50). In such contexts, makeup, like costume. becones impor- tant in creating character traits or motivating plot action.

Lighting Much of the impact of an image comes from its manipulation of lighting. In cin- ema, lighting is more than just illumination that permits us to see the action. Lighter and darker areas within the frame help create the overall composition of each shot and thus guide our attention to certain objects and actions. A bri-ehtly illuminated patch may draw our eye to a key gesture, while a shadow may conceal a detail or build up suspense about what may be present. Lighting can also articulate textures: the curve of a face, the grain of a piece of wood, the tracery of a spider's web, the sheen of glass, the sparkle of a gem.

4.47 In The Goclfather Part III, made five years before Heat, Pacino looks older. Not only has his hair been whitened, but the makeup, again assisted by the lighting, gives him more sunken and baggy eyes, more hollow cheeks, and a longer, flatter chin.

rounded

the bags

Aspecrs of Mise-en-Sccne

4.50 Jeff Goldblum, nearly Llnrecognizable under .-grotesque makeLlp, during his transforrnartion into Tlte Fly.

4.51 ln The Cheat, Cecil B. DeMille suggested a jail cell by castin-9 a bri-uht light on a man's face and body throu-eh Llnseen barrs.

4.52 Robert Bresson's P icklxtcket.

r75

4.48 In Speerl, Sandra Bullock's eyeliner, shadow, and arched brows make her eyes vivid and -9ive her an alert expression.

4.49 For the sal-ne scene. the eyeliner on Keanu Reeves makes the upper edges of his eyes stand out. Note also the somewhat fierce curve of the eyebrows, accentuating his slight frown.

Li,_ehtin._s shapes objects by creating highlights and shadows. A highlight is a patch of relative brightness on a surface. The man's face in 4.51 and the edge of the fingers in 4.52 display highlights. Highlights provide impor-tant cues to the texture of the sur- face. If the surface is srnooth, like glass or chroffie, the highlights tend to gleam or sparkle; a rougher surface, like a coarse stone facing, yields more diffuse highlights.

There are two basic types of shadows, each of which is important in film com- position: attached shadows, or shading, and cast shadows. An attached shadow oc- curs when li.-qht fails to illuminate part of an object because of the object's shape or surface features. If a person sits by a candle in a darkened room, patches of the face and body will fall into darkness. Most obviously, the nose often creates a patch of darkness on an adjoining cheek. This phenomenon is shading, or attached shadow. But the candle also projects a shadow on the wall behind. This is a cast shadow, be- cause the body blocks out the light. The shadows in 4.51, for example, are cast shadows, made by bars between the actor and the light source. But in 4.52, the small, dark patches on the hand are attached shadows, for they are caused by the three-dimensional cLlrves and ridges of the hand itself.

rz6 CHAPTER 4 The Shot: Mise-en-Scene

"Light is everything. lt expresses ideology, emotion, colour, depth, style. lt can efface, narrate, describe. With the right lighting, the ugliest face, the most idiotic expression can radiate with beauty or intelligence."

- Frederico Fellini, director

4.53 Attlrched shadows on firces crearte ir dramatic composition in John Huston's Asphalt Jungle.

4.54 In this shot from Satyajit Ray's Apttrr4jilo, Apu's rlother and the globe she holcls are ernphasizecl by hard lighting. wlrile . . .

As these examples suggest, highlights and shadows help create our sense of a scene's space. In 4.51, a few shadows imply an entire prison cell. Lighting also shapes a shot's overall composition. One shot from John Huston's Aspholt Jungle welds the gang members into a unit by the pool of light cast by a hanging lamp (4.53). At the same time, it sets up a scale of importance, emphasizing the protagonist by making him the most frontal and clearly lit figure.

A shot's lighting affects our sense of the shape and texture of the objects de- picted. If a ball is lit straight on from the front, it appears round. If the same ball is lit from the side, we see it as a half-circle. Hollis Frampton's short film Lemon con- sists primarily of light moving around a lemon, and the shifting shadows create dra- matically changing patterns of yellow and black. This fihn almost seems designed to prove the truth of a remark made by Josef von Sternberg, one of the cinema's masters of film lighting: "The proper use of light can embellish and dramatrze every object."

For our purposes, we can isolate four major ity, direction, source, and color.

features of film lighting: its qual-

Lightin g quali4, refers to the relative intensity of the illuminati on. Harcl lighting creates clearly defined shadows, crisp textures, and sharp edges, whereas soft light- ing creates a diffused illumination. In nature, the noonday sLln creates hard light, while an overcast sky creates soft light. The terms are relative, and many lighting sit- uations will fall between the extremes, but we can usually recognize the differences (4.541 4.55).

The direction of lighting in a shot refers to the path of light from its source or sources to the object lit. "Every light," wrote von Sternberg, "has a point where it is brightest and a point toward which it wanders to lose itself completely. . The journey of rays from that central core to the outposts of blackness is the adventure and drama of light." For convenience we can distinguish among frontal lightin._e. sidelighting, backlighting, underlighting, and top lighting.

Frontal lighting can be recognized by its tendency to eliminate shadows. In 4.56, from Jean-Luc Godard's La Chinoise, the result of such frontal li-ehtin-e is a fairly flat-looking image. Contrast 4.57, from Touch of Evil, in which Orson Welles uses a hard sidelight (also called a crosslight) to sculpt the character's features.

Backlighting, oS the name suggests, comes from behind the subject filmed. It can be positioned at many angles: high above the figure, at various angles off to the side, pointing straight at the camera, or from below. Used with no other sollrces of light, backlighting tends to create silhouettes, as in 4.58. Combined with more frontal sources of light, the technique can create an unobtrusively illuminated con- tour. This use of backlighting is called edge lighting or rint lighting (4.59).

As its name implies, underlighting suggests that the light comes from below the subject. In 4.60, the underlighting suggests an offscreen flashli-eht. Since

4.55 . . . in another shot from the same film. sofier lighting bh"rrs contours and textures and makes for more diftusion and gentler contrasts between li_qht and shade.

4.56 ln La Chinoise, fiontal lighting makes the actress's shadow fall directly behind her, where we cannot see it.

Aspects of Mise-en-Scene r27

4.57 In Touc'lt r1f Evil, sidelight creates sharp attached shaclows by the charzlcter's nose, cheek, and lips, while long cast shad- ows appear on the file cabinets at the lefi.

4.58 In Godard's Passiort, the lamp and window provide backlighting that presents the woman almost entirely in silhouette.

4.59 In Wings, a narrow line makes each actor's body stand the background.

of light out from

4.60 ln Tlte Si.vr/r Sertse, a flashlight lights the boy's face trom below, enhancin-s our enrpathy rvith his fright as he feels the presence of a ghost.

underlighting tends to distort features, it is often used to create dramatic horror effects, but it may also simply indicate a realistic light source, such as a fireplace. As usual. a particular technique can function differently according to context.

Top lighting is exemplified by 4.61, where the spotlight shines down from al- most directly above Marlene Dietrich's face. Von Sternberg frequently used such a high frontal light to bring out the line of his star's cheekbones. (Our earlier example from Aspholt Jungle rn Figure 4.53 provides a less glamorous instance of top lighting.)

Lighting can also be characterized by its source. In making a documentary, the filmmaker may be obliged to shoot with the light available in the actual surround- ings. Most fictional films, however, use extra light sources to obtain greater control of the image's look. In most fictional films, the table lamps and streetlights you see in the mise-en-scene are not the principal sources of illumination for the filming. Br.rt these visible sollrces of light will motivate the lighting decisions made in pro- duction. The filmmaker will usually strive to create a lighting design that is consis- tent with the sources in the setting. In 4.62,, from The Miracle Worker the window in the rear and the lantern in the right foreground are purportedly the sources of il- lumination, but you can see the many studio lights used in this shot reflected as tiny white dots in the glass lantern.

Directors and cinematographers manipulating the lighting of the scene will start from the assumption that any subject normally requires two light sources:

4.61 Top lighting in Josef von Sternberg's Slrunghoi E.rpr?.s.s.

4.62 Apparent and hidden li-eht sources in The Mirac'le Wtrken

r78 CHAPTER 4 The Shot: Mise-en-Scene

4.6, Strong key and soft fill light combined in The Bodl,guard.

"When taking close-ups in a colour picture, there is too much visual information in the background, which tends to draw attention away from the face. That is why the faces of the actresses in the old black and white pictures are so vividly remembered. Even now, movie fans nostalgically recall Dietrich . . . Garbo . . . Lamarr . . .

Why? Filmed in black and white, those figures looked as if they were lit from within. When a face appeared on the screen over' exposed-the high-key technique, which also erased imperfections-it was as if a bright object was emerging from the screen."

- Nestor Almendros, cinematographer

4.64 Bezhin Meadow.

a key light and a fill light. The key light is the primary source, providing the dominant illumination and casting the strongest shadows. The key light is the most directional light, and it usually corresponds to the motivating light source in the set- ting. A fill is a less intense illumination that "fills in," softening or eliminating shadows cast by the key light. By combining key and fill, and by adding other sources, lighting can be controlled quite exactly.

The key lighting source may be aimed at the subject from any angle, as our ex- amples of lighting direction have indicated. As one shot from lvan the Terrible shows (4.11), underlighting may be the key source, while a softer and dimmer fill falls on the setting behind the figure.

Lights from various directions can be combined in any way. A shot may Llse key and fill lights without backlighting. In the frame from The Boclyguarcl (4.63). a strong key light from offscreen left throws a dramatic shadow on the u,all at the right. The dim fill light inconspicuously shows the back wall and ceilin-e of the set. but leaves the right side of the actor's head dark.

In 4.64, from Bezhin Meaclovv, Eisenstein uses a number of light sources and directions. The key light falling on the figures comes from the left side, but it is hard on the face of the old woman in the foreground and softened on the face of the man because a fill light comes in from the right. This fill light falls on the woman's fore- head and nose.

Classical Hollywood filmmaking developed the custom of usin g at least three light sources per shot: key light, fill light, and backlight. The most basic arrange- ment of these lights on a single figure is shown rn 4.65. The backlight comes from behind and above the figure, the key light comes diagonally from the front, and a fiU light comes from a position near the camera. The key will usually be closer to the figure or brighter than the fill. Typically, each major character in a scene will have his or her own key, fill, and backlight. If another actor is added (as in the dot- ted figure in 4.65), the key light for one can be altered slightly to form the backlight for the other, and vice versa, with a fill light on either side of the camera.

ln 4.66, the Bette Davis character in Jezebel is the most important figure, and the three-point lighting centers attention on her: a bright backlight from the rear upper right highlights her hair and edge-lights her left arm. The key light is off left, making her right arm brightly illuminated. A fill light comes from just to the right of the camera. It is less bright than the key. This balanced lighting creates mild shading, modeling Davis's face to suggest volume rather than flatness. (Note the slight shadow cast by her nose.) Davis's backlight and key light serve to illuminate the woman behind her at the right, but less prominently. Other fill lights, called background or set lighting, fall on the setting and on the crowd at the left rear. Three-point lighting emerged during the studio era of Hollywood filmmaking, and it is still widely used, as in 4.67, from Steven Spielberg's Catch Me IfYou Can.

bock

co mero

4.65 Three-point lighting, one of the basic techniques of Hollywood cinema.

4.67 ln Cutclt Me If Wru Cart, the ne'er-do-well father can't sLlppress a -9rin at his son s impersonation, and the high-key lightin-e accentuates the upbeat tone of the scene.

You may have already noticed that this three-point lighting system demands that the larnps be rearranged virtually every time the camera shifts to a new framing of the scene. In spite of the great cost involved, most Hollywood films have a dif- ferent lighting arrangement for each camera position. Such variations in the light sources do not conform to reality, but they do enable filmmakers to create clear compositions for each shot.

Three-point lighting was particularly well suited for the high-key lighting used in classical Hollywood cinema and other filmmaking traditions. High-key lighting refers to an overall lighting design that uses fill light and backlight to create low contrast between brighter and darker areas. Usually, the light quality is soft, mak- ing shadow areas fairly transparent. The frames from Jez,ebel (4.66) and from Catclt Me If You Can (4.67) exemplify high-key lighting. Hollywood directors and cine- matographers have relied on this for comedies, adventure films, and most dramas.

Aspecrs of Mise-en-Scene r79

4.65 The three-point system's effect as it looks on the screen in Jez,ebel.

4.68 Bac'k to the Future: day

4.69 versLrs ni-ght.

130 CHAPTER 4 The Shot' Mise-en-Scene

4.7O ln Kanctl, low-key lighting creates a harsh highlight on one side of the woman's face,, a deep shadow on the other.

"When I started watching films in the 1940s and 1950s, lndian cinematography was completely under the influence of Hollywood aesthetics, which mostly insisted on the 'ideal light' for the face, using heavy diffusion and strong backlight. I came to resent the complete disregard of the actual source of light and the clichdd use of backlight. Using backlight all the time is like

. using chili powder in whatever you ', cook."

- Subrata Mitra, cinematographer

High-key lighting is not used sirnply to render a brightly lit situation, such as a dazzling ballroom or a sunny afternoon. High-key lighting is an overall approach to illurnination that can suggest different lighting conditions or times of day. Consider, for example, two frames from Bock to the Future. The first shot (4.68) uses high-key illumination matched to daylight and a brightly lit malt shop. The second frame (4.69) is from a scene set in a room at night, but it still Llses the high-key approach, as can be seen from the lighting's softness, its low contrast, and its detail in shadow areas.

Low-key illumination creates stronger contrasts and sharper, darker shadows. Often the lighting is hard, and fill light is lessened or eliminated altogether. The ef- fect is of chiaroscuro, or extremely dark and light regions within the image. An ex- ample is 4.70, from Andrzej Wajda's Kanal. Here the fill light and background li,_qht are significantly less intense than in high-key technique. As a result, shadow areas on the left third of the screen remain hard and opaque. In 4.71, a low-key shot from Leos Carax's Mauvais scu7g, the key light is hard and comes from the side. Carax eliminates both fill and background illumination, creating very sharp shadows and a dark void around the characters.

As our examples indicate, low-key lighting has usually been applied to somber or mysterious scenes. It was common in horror films of the 1930s and films noirs (dark films) of the 1940s and 1950s. The low-key approach was revived in the 1980s in such films as Blacle Runner and Rumble Fish and continued in the 1990s in films noirs like SeTen and The Usual Suspects. In El Srtr (4.72). Victor Erice's low-key lighting yields dramatic chiaroscuro effects that portray the adult world as a child imagines it.

When the actors move, the director must decide whether to alter the lightin-e. By overlapping several different key lights, the filmmaker can maintain a constant intensity as actors move around the set. Although constant lighting is not particu- larly realistic, it has advantages, the main one bein._e that distracting shadows and highlights do not move across actors. At the end of Fellini's ^A/iglrts of Cabiria, tor example, the heroine moves diagonally toward uS, accompanied by a band of singing young people (4.7314.74). Alternatively, the filmmaker may have his or her figures move through patches of light and shadow. The sword fight in Rn.s ltontort rs intensified by the contrast between the ferocious combat and the cheerfully dappled lighting pouring into the glade (4.7 5).

We tend to think of film lighting as limited to two colors-the white of sunlight or the soft yellow of incandescent interior lamps. h-r practice, filmmakers who choose to control lighting typically work with as purely white a light as they can. By use of filters placed in front of the light source, the filmmaker can color the onscreen illurnination in any fashion. There may be a realistic source in the scene

4.72 Low-key lighting in El Sur suggests a child's view of the adult world as full of mystery and danger.

4.71 ln Mauvctis setrg, a sin-ele key light actress's f'ace leaves her expression nearly

without any fill on the invisible.

4.71 In Niglr t,s r1f Cabiria, surounded by a band young mLlslclans.

4.74 As she walks, the lighting face does not change, enabling us sli-eht changes in her expression.

Aspects of Mise-en-Scerre 131

4.75 Dappled lighting in Rashonnn.

4.77 ln Ivurt tlte 'lbrt'ilile, a character's t'ear registers 0n his fercc . . .

4.78 . . . but a blue light also suddenly and briefly shines on it until it disappealrs and the scene continues.

the heroine is street

on her to notrce

4.76 An orange filter su-e-eests that all the li-eht in this scene from The Greert Roon l comes from candles.

to motivate the hue of the light. For example, cinematographers often use filters over lighting equipment to suggest the orange tint of candlelight, as in FranEois Truffaut's Tlte Greert Roont (4.76). But colored light can also be unrealistic in its motivation. Eisenstein's lvan the Terrible,Part 2, uses a blue light suddenly cast on an actor, nondie-eetically., to suggest the character's terror and uncertainty (4.77, 4.78). Such a shift in stylistic function-using colored light to perform a function usually confined to actin-q-is all the more effective because it is so unexpected.

Most film lighting is applied during shooting, but computer-generated imagery allows filmmakers to create virtual lighting designs. Powerful 3D programs enable filmmakers to add broad overall illumination or strongly directional effects. Spot- li-ehts can sprinkle highlights on shiny metal, while "shader" tools rnodel objects with attached shadows. In normal filn-ring, filmmakers must reduce the vast amount of visual information in front of the camera,, using lighting to clarify and simplify the space. In contrast, digital lighting is built up little by little from simple elements. For this reason, it is very time-consuming; a program may need a day and a night to render moving cast shadows in a single shot. Still, new software and faster com- puters are likely to accelerate the work process.

We are used to ignoring the illumination of our everyday surroundings, so film lighting is also easy to take for granted. Yet the look of a shot is centrally controlled by light quality, direction, source, and color. The filmmaker can rnanipulate and combine these factors to shape the viewer's experience in a great many ways. No component of mise-en-scene is more important than "the drama and adventure of light."

r37 CHAPTER 4 The Shot: Mise-eu-Sceue

4.79 ln Tlte Hud,suc'ker Pro-rrl when the rnailboy Norville proposes his new toy idea. the clicking balls on his boss's desktop sr"rddenly and inexplicably stop.

Parabolc uses lighting and a pLlre sculptural forms.

Staging: Movement and Performance The director may also control the behavior of various figures in the mise-en-scene. Here the word figures covers a wide range of possibilities,, since the figure may represent a person but could also be an anirnal (Lassie, the donkey Balthasar'. Donald Duck), a robot (R2D2 and C3PO in the StarWars series), &r object (4.791. or even a pure shape (4.80). Mise-en-scene allows such figures to express feelings and thoughts; it can also dynamize them to create various kinetic patterns.

In 4.81, from Seven Sanrurai, the samurai have won the battle with the bandits. Virtually the only movement in the frame is the drivin-e rain. but the slouchin-s pos- tures of the men leanin-g on their spears express their tense wearirtess. In colttrast. in Wltite Heat, explosive movement and ferocious facial expression present an irn- age of psychotic rage (4.82).

In cinema, facial expression and movement are not restricted to human fig- ures. Chapter 10 will discuss animation's flexibility in combining abstract drawings or three-dimensional objects with highly dynamic movement. For example, in sci- ence fiction and fantasy films, monsters and robots may be given expressions and gestures through the technique of stop-ctction (also called stolt-ntotiort). Typically. a small-scale model is made with articulated parts. In filming, it is posed as desired, and a frame or two is shot. Then the figure is adjusted slightly and another frame or two is exposed, and so on. The result on screen is a continuous, if sometimes jerky, movement. The horrendous onslaught of ED-209,, the crime-fi-ghting robot in Robocop, was created by means of a 12-inch miniature filmed in stop-action (4.83). (A full-scale but unmoving model was also built for long shots.) Stop-action can also be used for more abstract and unrealistic purposes, as in Jan Svankmajer's Di- ntensions of Dialogue (4.84).

The filmmaker can stage action without three-dimensional objects moving in real space. Drawings of characters who never existed, like Aladdin or Daffy Duck, can be used in animated films. Dinosaurs and fabulous monsters created only as models can be scanned and made to move in a lifelike fashion through computer- generated imagery (see | .29).

Acting and Actuality Although abstract shapes and animated figures can be- come important in the mise-en-scene, the most intuitively familiar cases of figure expression and movement are actors playing roles. Like other aspects of mise-en- scene, the performance is created in order to be filmed. An actor's performance

4.80 The abstract film background to errph astze

4.81 The actors strike Seven Sarnurai.

weary poses ln

4.82 ln Wltite Herft, Cody Jarrett (Jarnes Ca.-eney) bursts up from the prison lness table after learnin-9 of his mother's death.

4.83 A miniature used rn Robocop.

consists of visual elements (appearance, gestures, facial expressions) and sound (voice, effects). At times, of course, an actor may contribute only visual aspects, as in the silent era. Similarly, an actor's performance may sometimes exist only on the sound track of the film; in A Letter to Three Wives, Celeste Hohn's character, Ad- die Ross, speaks a narration over the images but never appears on the screen.

Actin.-e is often approached as a question of realism. But concepts of realistic actin-e have chan-9ed over film history. Today we may think that the performances of Russell Crowe and Renee Zellweger in Cinderella Man or those given by Heath Led-eer and Jake Gyllenhaal rn Brokeback Mountain arc reasonably close to people's real-life behavior. Yet in the early 1950s, the New York Actors Studio style, as ex- emplified by Marlon Brando's performances in On the Waterfront and A Streetcar Nantecl Desire, was also thou-eht to be extremely realistic. Fine though we may still find Brando's work in these films, it seems deliberate, heightened, and quite unreal- istic. The same might be said of the performances, by professional and amateur ac- tors alike, in post-World War II Italian neorealist films. These were hailed when they first appeared as almost documentary depictions of Italian life, but many of them now seem to us to contain polished performances suitable to Hollywood films. Al- ready. rnajor naturalistic performances of the 1970s, such as Robert De Niro's pro- tagonist in Taxi Driver seem quite stylized. Who can say what the acting in The Insider In the Bedroom, and other recent films will look like in a few decades?

Changing views of realism are not the only reason to be wary of this as a con- cept for analyzing acting. Often, when people call a performance unrealistic, they are evaluating it as bad. But not all films try to achieve realism. Since the perfor- mance an actor creates is part of the overall mise-en-scene, films contain a wide va- riety of acting styles. Instead of assuming that acting must be realistic, we should try to understand what kind of acting style the film is aiming at. If the functions of acting in the film are best served by a nonrealistic performance, that is the kind that the skillful actor will strive to present. Obvious examples of nonrealistic acting style can be found in The Wizard of Oz, for fantasy purposes. (How would a real Wicked Witch behave?) Moreover, realistic performance will always be only one option in film acting. In mass-production filmmaking from Hollywood, India, Hong Kong, and other traditions, overblown performances are a crucial source of the au- dience's pleasure. Viewers do not expect narrowly realistic acting from Jim Carrey or from martial-arts stars such as Jet Li or Jackie Chan.

Finally, when we watch any fictional film, we are to some degree aware that the performances on the screen are the result of the actors' skills and decisions. (See 'A Closer Look.") When we use the phrase "larger than life" to describe an effective performance, we seem to be tacitly acknowledging the actor's deliberate craft. In analyzing a particular film, it is usually necessary to go beyond assumptions about realism and consider the functions and purposes that the actor's craft serves.

Aspecrs of Mise-cn-Scene 133

4.84 A conversation between clay figures de-eenerates as they begin to claw each other to bits in Dimertsiorts o.f Dialogue.

"l get impatient with many Hollywood films because there's this assumption that meaning or emotion is contained in those few square inches of an actor's face and I just don't see it that way at all. I think there's a power in withholding i nformati on, reveali ng thi ngs gradually, Letting the audience discover things within the frame in time, in the way they stand."

- Alison Mactean, director, Crush

THE FILM ACTOR'S TOOLKIT

We might think that the most impor- tant task facinS an actor is reading dia- logue in a convincing and stirring way. Certainly,voice and delivery are very important in cinema, but considered in terms of mise-en-scene, the actor is al- ways part of the overalI visual design. Many film scenes contain littte or no di- alogue, but at every moment onscreen, the actor must be in character. The ac- tor and director shape the performance pictoriatty.

At all times, film actors use their faces. This was most evident before movies had sound, and theorists of the silent film were futt of praise for the sub- tte facial acting of Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo, and Littian Gish. Since some basic facial expressions (happiness, fear, anger) are understood easi[y across cultures, it's not surprising that silent film coutd be- come popular around the world. Today, with mainstream fiction films using many close-ups (see pp. 43-44), actor's faces are hugely enlarged, and the per- formers must control their expressions minutely.

The most expressive parts of the face are the brows, mouth, and eyes. A[[ work together to signal how the charac- ter is responding to the dramatic situa- tion. ln Jerry Maguire, the accountant

Dorothy Boyd accidentally meets )erry at an airport baggage conveyor. She has a crush on him, partly because she ad- mires the couraSeous mission state- ment he has issued to the sports agency they work for. As he starts to back off from the statement, she eagerty quotes it from memory; Renee Zellwegger's earnest smile and steady gaze suggest that she takes the issues more seriously than )erry does (4.851. This impression is confirmed when )erry says, "Uh-huh," and studies her skeptically, his fixed smile signaling social potiteness rather than Senuine pride (4.861. This en- counter sets up one premise of the fitm-that Jerry's ideatistic impulses wi[[ need constant shoring up, for he might at any moment stip back into being "a shark in a suit."

The eyes hotd a special place in film. ln any scene, crucial story information is conveyed by the direction of a charac- ters gtance, the use of eyelids, and the shape of the eyebrows. One of Chaplin's most heartrending moments comes in City Lights, when the btind flower girt, now sighted, suddenly reatizes that he's her benefactor. Chaptin twirts a flower in his teeth, so we can't see the shape of his mouth; we must read yearning in his brows and rapt, dark gaze (4.871.

4.85 Perky and sincere, Dorothy pledges allegiance to Jerry Maguire's idealistic memo.

4.86 Jerry smiles politely, but his sideways glance and brows suggest that he is a bit put off by her earnestness.

134

Normally, we don't stare intent[y at the people we tatk with. We glance away about half the time to gather our thoughts, and we btink 10-.12 times a minute. But actors must [earn to look directly at each other, locking eyes and seldom blinking. lf an actor gtances away from the partner in the conversa- tion, it suggests distraction or evasion. lf an actor bIinks, it suggests a reaction to what is happening in the scene (sur- prise, or anxiety). Actors ptaying force- fuI characters often stare fixedly. Anthony Hopkins said this of ptaying Hannibal Lecter: "lf you don't blink you can keep the aud ience mesmeri zed." (See 10..l,

.l0.3.) ln our Jerry Maguire scene, the protagon ists watch each other fixedty. When )erry does close his eyes in response to Dorothys praise, it indicates his nervousness about con- fronting the issues that his mission statement raised.

Actors act with their bodies as we[[. How a character walks, stands, or sits conveys a great deal about personality and attitude. ln fact, during the l8th and lgth centuries, attitude was used to re- fer to the way a person stood. Stage acting gave early film a repertoire of postu res that cou [d express a charac- ter s state of m ind. In the 1916 ltalian film Tigre Reale (The Royal Tigress), the diva Pina Menichelli plays a countess

with a shady past. At one point, she confesses this in a florid attitude that expresses noble suffering (4.881. White few actors today would resort to this stylized posture, early film audiences would have accepted it as vividly ex- pressive, like a movement in dance. Menichelti plays the rest of the scene more quietty, but she stitI employs ex- pressive attitudes f4.89, 4.901.

Chaplins and Menichellis gestures show that hands are important toots of the film actor. Hands are to the body what eyes are to the face: They focus our attention and evoke the character's thoughts and feelings. Actress Maureen O'Hara said of Henry Fond?, 'Att he had to do was wag his little finger and he could steal a scene from anybody." A good exam p [e can be seen in the doomsday thri[[er Fail-Safe. Henry Fonda plays the U.S. president, who has learned that an American warplane has been accidentally sent to bomb the So- viet Union. Fonda stands erect at the phone as he hears d istressing news about the planes progress, and he hangs up with his left hand 14.91-4.941.By keeping most of the shot sti[[ and bare, director Sidney Lumet has given Fondas fingers the main rote, letting them ex- press the president's measured pru- dence but also suggesting the strain of the crisis.

4.87 In the climax of City Lights, by concealing his mouth with the flower he twirls nervolrsly, Chaplin obliges us to find his hope expressed in the upper part of his face.

4.88 In Tigre Reale, Menichelli's right hand seizes her hair, as if pulling her head back in agony; but her body still expresses defiance, thrust forward and standing firm as the left hand grips her waist.

t35

4.89 As Menichelli begins to feel shame, she retreats toward the fireplace, turning from us and slumping in a way that suggests regret.

4.92 The president pauses and rubs his fingers together thoughtfully . . .

4.9O She keeps her back to the camera as she withdraws, now a pathetic figure.

4.91 . . . then he taps into the intercom with his right hand.

491 In Foil-Safe, the president stands erect at the phone as he hears distressing news about the plane's progress, and he hangs up with his left hand.

4.94 As he u'aits. for a brief moment his left fin-9ers wag-ele anxioush'.

Acting: Functions and Motivation In 1985, Hollywood observers were sur- prised that Steve Martin wasn't nominated for an Academy Award for A ll of Me. In that film, Martin portrays a man whose body is suddenly inhabited on the ri-eht side by the soul of a woman who has just died. Martin used sudden chan'ees of voice. along with acrobatic pantomiffie, to suggest a split body. In 1999, a similar outcry occurred when Jim Carrey was not nominated for an Oscar for Tlte Tnurtart Sltow, a comedy about a man who is unaware that his entire life has been broadcast as a sitcom on television. Neither Martin nor Carrey could be expected to perform realistically in the naffow sense of the word, since the situations they portray could not exist in the real world. Yet in the context of each of these fantasy-comedies, the performance is completely appropriate.

In films like All of Me and The Truman Show, a more muted and superficially realistic performance would clearly be inappropriate to the context established by the genre, the film's narrative, and the clverall mise-en-scene. This suggests that a performance, realistic or not, should be examined according to rts fiinctiort in the context of the film.

We can consider performance along two dimensions. A performance will be more or less individualizecl, and it will be more or less stltlizecl. Often we have both in mind when we think of a realistic performance: it creates a unique character, and it does not seem too exaggerated or too underplayed. Marlon Brando's portrayal of Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather is quite individualized. Brando gives the God- father a complex psychology, z distinctive appearance and voice, and a string of fa- cial expressions and gestures that make him significantly different from thet36

standard image of a gang boss. As for stylization, Brando keeps Don Vito in the middle range. His performance is neither flat nor flamboyant; he isn't impassive, but he doesn't chew the scenery either.

But this middle range, which we often identify with realistic performance, isn't the only option. On the individuality scale, films may create broader, more anonymous types.Classical Hollywood narrative was built on ideologically stereo- typed roles: the Irish cop on the beat, the black servant, the Jewish pawnbroker, the wisecracking waitress or showgirl. Through Qpecasting, actors were selected and directed to conform to type. Often, however, skillful performers gave these conven- tions a freshness and vividness. In the Soviet cinema of the 1920s, several directors used a similar principle, called typage. Here the actor was expected to portray a typ- ical representative of a social class or historical movement (4.951 4.96).

Whether more or less typed, the performance can also be located on a contin- uum of stylrzatron A long tradition of film acting strives for a resemblance to what is thought of as realistic behavior. This sense of realism may be created by giving the actors small bits of business to perform while they speak their lines. Frequent gestures and movelnents by the actors add plausibility to the humor of Woody Allen's films (4.97). More intense and explicit emotions dominate Winchester 73, in which James Stewart plays a man driven by a desire for revenge (4.98).

Psychological motivation is less important in a film like Trouble in Paradise, a sophisticated comedy of manners in which the main concern is with more stereo- typical characters in a comic situation. In 4.99, two women competing for the same man pretend to be friendly. Again, the performances are perfectly appropriate to the genre. narrative. and overall style of the film.

4.97 Verisimilitude in actin-u: N{ia Farrou' as Hannah. Diane Wiest as her sister Holly. and Carrie Fisher as their friend April set a table, chatting about the other guests tn Hurtrtah arrcl Her Si.srers.

4.98 ln Winc'hester 73, Jinmy Stewart's mild manner occasionally erupts into explosions of anger, revealing hirn as on the brink of psychosis.

4.99 The exaggerated smiles and gestures in Zra uble in Porctclise are amusing because we know that each woman is trying to deceive the other.

Aspecrs of Mise-en-Scene t37

4.95 The opening of Sergei Eisenstein's Strike presents the cartoonish clichd of the top-hatted capitalist . . .

4.96 . . . while in contrast the workers are later presented as earnest and resolute.

4.100 Nikolai Cherkasov's dramatically raised arm and thrown-back head are appropriate to the hei-ehtened style of lvcut the Tert'ible.

138 CHAPTER 4 The Shot: Mise-en-Scene

4.101 Playing the heroine of Au Hasarcl Bulthasar Anna Wiazemsky looks without expression at her would-be seducer, who wants her to get in his car . . .

Comedy doesn't provide the only motivation for greater stylization. Ivan the Terrible is a film that heightens every element-music, costume, setting-to create a larger-than-life portrait of its hero. Nikolai Cherkasov's broad, abrupt gestures fit in perfectly with all of these other elements to create an overall unity of composi- tion (4.100).

Some films may combine different degrees of stylization . Amadeus contrasts a grotesque, giggling performance by Tom Hulce as Mozart with Murray Abraham's suave Salieri. Here the acting sharpens the contrast between the older composer's decorous but dull music and the young man's irrepressible but offensive genius.

Films like Caligari, Ivan the Terrible, and Amadeus create stylized perfor- mances through extroversion and exaggeration. The director can also explore the possibilities of very muted performances. Compared to normal practice, highly re- strained acting can seem quite stylized. Robert Bresson is noted for such restrained performances. Using nonprofessional actors and drilling them in the details of the characters' physical actions, Bresson makes his actors quite inexpressive by con- ventional standards (4.101 ,4.102). Although these performances may upset oLlr ex- pectations, we soon realize that such restraint focuses our attention on details of action we never notice in most movies.

Acting in the Context of Other Techniques By examining how an actor's performance functions in the context of the overall film, we can also notice how acting cooperates with other film techniques. For instance, the actor is always a

4.102 ...and thoughts, before

glances

gettrng

4.103 ln The Cabinet qf Dn Caligari, Cesare's body echoes the tilted tree trunks. his arms and hands their branches and leaves.

downward, still without re-gisterin-e her into the car.

4.104 Jean Seberg in Brectthless, an inexpressive performance or an enigmatic one?

graphic element in the film, but some films underline this fact. In The Cabinet of Dn Caligori, Conrad Veidt's dancelike portrayal of the somnambulist Cesare makes him blend in with the graphic elements of the setting (4.103). As we shall see in ollr examination of the history of film styles, the graphic design of this scene in Coligari typifies the systematic distortion characteristic of German Expressionism.

In Breathless, director Jean-Luc Godard juxtaposes Jean Seberg's face with a print of a Renoir paintin g (4.104). We might think that Seberg is giving a wooden performance, for she simply poses in the frame and turns her head. Indeed, her act- ing in the entire film may seem flat and inexpressive. Yet her face and general de- meanor are visually appropriate for her role, a capricious American woman unfathomable to her Parisian boyfriend.

The context of a performance may also be shaped by the technique of film ed- iting. Because a film is shot over a period of time, actors perform in bits. This can work to the filrnmaker's advantage, since these bits can be selected and combined to br-rild up a performance in ways that could never be accomplished on the stage. If a scene has been filmed in several shots, with alternate takes of each shot, the ed- itor may select the best gestures and expressions and create a con-lposite perfor- mance better than any one sustained performance could be. Through the addition of sound and the combination with other shots, the performance can be built up still further. The director may simply tell an actor to widen his or her eyes and stare off- screen. If the next shot shows a hand with a gun, we are likely to think the actor is depictin._e fear.

Camera techniques also create a controlling context for acting. Fihn acting, as most r,'iewers know, differs from theatrical acting. At first glance, that suggests that cinema alr,vays call for more underplaying, since the camera can closely approach the actor. But cinema actually calls for a stronger interplay between restraint and emphasis.

In Lr theater. we are usually at a considerable distance from the actor on the stage. We certainly can never get as close to the theater actor as the camera can put us in a filrn. But recall that the camera can be at anv distance from the figure. Filmed trom very far away, the actor is a dot on the screen-much smaller than an actor on stage seen from the back of the balcony. Filmed from very close, the actor's tiniest eye movement may be revealed.

Thus the film actor must behave differently than the stage actor does, but not always by being more restrained. Rather, she or he must be able to acljttst to each O'pe o.f ccurtero distance. If the actor is far from the camera, he or she will have to -qestLlre broadly or move around to be seen as acting at all. But if the camera and actor are inches apart, a twitch of a mouth muscle will colne across clearly. Between these extremes, there is a whole range of adjustments to be made.

Basically, a scene can concentrate on either the actor's facial expression or on pantomimic -gestLlres of the body. Clearly, the closer the actor is to the camera, the more the facial expression will be visible and the more important it will be (al- though the fihnmaker may choose to concentrate on another part of the body, ex- cluding the face and emphasizing gesture). But if the actor is far away from the carnera, or turned to conceal the face, his or her gestures become the center of the performance.

Thus both the staging of the action and the camera's distance from it determine how we will see the actors'performances. Many shots in Bernardo Bertolucci'sThe Spicler's Stratagem show the two main characters from a distance, so that their manner of walking constitutes the actors' performances in the scene (4.105). In conversation scenes' however, we see their faces clearly, &S in 4.106.

Such factors of context are particularly important when the performers are not actors, or even human beings. Framing,editing, and other film techniques can make trained animals give appropriate performances. Jonesy,, the cat in Aliens, seems threatening because his hissing rnovement has been emphasized by light- ing, framing, editing, and the sound track (4.107). [n animated films, the

Aspecrs of Misc-en-Scene r39

4.105 In this long shot fron The Spicler',s Strategem, the stitf, upright wety in which the heroine holds her parasol is one of the main facets of the actress's performance . . .

4.106 . . . while in a conversation scene we can see details of her eye and lip movements.

"You can ask a bear to do something like, let's say, 'Stand up,' and the bear stands up, But you cannot say to a bear, 'Look astonished.' So you have him standing up, but then you have to astonish hlm. I would bang two saucepans, or get a chicken from a cage, then shake it so it squawked, and the bear would think,'What was that?' and 'click' I'd have that expression."

- Jean-Jacques Annaud, director, The Bear

4.107

r40 CHAPTER 4 The Shot: Mise-en-Scene

4.108 Devil Mctsc'ot.

and thief puppets rn The

4lO9 A strikin-e instance of frontality in L'Atvertura: The characters alternate . . .

filmmaker's manipulation must go further, as in Ladislav Starevich's The Mascot. There a conversation between a devil and a thief includes subtle facial expres- sions and gestures, all created through the frame-by-frame manipulation of puppets (4.108).

As with every element of a film, acting offers an unlimited range of distinct possibilities. It cannot be judged on a universal scale that is separate from the con- crete context of the entire film's form.

Putting It All Together: Mise-eo-Scene in Space and Time Sandro and Claudi a are searching for Anna, who has mysteriously vanished. Anna is Claudia's friend and Sandro's lover, but during their search, they've begun to drift from their goal of finding her. They've also begun a love affair. In the town of Noto, they stand on a church rooftop near the bells, and Sandro says he regrets givin,_e up architectural design. Claudia is encouraging him to return to his art when suddenly he asks her to marry him.

She's startled and confused, and Sandro comes toward her. She is turned away from us. At first, only Sandro's expression is visible as he reacts to her plea "Why can't things be simpler?" (4.109). Claudia twists her arms around the bell rope, then turns away from him, toward us, grasping the rope and fluttering her hand. Now we can see that she's quite distraught. Sandro, a bit uneasy, turns away as she says anx- iously, "I'd like to see things clearly" (4.110).

Brief though it is, this exchange in Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura ("The Adventure") shows how the tools of mise-en-scens-sstting, costume, lighting, per- formance, and staging-can work together smoothly. We've considered them sepa- rately in order to examine the contribution each one makes, but in any shot, they mesh. They unfold on the screen in space and time, fulfilling several functions.

Most basically, the filmmaker has to guide the audience's attention to the most important areas of the image. We need to spot the items important for the ongoin-e action. The filmmaker also wants to build up our interest by arousing curiosity and suspense. And the filmmaker tries to add expressive qualities, giving the shot an emotional coloration. Mise-en-scene helps the filmmaker achieve all these purposes.

How did Antonioni guide our attention in the Claudia-Sandro exchan ge? First, we're watching the figures, not the railing behind them. Based on the story so far, we expect Sandro and Claudia to be the objects of interest. At other points in the film, Antonioni makes his couple tiny figures in massive urban or seaside land- scapes. Here, however, his mise-en-scene keeps their intimate interchange foremost in our minds.

4.110 turning their backs on the camera.

Putting It ALL Together: Mise-en-Scene in Space and Time

Consider the first image merely as a two-dimensional picture. Both Sandro and Claudia stand out against the pale sky and the darker railing. They're also mostly curved shapes-heads and shoulders-and so they contrast with the geometrical regularity of the rails. In the first frame, light strikes Sandro's face and suit from the right, picking him out against the rails. His dark hair is well positioned to make his head stand out against the sky. Claudi ?, v blonde, stands out against the railing and sky less vividly, but her polka-dot blouse creates a distinctive pattern. And consid- ered only as a picture, the shot roughly balances the two figures, Sandro in the left half and Claudia in the right.

It's hard to think of the shot as simply two-dimensional, though. We instinc- tively see it as portraying a space that we could move around in. Claudia seems closer to us because her body masks things farther away, a spatial cue called over- Iap. She's also somewhat larger in the frame than Sandro, which reinforces our sense that she's closer. The rope slices across the bottom third of the frame, sepa- rating her from him (overlap again). Sandro himself overlaps the railing, which in turn overlaps the sky and the town. We get a sense of distinct planes of space, lay- ers lying closer to or farther from us. Elements of mise-en-scene like costume, lighting, setting, and figure placement create this sense of a three-dimensional arena for the action.

Antonioni has used mise-en-scene to emphasize his characters and their inter- action. But that interaction unfolds in time, and it gives him an opportunity to guide our attention while building up suspense and expressing emotion. Claudia is turned away from us when Sandro presses her to marry him, and the rope is taut between them (4.109). How will she respond?

Antonioni starts by giving Claudia a bit of business. She twists the rope around her arms and slips it over her back. This could be a hint that she's drawn to San- dro's proposal. At the same time, she hesitates. For as soon as he presses her, she turns away from him (4.110).

We know that faces give us access to characters' thoughts and emotions. An- other filmmaker might have had Claudi a already facing us when Sandro asked, so we'd see her response immediately. Antonioni instead makes things uncertain for a moment. He has concealed Claudia's reaction and then lets her turn toward us. To make sllre that we watch her and not Sandro at this moment, Antonioni has him turn away when she gestures and speaks ("I'd like to see things clearly"). Our attention is riveted on her.

Soon enough, Sandro turns back toward the camera,, so we can see his reaction, but already Claudia's anxiety has flashed out at us. Her complex relation to San- dro-attraction (sliding under the bell rope) and uncertainty (turning away tensely)-has been presented to us concretely.

This is only one moment in a complex scene and complex film, but it shows how various elements of mise-en-scene can cooperate to create a specific effect-

r4r

4.111 Narrative expectations guide our eye to the main characters in Tootsie.

r42 CHAPTER 4

"The audience is only going to look at the most overriding thing in the frame. You must take charge of and direct their attention. lt's also the principle of magic: what is the single important thing? Make it easy for them to see it, and you're doing your job "

- David Mamet, director

4.112 A lirlitecl palette ellphasizes this synrnretrical conrposition in Li.fe on u Strirtg.

the delayed revelation of a character's emotion. That revelation coLlldn't have oc- curred without the director's choices about what to show Lts art particular poirrts. When we look at an image, we look pLlrposefully. What we notice is gLlided by our expectations arbout what rni_eht be significatnt.

Often the form of the whole filrn sets Lrp ollr expectittions. If a shot shows ir crowd, we will tend to sceln it lookin-e for a character we recognize frorn earlier scenes. In 4.lll, althou.-qh there are several people in the fore-ground of this shot from Tootsie, we will likely notice Julie (Jessica Lan_ee) and Dorothy Michaels (Dustin Hofflneln) quickly, since they are oLlr rnain charercters. Similarly,we notice Les, seen here for the first titne, because he and Dorothy are exchangin-9 srniles. Sirnilarly, sound cetn becotne eln important factor controlling oul'attention. Lls \\e shall see in Chapter 7.In addition to the filrn's stclry context. there are several u'ar s directors can guide our expectations about what to notice. In the spirit of tryilts to ..qrasp all the options on the mise-en-scene menu. let's look in nrore detail at the spa- tial and ternporal possibilities.

Space

Screen Space In many respects, a filrr-r sl-rot flat an'ay of colors and shapes. Before we even dimensional space, mise-en-scene offers melny emphasizing elernents in the frame.

Take something as simple as balancing the tribute verrioLls points of interest evenly around ers will concentrarte ntore olt the Ltpper half of

resembles a paintin_e. It presents er start to read the inrage as a three-

cLres for -guiding oLu'attention ancl

shot. Filmrnakers ofien try to dis- the frarne. They assunre that view- the franre' probably becaurse thart's

4.113 Mrtr,s Anut'k.r/.' centerin-9 a single character' 4114 and balancin-sti two.

Putting It ALI Together: Mise-en-Scene in Spncc and Time

where we tend to find characters'faces. Since the film frame is ahorizontal rectan- gle, the director usually tries to balance the right and left halves. The extreme type of such balancing is bilateral symmetry. In the battle scene in Life on a String, Chen Kaige stages the action symmetrically (4.112).

More common than such near-perfect symmetry is a loose balancing of the shot's left and right regions. The simplest way to achieve compositional balance is to center the frame on the human body. Filmmakers often place a single figure at the center of the frame and minimize distracting elements at the sides, as in 4.113. Many of our earlier illustrations display this flexible balance. Other shots may counterweight two or more elements, encouraging our eye to move back and forth, as in 4.114 and our L'Avventura dialogue (4. 109,4. I l0).

Balanced composition is the norffi, but unbalanced shots can also create strong effects. In Bicycle Thieves, the composition emphasizes the father's new job by massing most of the figures on the right. They don't balance the son, but he seems even more vulnerable by being such an ineffective counterweight (4.115). A more drastic example occLrrs in Michelangelo Antonioni's Il Griclo (4.116), where two strong elements, the hero and a tree trunk, are grouped on the right side of the shot. One could argue that the shot creates a powerful urge for the audience to see the woman's hidden face.

Sometimes the filmmaker will leave the shots a little unbalanced, in order to prin-re our expectation that something will change position in the frame. The cin- ema of the l9 l0s offers intriguing examples. Very often a doorway in the back of the set allowed the director to show that new characters were entering the scene, but

4.115 This composition from Thieves emphasizes the father's by rnassing rnost of the figures ri_eht.

4.116 ln Il Griclo, instead of balancinq the couple, the composition centers the man. If there were no tree in the frarne, the shot wor"rld still be somewhat weighted to the right, but the unexpected vertical of the trunk makes that side even heav ier.

4119 As the ballerina lowers her arm. the door opens and her father appears.

r43

4.117 From quite early in cinemir history, filmmakers used unbalanced compositions to prepare the viewer for new narrative developments. ln Yevgenii Bauer's The Dyirrg Su'nn (1916), the yoLrng ballerina receives a tiara f}orn an adrn irer.

4l2O Her father comes to the front area and balances the cornposition.

Bicycle new job

on the

4.118 She admires herself in a minor. in a notably decentered f}aming.

r44 CHAPTER 4 The Shr'rt: Mise-en-Scene

4.121 In V. I. Pudovkin's Motltcr; the spectator concentrates on the nreln's fhce rather than on the darkness sLlrroLrndin-e it.

4.122 In Lark.s on a String, the junkyard settin-e provides earthy grays and blacks a-eainst which the characters' lighter clothes stand out sharply.

then figures closer to the camera had to be rearranged to permit a clear entrance. The result was a subtle unbalancing and rebalancing of the composition (4.117-4.120). In Chapter 6, we'll see how cutting can create a balance between two shots with relatively unbalanced composrtrons.

The filmmaker can guide our attention by use of another time-tested strategy, the principle of contrast. Our eyes are biased toward registering differences and changes. In most black-and-white films, light costumes or brightly lit faces stand out while darker areas tend to recede (4.121). If there are several light shapes in the frame, we'll tend to look from one to the other. But if the background is light, black elements will become prominent, as Sandro's hair does in our L'Avventura scene (4.109). The same principles work for color. A bright costume element shown against a more subdued setting is likely to draw the eye. Jir.i Menzel exploits this principle in Larks on a String (4.122). Another pertinent principle is that when lightness values are equal, warm colors in the red-orange-yellow range tend to at- tract attention, while cool colors like purple and green are less prominent. In Yil- maz Gtiney's Yol, for example, the setting and the characters' outfits are already quite warm in hue, but the hot pink vest of the man in the central middle ground helps make him the primary object of attention (4.123).

Color contrasts don't have to be huge, because we're sensitive to small differ- ences. What painters call a limited palette involves a few colors in the same range. as in our earlier example from Fellini's Casanovct (4.39). Peter Greenaway's The Draughtsnmn's Contract employs a limited palette from the cooler end of the spec- trum (4.124). An extreme case of the principle is sometimes called monochromatic color design. Here the filmmaker emphasizes a single color, varying it only in pu- rity or lightness. We've already seen an example of monochromatic mise-en-scene in the white ddcor and costumes of THX I 138 (4.40). In a monochromatic design. even the slightest fleck of a contrasting color will catch the viewer's attention. The color design of Aliens is dominated by metallic tones, so even a din-ey yellow can mark the stiltlike loader as an important prop in the narrative (4.125).

Film has one resource that painting lacks. Our tendency to notice visual differ- ences shifts into high gear when the image includes ntovenrcnt. In the L'At'retturct scene, the turning of Claudia's head became a major event, but we are sensitive to far smaller motions in the frame. Normally, for instance we ignore the movement of scratches and dust on a film. But in David Rimmer's Watching for the Queen, in which the first image is an absolutely static photograph (4.126), the jumping bits of dust on the film draw our attention. In 4.127, from Yasujiro Ozu's Record of a knentent Gentlenran, many items compete for our attention. But the moment that a scrap of

4.121 Warm colors guide the eye in ktl.

4124 The Drctughtsmctn's Contract uses a limited palette of green. black, and white.

Putting It ALI Together: Mlsc-err-Sccne lrr Spnce and Time r45

4125 Aliens uses warm colors like yellow sparingly.

4126 Watc'hirtg.frtr the Queen ernphasizes scratches and dr,rst.

4.127 A tiny rnovenrent in Ret'orcl o.f ct Te tt e nt e tt G e rt I e rnu rt.

newspaper flaps, it immediately attracts the eye because it is the only motion in the frame.

When several moving elements appear on the screen, 3S in a ballroom dance, we are likely to shift our attention among them, according to other cues or depend- ing on our expectations about which one is most salient to the narrative action. In 4.128. from John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln, Lincoln is moving much less than the dancers we see in front of him. Yet he is framed centrally, as the major character, and the dancers pass rapidly through the frame. As a result, we are likely to con- centrate on his ..eestures and facial expressions, however slight they might be com- pared to the ener,_qetic action in the foreground.

Scene Space Lookin-s at a film image as a two-dimensional picture helps us ap- preciate the artistry of filmmakers, but it requires some effort. We find it easier to immediately see the edges and masses on the screen as a three-dimensional space, like the one we live in. The elements of the image that create this impression are called clepth cues.

Depth cues are what enabled us to understand the encounter of Sandro and Claudia as taking place in a realistic space, with layers and volume. We develop our understanding of depth cues from our experience of real locales and from our ear- lier experience with pictorial media. In cineffi?, depth cues are provided by light- in-9. settin.-9. costumes, and staging-that is, by all the aspects of mise-en-scene.

Depth clles suggest that a space has both volume and several distinct plarles. When we speak of an object as having volume, we mean that it is solid and occu- pies a three-dimensional area. A film suggests volume by shape, shading, and movement. ln 4.104 and 4.129, we do not think of the actors'faces as flat cutouts, like paper dolls. The shapes of those heads and shoulders suggest solid people. The

4.128 Emphasizing a background figure in Yowtg Mn Lincoln.

4129 Shading and shape suggest volume in Dreyer's ltt Passion de Jeanne d'Arc'.

4.130 A flat composition in Norrnan Mclaren's Begone, Dull Cure.

r46 CHAPTER 4 The Shot: Mise-en-Scene

attached shadows on the faces suggest the curves and recesses of the actors'feat- tures and give a modeling effect. We assLlme that if the actor in 4.104 turned her head, we would see a profile. Thus we use oLlr knowledge of objects in the world to discern volume in filmic space.

An abstract film. because it can Llse shapes that are not everyday objects, can create compositions without a sense of volume. The shapes in 4.130 give us no depth cLles for volume-they are unshaded, do not have a recognizable shape, and do not move in such a way as to reveal new views that sLlggest roundness.

Depth cLles also pick out planes within the image. Planes are the layers of space occupied by persons or objects. Planes are described according to how close to or far away from the camera they are: foreground, rniddle ground, background.

Only a colnpletely blank screen has a single plane. Whenever a shape-even an abstract one-appeal's, we will perceive it as being in front of a background. In 4.130, the four red S shapes are actually painted right on the frame surface, nS is the lighter, textured area. Yet the textured area seems to lie behind the four shapes. The space here has only two planes, as in an abstract painting. This example, like oLlr L'Avventrtro scene, sLlggests that one of the most basic depth cues is overlap. The curling S shapes have edges that overlap the background plane, block oLlr vision of it, and thus seem to be closer to us. In 4.115, the people overlap the ladders, so we understand that they are closer to the camera than the ladders are, while in 4.116. the tree overlaps the figure of the woman.

Through overlap, a .-qreat many planes can be defined. In 4.56, from Jean-Luc Godard's Lct Chinoise, three distinct planes are displayed: the background of fash- ion cutouts, the woman's face that overlaps that background, and her hand, which overlaps her lower face. In the three-point lightin-q approach, edge-lighting accelt- tuates the overlap of planes by emphasizing the contour of the object, thr-rs sharpll' distinguishing it from the background. (See again 4.59, 4.64, and 4.66.)

Color differences also create overlapping planes. Because cool or pale colors tend to recede, filmmakers commonly use them for background planes such as set- ting. Similarly, because warm or saturated colors tend to come forward, such httes are often employed for costumes or other foreground elements. as in Sarah Mal- doror's Sambiz,anga (4.131). (See also 4.29,4.34, and 4.125.)

Animated films can achieve brighter and more saturated color thart most live- action filming, So depth effects can be correspondingly more vivid. In Chuck Jones's One Frogglt Evening (4.132), the luminous yellow of the umbrella and the

4.131 ln Sambi:,ctrtg,ct, the heroine's dress fairly saturated colors. making it stand out pale back-gror-rnd.

has very witrm and di sti nctly a-gainst the 4.112 Vivid colors ernphasize the sense of extreme depth in

Orte Fntggt' Evenirtg.

Putting It ALI Together: Mise-en-Scene in Space and Time

frog's brilliant green skin make him stand out against the darker red of the curtain and the earth tones of the stage floor.

Because of the eye's sensitivity to differences, even quite muted color contrasts can suggest three-dimensional space. ln L'Argent (4.214.23), Robert Bresson uses a limited, cool palette and relatively flat lighting. Yet the compositions pick out sev- eral planes by means of overlapping slightly different masses of black, tan, and light blue. Our shot from Casanova (4.39) articulates planes by means of slightly differing shades of red. In The Draughtsman's Contract (4.124), much of our sense of distant space is created by strong black verticals and by horizontal strips of var- ious shades of green. Together these colors define distinct layers in this scene.

In cineffi?, tnovetnent is one of the most important depth cues, since it strongly suggests both planes and volumes (4.128). Aerial perspective, or the hazing of more distant planes, is yet another depth cue. Typically, our visual system assumes that sharper outlines, clearer textures, and purer colors belong to foreground ele- ments. In landscape shots, the blurring and graying of distant planes can be caused by actual atmosphen c haze, oS in Gtiney's The Wall (4.133). Even when such haze is a minor factor, our vision typically assigns strong color contrasts to the fore- ground, &S in the Santbi:,onga shot (4.13 I ). In addition, very often lighting is ma- niptrlated in conjunction with lens focus to blur the background planes (4.134).

In 4.135, the mise-en-scene provides several depth cues: overlap of edges, cast shadows, and size diminution. That is, figures and objects farther away from us are seen to get proportionally smaller; the smaller the figure appears, the farther away

4.133 Fog emphasizes the distance between the

foreground and back- ground trees in The Woll.

4lt4 In Michael Curtiz's The Cltorge of the Light Brigade, aerial perspective is artificially created through diffused lighting of the background and a lack of clear focus beyond the f ore-gro u n d c h arac te r.

r47

4.135 Depth cues in Strar-rb and Huillet's The Chrcnic'le o.f Annct Magdalenu Bach.

148 CHAPTER 4 The Shot: Mise-en-Scene

4.116 Several scenes of Wajda's Asftes large foreground and distant backgror,rnd

ancl Diamonrls create planes.

we believe it to be. This reinforces our sense of there being a deep space with con- siderable distances between the various planes.

The same illustration dramatically displays linear perspective. We will con- sider perspective relations in more detail in the next chapter, since they derive as much from properties of the camera lens as they do from mise-en-scene. For now, we can simply note that a strong impression of depth emerges when parallel lines converge at a distant vanishing point. Off-center linear perspective is illustrated in 4.135; note that the vanishing point is not the geometrical center. Central perspec- tive is exemplified rn 4.124 from The Draughtsman's Contract.

In many of the examples already given, you may have noticed that mise-en- scene serves not simply to direct our attention to foreground elements but rather to create a dynamic relation between foreground and background. In 4.56, for in- stance, Godard keeps our attention on the whole composition by using prominent backgrounds. Here the pictures behind the actress's head lead us to scan the vari- ous small shapes quickly.

The La Cltinoise shot is a shallow-space composition. In such shots. the mise- en-scene suggests comparatively little depth, and the closest and most distant planes seem only slightly separated. The opposite tendency is deep-space compo- sition, in which a significant distance seems to separate planes. Our earlier exam- ple from The Chronicle of Anna Magclalena Boch (4.135) exemplifies deep-space mise-en-scene. Often a director creates a deep-space composition by making the foreground plane quite large and the back-eround plane quite distant (4.136).

Shallow and deep mise-en-scene are relative. Most compositions present a moderately deep space, falling between the extremes we have just considered. Sometimes a composition manipulates depth cues to make a space appear deeper or shallower than it really is-creating an optical illusion (4.137).

At this point, you might want to return to shots illustrated earlier in this chap- ter. You will notice that these images use depth cues of overlap. moven-lent. cast shadows, aerial perspective, size diminution, and linear perspective to create dis- tinctive foreground/background relations.

The fact that our vision is sensitive to differences allows filmmakers to -euide our understanding of the mise-en-scene. All the cues to story space interact with one another, working to emphasize narrative elements, direct our attention, and set up dynamic relations among areas of screen space. We can see this interaction clearly in two shots from Carl Dreyer's Day of Wrath.

In the first shot, the heroine, Anne, is standing before a -grillwork panel (4.138). She is not speaking, but since she is a major character in the film. the narrative already directs us to her. Setting, lighting, costume, and figure expression create

4lI7 Leo Carax flattens the actor in the foreground on the wall behind.

space in Bo.r' Meets Girl by making seem to blend into the advertisement

pictorial cues that confirm our expectations. The setting yields a screen pattern of horizontal and vertical lines that intersect in the delicate curves of Anne's face and shoulders. The lighting yields a patch of brightness on the right half of the frame and a patch of darkness on the left, creating pictorial balance. Anne is the meeting point of these two areas. Her face becomes modeled by the relatively strong key lighting from the right, a little top lighting on her hair, and relatively little fill light. Coordinated with the lighting in creating the pattern of light and dark is Anne's cos- turns-n black dress punctuated by white collar, and a black cap edged with white-that again emphasizes her face.

The shot is comparatively shallow, displaying two major planes with little dis- tance between them. The background sets off the more important element, Anne. The rigid geometrical grid in the rear makes Anne's slightly sad face the most ex- pressive element in the fraffie, thus encouraging our eye to pause there. In addition, the composition divides the screen space horizontally, with the grid pattern running across the top half and the dark, severe vertical of Anne's dress dominating the lower half. As is common, the upper zone is the stronger because the character's head and shoulders occupy it. Anne's figure is positioned slightly off center, but with her face turned so as to compensate for the vacant area on the right. (Imagine how unbalanced the shot would look if she were turned to face us squarely and the same amount of space were left empty on the right.) Thus compositional balance reinforces the shot's emphasis on Anne's expression. In all, without using motion, Drever has channeled our attention by means of lines and shapes, lights and darks, and the fore-.srollnd and back,_ground relations in the mise-en-scene.

Irr the second erample. also from Da1, of Wrath, Dreyer coaxes our attention into a to-and-tro movement (4.139). Again, the plot -guides us, since the characters and the cart are crLlcial narrative elements. Sound helps too, since Martin is at the moment explainin-9 to Anne what the cart is used for. But mise-en-scene also plays a role. Size diminution and cast shadows establish basic foreground/background re- lations, with Anne and Martin on the front plane and the cart of wood in the back- ground. The space is comparatively deep (though the foreground is not as exaggeratedly close as that rn Ashes and Diamonds, 4.136). The prominence of the couple and the cart is reinforced by line, shape, and lighting contrasts. The figures are defined by hard edges and by dark costumes within the predominantly bright setting. Unlike most shots, this puts the human fi-eures in the lower half of the frame, which gives that zone an unusual importance. The composition thus creates a vertical balance, counterweightin-9 the cart with the couple. This encourages us to glance up and down between the two objects of our attention.

Sinrilar processes are at work in color films. In one shot of Yasujiro Ozu's An Auturrtrt Aftentoon (4.140), our attention is concentrated on the bride in the center foreground. Here many depth cues are at work. Overlap locates the two figures in two foreground planes, setting them against a series of more distant planes. Aerial perspective makes the tree foliage somewhat out of focus. Movement creates depth when the bride lowers her head. Perspective diminution makes the more distant ob- jects smaller. The figure and the bright silver, red, and gold bridal costume stand out strikin,_ely against the muted, cool colors of the background planes. Moreover, the colors bring back a red-and-silver motif that began in the very first shot of the film (4.141).

In all these cases, compositional elements and depth cues have functioned to focus our attention on the narrative elements. But this need not always be the case. Bresson's Lancelot du Lac uses a limited palette of dark and metallic hues, and warmer colors tend to stand out (4.142). Such a distracting use of color becomes a stylistic motif in the film.

Time Cinema is an art of time as well as space. So we shouldn't be surprised to find that many of our examples of two-dimensional composition and three-dimensional

Puttirtg It AIL Together: Mise-err-Scene in Space ancl Thne r49

4.138 Day of Wrutft.' concentr:rtin.-q on a single figr-rre.

4.119 Day of'Wratft; dividin-e attentiott between fore-ground and back-ground

fi-gures.

4l4O A simple shot from An Autuntrt A.ftentoon etnploys several depth cLles.

4.141 The striped smokestercks establish a color motif for Art Autunut Aftentoon.

150 CHAPTER 4 The Shot: Mise-en-Scene

4.142 In Luncelot clu Lac, a groLlp of conversing kni-ehts is centered and balanced in the fore-eround planes, yet a pinkish- pr,rrple saddle blanket on a passing horse momentarily draws oLlr eyes away from the action.

4.144 Synchronized rhythrn rn 42rtcl Street.

scenic space have unfolded over time. The director's control over mise-en-scene governs not only what we see but when we see it, and for how long. In our L'Avt,en- tura scene between Sandro and Clar-rdia on the rooftop, the timing of the characters' movemsnts-Sandro turning away just as Claudia turns toward us-contribr-rtes to the effect of a sudden, sharp revelation of her anxiety.

The director shapes the speed and direction of moven-lent within the shot. Since our eyes are attuned to noticing changes, we cern pick Lrp the slightest cLres. In 4.143., from Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielrrtctrt, 23 quui clu Corrtrrterce, 1080 Bru.relles, the protagonist simply peels potatoes. This feminist film traces. in painstaking detail, the everyday routines of a Belgiarn house\\'if-e. The composition of this shot strongly centers Jeanne, and no competin-s nrovenrents distract us from her steady and efficient preparation of a meal. The selme rhvthnr is carrried through- out the film, so that when she does start to vary her habits. ue are prepared to no- tice even the sli,_eht errors she makes under emotional pressLlre.

A far busier shot is 4.144. from Busby Berkeley's 42tul Streer. This overhead view presents strongly opposed r-r-rovernents. The central and outer rin_es of clartce'r's circle in one direction, while the second ring turns in a contrarl,' direction. The dancers also swing strips of shiny cloth back and forth. The result is a partially ab- stract composition, br"rt it's easy to -srasp because the movement of the wheels within wheels has a ..qeometrical clarity.

The dancers in 42nd Street are synchronized to a considerable degree. but 4.145, from Jacques Tati's PlalTime, contains nrovenrents of differin-q speeds, u ith diffbrent visual accents. Moreover, they occLlr on difterent pletnes and follou

4.141 Slow, quiet mo\/en-rent in Jeanrte Dielrnan, 23 clttui dtt Crntutterc'e, I 080 Bnrrel le,s.

4.145 Competin-9 rhythms of movement in a busy shot from Plav Tinte.

Putting It AII Together: Mise-en-Scene in Space and Time

contrasting trajectories. These diverse movements accord with Tati's tendency to cram his compositions with gags that compete for our attenhon.

As we have already seen, we scan any film frame for information. This scan- ning brings time sharply into play. Only a very short shot forces us to try to take in the image all at once. In most shots, we get an initial overall impression that cre- ates formal expectations. These expectations are quickly modified as our eye roams around the frame.

As we'd expect, our scanning of the shot is strongly affected by the presence of movement. A static composition, such as our first shot from Day of Wrath (4.138), may keep pulling our attention back to a single element (here, Anne's face). In con- trast, a composition emphasizing movement becomes more time-bound because our glance may be directed from place to place by various speeds, directions, and rhythms of movements. In the second image from Day of Wrath (4.139), Anne and Martin are turned from us (so that expression and gesture are minimized), and they are standing still. Thus the single movement in the frame-the cart-catches our at- tention. But when Martin speaks and turns, we look back at the couple, then back at the cart, and so on, in a shuttling, dynamic shift of attention.

Our time-bound process of scanning involves not only looking to and fro across the screen but also, in a sense, looking into its depths. A deep-space composition will often use background events to create expectations about what is about to hap- pen in the foreground. "Composing in depth isn't simply a matter of pictorial rich- ness." British director Alexander Mackendrick has remarked. "It has value in the narrative of the action. the pacing of the scene. Within the same frame, the director can organize the action so that preparation for what will happen next is seen in the back.-uround of what is happening now."

Our example from The Dying Swan (4.117-4.120) illustrates MacKendrick's point. The same principle is used rn 4.146-4.148, from Three Kings. Here the frame starts off unbalanced, and the fact that it includes a background doorway prepares us for the scene's dramatic development. In addition, any movement from

151

4.146 In this shot from Three Kings, Chief Elgin comes in to tell the partying GIs that their superior is coming. Normally, when a character is looking offscreen left, he or she is set a little off center toward the right. But Elgin is set to the left, leaving the tent flap behind him prominent. Without being aware of it, we expect soure action to develop there.

Confirming Elgin's warning, the superior officer bursts background.

4.147

into the

4.148 The officer comes forward, which is always a powerful way to command the viewer's attention. He moves aggressively into close-up, ramping up the conflict as he demands to know where the men got alcohol.

r57 CHAPTER 4 The Shc'rt: Mise-en-Scene

4.149 ln Aclarn's Rib, the wife who has shot her husband is given the greatest emphasis by three-point lighting, her animated gestures, and her frontal positioning. Interestin-91y, the exact center of the frame is occurpied by a nurse in the background, but Cukor keeps her out of focus and unmoving so that she won't distract from Judy Holliday's performance.

background to foreground is a strong attention-getter. At moments like these, the mise-en-scene is preparing us for what will happen, and by arousing ollr expecta- tions, the style engages us with the unfolding action.

The Dving Swan and Three Kings examples also illustrate the power of frontal- i4r In explaining one five-minute shot in his film Adam's Rib, George Cukor si-s- naled this. He remarked how the defense attorney was positioned to focus our attention on her client, who's reciting the reasons she shot her husband (4.149). Katharine Hepburn "had her back to the camera almost the whole time. but that had a meaning: she indicated to the audience that they should look at Judy Holliday. We did that whole thing without a cut."

All other things being equal, the viewer expects that more story information will come from a character's face than from a character's back. The viewer's attention will thus usually pass over figures that are turned away and fasten on figures that are positioned frontally.A more distant view can exploit frontality. too. In Hou Hsiao- hsien's Citu of Sadness, depth staging centers the Japanese woman coming to visit the hospital, and a burst of bright fabric also draws attention to her (4.150). Just as important, the other characters are turned away from us. It's characteristic of Hou's style to employ long shots with small changes in figure movement. The subdued. delicate effect of his scenes depends on our seeing characters'faces in relation to others' bodies and the overall setting.

Frontality can change over time to guide our attention to various parts of the shot. We've already seen alternating frontality at work in our L'Avventura scene, when Sandro and Claudia turn to and away from us (4. 109, 4.110). When actors are in di- alogue, a director may allow frontality to highlight one moment of one actor's per- formance, then give another performer more prominence (4.151 ,4.152). This device reminds us that mise-en-scene can borrow devices from theatrical staging.

4.150 Although she is farther frorn the camera, the woman visiting the hospital in Citl' of Sadness draws our eye partly because she is the only one facing front.

4.152 . . . but when the producer turns to the camera, his centered position and frontal posture emphasize him.

4.I5I In a conversation rn The Bad arul tlrc Beoutiful, our attention f'astens on the studio executive on the right because the other tr,l'o characters are turned away fiom Lls . . .

4.153 Mise-en-scene in the widescreen frame in Rebel Without a Cause.

4.155 Jim offers Plato his jacket, his action centered and his brightly lit white shirt making him the dominant player. Judy remains a secondary center of interest, segregated by the office window and hi-ehlighted by her bright red coat.

I'Jarratiue Functions of Mise-en-Scene in Our Hospitality r53

4154 Jim comes forward, drawing our attention and arousing expectations of a dramatic exchange.

4.156 Judy turns abruptly, and her face's frontal position signals her interest in Jim.

4.157 At the height of the drama in Naniwa Elegy,, Kenji Mizogr,rchi has the heroine move away from us, into depth

4.158 . . . and as she passes through patches of distant darkness, our curiosity about her emotional state intensifies.

A flash of frontality can be very powerful. In the opening scene of Rebel With- out a Cause, three teenagers are being held at the police station (4.153). They don't know one another yet. When Jim sees that Plato is shivering, he drunkenly comes forward to offer Plato his sport coat (4.1541 4.155). Jim's frontality, forward move- ment, bright white shirt, and central placement emphasize his gesture. Just as Plato takes the coat, Judy turns and notices Jim for the first time (4.156). Like Claudia's sudden turn to the camera in our first example, this sudden revelation spikes our in- terest. It prepares us for the somewhat tense romance that will develop between them in later scenes. Overall, the scene's setting, lighting, costume, and staging co- operate to develop the drama.

The director can also achieve a strong effect by denying frontality, keeping us in suspense about what a character's face reveals. At a climactic moment in Kenji Mizoguchi's lVaniwa Elegy, some of the cues for emphasis are reversed (4.157, 4.158). We get a long shot rather than a closer view, and the character is turned from us and moving away from the camera, through patches of darkness. Ayako is con- fessing to her suitor that she's been another man's mistress. Her withdrawal con- veys a powerful sense of shame, and we, like her friend, have to judge her sincerity based on her posture and voice. In this and our other examples, several techniques of mise-en-scene dovetail from moment to moment in order to engage us more vividly with the action.

Narrative Functions of Mise-er)-Scene in Our Hospitality Our Hospitality, like most of Buster Keaton's films, exemplifies how mise-en-scene can economically advance the narrative and create a pattern of motifs. Since the film is a comedy, the mise-en-scene also creates gags . Our Hospitality,then,

r54 CHAPTER 4 The Shot: Mise-cn-Scene

"The most striking aspect of the Keaton pictures was the enormous amount of trouble lavished over every gag. Production value on such a scale requires more than a simple desire to make people laugh. lt is not surprising that Keaton's childhood aim was to be a civil engineer."

- Kevin Brownlow, film historian

exemplifies what we will find in our stLrdy of every filrn technique: An individr"ral element almost always has severctl functions, not Just one.

Consider, for example, how the settings function within the plot of Our Hospitolin'. For one thing, they help divide the film into scenes and to contrast those scenes. The film begins with a prologLre showing how the feud between the McKays and the Canfields results in the deaths of the yoLlng Canfield and the hr-rs- band of the McKay family. We see the McKays living in a shack and are left in suspense about the fate of the baby, Willie. Willie's mother flees with her son fronl their southern home to the North (action narrated to us mainly by an intertitle).

The plot jumps ahead many years to begin the rnain action, with the .-{rown-Llp Willie living in New York. There are a number of gags concerning early l9th- century life in the metropolis, contrasting sharply with the prologue scene. We are led to wonder how this locale will relate to the southern scenes, and soon Willie re- ceives word that he has inherited his parents'home in the South. A series of amus- ing short scenes follows as he takes a primitive train back to his birthplace. Dr-rring these scenes, Keaton Llses real locales, but by laying out the railroad tracks in dif- ferent ways, he exploits the landscapes for surprising and unusLlal comic effects we shall examine shortly.

The rest of the film deals with Willie's movements in and around the southern town. On the day of his arrival, he wanders around and gets into a number of comic sitr-rations. That night he stays in the Canfield house itself. Finally, &r extended chase occurs the next day, moving through the countryside and back to the Canfield house for the settling of the feud. Thus the action depends heavily on shifts of setting that establish Willie's two journeys, as baby and as man, and later his wanderings to es- cape his enemies' pursLlit. The narration is relatively unrestricted once Willie reaches the South, shifting between him and members of the Canfield family. We usually know more about where they are than Willie does, and the narrative -generates sus- pense by showing them coming toward the places where Willie is hidin_e.

Specific settings fulfill distinct narrative functions. The McKay estate. rvhich Willie envisions as a mansion,, turns out to be a tumbledown shack. The McKay house is contrasted with the Canfield's palatial plantation home. In narrative ternrs. the Canfield home gains even more functional importance when the Canfield father forbids his sons to kill Willie on the premises: "Our code of honor forbids Lrs to shoot him while he is a guest in our house." (Once Willie overhears this. he deter- mines nerler to leave.) Ironically, the home of Willie's enemies becomes the orrly safe spot in town, and many scenes are organized around the Canfield brothers'at- tempts to lure Willie outside. At the end of the film, another settin-e takes on sig- nificance: the landscape of meadows, mountains, riverbanks, rapids. and waterfalls across which the Canfields pursue Willie. Finally, the feud ends back in the Can- field house itself, with Willie now welcomed as the daughter's husband. The pat- tern of development is clear: from the opening shootout at the McKay house that breaks up Willie's family to the final scene in the Canfield house with Willie be- coming part of a new family. In such ways, every setting becomes highly motivated by the narrative's system of causes and effects, parallels and contrasts. and overall development.

The same narrative motivation marks the film's use of costume. Willie is char- acterized as a city boy through his dandified suit, whereas the southern gentility of the elder Canfield is represented through his white planter's suit. Props become im- portant here: Willie's sr-ritcase and umbrella succinctly sLlmmarrze his role as visi- tor and wanderer, and the Canfields' ever-present pistols remind us of their goal of continr-ring the feud. Note also that a change of costume (Willie's disguising him- self ils a woman) enables him to escape from the Canfield hor-rsehold. At the end, the putting aside of the varioLls .-qllns by the characters signals the end of the feud.

Like setting, lighting in Our Ho,sltitality has both general and specific func- tions. The filrn alternates scenes in darkness with scenes in daylight. The feuding in the prologue takes place at night; Willie's trip Sor"rth and wanderings through the

I'larrotiue Functions of Mise-en-Scene in Or-rr Hospitality

town occur in daylight; that night Willie comes to dinner at the Canfield's and stays as a guest; the next day, the Canfields pursLre him; and the film ends that night with the marriage of Willie and the Canfield daughter. More specifically, the bulk of the film is evenly lit in the three-point method. Yet the somber action of the prologue takes place in hard sidelighting (4.159r4.160). Later, the murder scene is played out in flashes of light-lightning, gunfire-that fitfully punctuate the overall darkness. Because this sporadic lighting hides part of the action frorn us, it helps build sus- pense. The gunshots themselves are seen only as flashes in the darkness, and we must wait to learn the or"rtcome-the deaths of both opponents-until the next flash of lightning.

Most economically of all, virtually every bit of the acting functions to support and advance the caLrse-effect chain of the narrative. The way Canfield sips and sa- vors his julep establishes his southern ways; his southern hospitality in turn will not allow him to shoot a guest in his house. Similarly, Willie's every move expresses his diffidence or resourcefulness.

Even rlore concise is the way the film uses staging in depth to present two nar- rative events simultaneously. While the engineer drives the locomotive, the other cars pass him on a parallel track (4.161).In other shots, Willie's awareness or ig- norance of a situation is displayed through planes of depth (4.162, 4.163). Thanks to such spatial arrangements, Keaton is able to pack together two story events, re- sultin-9 in a tight narrative construction and in a relatively unrestricted narration. In 4.162. we know what Willie knowS, and we expect that he will probably flee now that he r-rnderstands the sons'plans. But in4.163, we are aware, as Willie is not, that dan-eer lurks around the corner; sLlspense results, ?S we wonder whether the Canfield boys' ambush will succeed.

to a stark key li-sht from the

r55

4161 Within the same trarne, we see both caLlse-the engineer's cheerful ignorance, made visible by frontality-arrd ef1ect-the runaway cars.

4:159 In Ottr Ho,sltitulity, Wlren the elder McKay flin-ss off his hat to clor,rse the lamp, the illumination chan-ues from ar sofi blend of key. fill. and backlight . . .

4.152 The Canfield boys in the fore-ground make plans to shoot Willie, who overhears them in the background.

4.160 fireplace.

4.163 While Willie LlnsLrspectingly in the Canfield waits in the ambr,rsh him.

ambles along

back._ground, one

foreground to

r56 CHAPTER 4 The Shot: Mise-en-Scene

4164 After an explosion dam, the water spills over a creates a waterfall.

dernolishes a

cliff and

All of these devices r narrative economy considerably unify the film, but some other elements of mise-en-scene function as specific motifs. For one thing, there is the repeated squabble between the anonymous husband and wife. On his way to his estate, Willie passes a husband throttling his wife. Willie intervenes to protect her; the wife proceeds to thrash Willie for butting in. On Willie's way back, he passes the same couple, still fighting, but studiously avoids them. Nevertheless, the wife aims a kick at him as he passes. The mere repetition of the motif strength- ens the film's narrative unity, but it functions thematically, too, as another joke on the contradictions surrounding the idea of hospitality.

Other motifs recur. Willie's first hat is too tall to wear in a jouncing railway coach. (When it gets crushed, he swaps it for the trademark flat Keaton hat.) Willie's second hat serves to distract the Canfields when Willie coaxes his do-9 to fetch it. There is also a pronounced water motif in the film. Water as rain conceals from us the murders in the prologue and later saves Willie from leaving the Can- field home after dinner ("It would be the death of anyone to go out on a night like this!"). Water as a river functions significantly in the final chase. And water as a wa- terfall appears soon after Willie's arrival in the South (4.164). This waterfall ini- tially protects Willie by hiding him (4.1651 4.166) but later threatens both him and the Canfield daughters as they are nearly swept over it (4.172).

Two specific motifs of setting help unify the narrative. First there is the recLrr- rence of an embroidered sampler hanging on the Canfield wall: "Love Thy Neigh- bor." It appears initially in the prologue of the film, when seeing it motivates Canfield's attempt to stop the feud. It then plays a significant role in linking the ending back to the beginning. The sampler reappears at the end when Canfield, en- raged that Willie has married his daughter, glances at the wall, reads the inscription, and resolves to halt the years of feuding. His change in attitude is motivated by the earlier appearance of the motif.

The film also uses gun racks as a motif. In the prologue, each feuder goes to his mantelpiece to get his pistol. Later, when Willie arrives in town, the Canfields hurry to their gun rack and begin to load their pistols. Near the end of the film. when the Canfields return home after failing to find Willie, one of the sons notices that the gun rack is now empty. And, in the final shot, when the Canfields accept the marriage and lay down their arms, Willie produces from all over his person a sta._e- gering assortment of pistols taken as a precaution from the Canfields' own supply. Thus mise-en-scene motifs unify the film through their repetition. variation, and development.

Yet Our Hospitality is more than a film whose narrative system relates eco- nomically to patterns of mise-en-scene. It is a comedy, and one of the funniest. We should not be surprised to find, then, that Keaton uses mise-en-scene for gags. In- deed, so unified is the film that most of the elements that create narratrve economy also function to yield comic effects.

The mise-en-scene bristles with many individually comic elements. Settings are exploited for amusement-the ramshackle McKay estate, the Broadway of 1830, the specially cut train tunnel that just fits the old-fashioned train and its smokestack (4.167). Costume gags also stand out. Willie's disguise as a woman is exposed by a gap in the rear of his skirt; later, Willie puts the same costume on a horse to distract the Canfields. Most strongly, comedy arises from the behavior of the figures. The railroad engineer's high kick unexpectedly swipes off his conductor's hat (4.168). The elder Canfield sharpens his carving knife with ferocious energy, just inches from Willie's head. When Willie lands at the bottom of the river, he stands there looking left and right, his hand shading his eyes, before he reahzes where he is. Later, Willie scuds down the river, leaping out of the water like a fish and skidding across the rocks.

Perhaps the only aspect of mise-en-scene that competes with the comic bril- liance of the figures' behavior is the film's use of deep space for gags. Many of the shots we have already examined function to create comedy as well: The engineer

4.165 The new waterfall begins to hide Willie as he sits fishing . . .

4.156 . . . and by the time the Canfields rush into the foreground, he is invisible.

IrJarrative Functions of Mise-en-Scene in Our Hospitality r57

4.167 The tunnel cut to fit the old- fashioned train.

4.168 As the engineer, Keaton's f-ather, Joe, used his farnous high-kick vaudeville stunt for this gag.

4169 The motif begins as Willie is jerked into the water.

4.172 Willie dangles like a fish on the end of a pole.

stands firmly oblivious to the separation of train cars from the engine (see 4.161) just as Willie is unaware that the Canfield boy is lurking murderously in the fore- ground (4.163).

Even more striking, though, is the deep-space gag that follows the demolition of the dam. The Canfield boys have been searching the town for Willie. In the mean- time, Willie sits on a ledge, fishing. As the water bursts from the dam and sweeps over the cliff, it completely engulfs Willie (4.165). At that very instant, the Canfield brothers step into the foreground from either side of the frame, still looking for their victim (4.166). The water's concealment of Willie reduces him to a neutral back- ground for the movement of the Canfields. This sudden eruption of new action into the scene surprises us, rather than generating suspense, since we were not aware that the Canfield sons were so close by. Here surprise is crucial to the comedy.

However appealing the individual gags are, Our Hospitality patterns its comic aspects as strictly as it does its other motifs. The film's journey pattern often arranges a series of gags according to a formal principle of theme and variations. For instance, during the train trip South, a string of gags is based on the idea of peo- ple encountering the train. Several people turn out to watch it pass, a tramp rides the rods, and an old man chucks rocks at the engine. Another swift series of gags takes the train tracks themselves as its theme. The variations include a humped track, a donkey blocking the tracks, curled and rippled tracks, and finally no tracks at all.

But the most complex theme-and-variations series can be seen in the motif of "the fish on the line." Soon after Willie arrives in town, he is angling and hauls up a minuscule fish. Shortly afterward, a huge fish yanks him into the water (4.159). Later in the film, through a series of mishaps, Willie becomes tied by a rope to one of the Canfield sons. Many gags arise from this umbilical-cord linkage, especially one that results in Canfield's being pulled into the water as Willie was earlier.

Perhaps the single funniest shot in the film occurs when Willie realizes that since the Canfield boy has fallen off the rocks (4.170), so must he (4.171). But even after Willie gets free of Canfield, the rope remains tied around his waist. So in the film's climax, Willie is dangling from a log over the waterfall (4.172). Here again, one element fulfills multiple functions. The fish-on-the-line device advances the narrative, becomes a motif unifying the film, and takes its place in a pattern of par- allel gags involving variations of Willie on the rope. In such ways, Our Hospitality becomes an outstanding example of the integration of cinematic mise-en-scene with narrative form.

4l7O Tied to Willie, the Canfield boy falls off the cliff . . .

4:171 . . . and Willie braces himself to be pulled after.

158 CHAPTER 4 The Shot: Mise-en-Scene

The viewer who wants to study mise-en-scene should look for it systematically. We should watch, first of all, for how setting, costuffie, lighting, and the behavior of the figures present themselves in a given film. As a start, we should try to trace only one sort of element-say, setting or lighting-through a scene.

We should also reflect on the patterning of mise-en-scene elements. How do they function? How do they constitute motifs that weave their ways through the en- tire film? In addition, we should notice how mise-en-scene is patterned in space and time to attract and guide our attention through the process of watching the film and to create suspense or surprise.

Finally, we should try to relate the system of mise-en-scene to the large-scale form of the film. Hard-and-fast prejudices about realism are of less value here than an openness to the great variety of mise-en-scene possibilities. Awareness of those possibilities will better help us to determine the functions of mise-en-scene.

On the Origins of ise-en-Scene As a concept, mise-en-scene dates back to the l9th-century theater. For a historical introduction that is relevant to film, see Oscar G. Brockett and Robert R. Findlay, Century of Innovation (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, l9l3). The standard film works are Nicolas Vardac, Stage to Screen (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949), and Ben Brewster and Lea Jacobs,, Theatre to Cinema: Stage Pictorialism and the Early Feature Film (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).

On Realism in ise-en-Scene Many film theorists have seen film as a realistic medium par excellence. For such theorists as Siegfried Kracauer, Andrd Bazin, and V. F. Perkins, cinema's power lies in its ability to present a recognizable reality. The realist theo- rist thus often values authenticity in costume and setting, naturalistic acting, and unstylized lighting. "The primary function of decor," writes V. F. Perkins, "is to provide a believable environment for the action" (Film as Film [Baltimore: Penguin, 1972], p. 94). Andrd B azin praises the Italian neorealist films of the 1940s for "faithfulness to everyday life in the scenario, truth to his part in an actor" (What Is Cinema? vol. 2 [Berkeley: University of California Press, 19701, p. 25).

Though mise-en-scene is always a product of selec- tion and choice, the realist theorist may value the film- maker who creates a mise-en-scene that appears to be reality. Kracauer suggests that even apparently unrealistic song-and-dance numbers in a musical can seem im- promptu (Theory of Film [New York: Oxford University Press, 1965]), and Bazin considers a fantasy film such as

The Red Balloon realistic because here "what is imaginary on the screen has the spatial density of something real" (What Is Cinema? vol. 1 [Berkeley: University of Califor- nia Press, 19661, p. 48).

These theorists set the filmmaker the task of repre- senting some historical, social, or aesthetic reality through the selection and arrangement of mise-en-scene. Though this book postpones the consideration of this problem-it lies more strictly in the domain of film the- ory-the realist controversy is worth your examination. Christopher WilliaffiS, in Realism and the Cinemc (Lon- don: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), reviews many issues in the area.

Computer Imaging and ise-en-Scene Digital, or 3D, animation typically involves a few widely used prograffiS, such as Maya for creating movement and Renderman for adding surface texture. Animators deal with specific needs of their projects by developing new software for such effects as fire, water, and moving fo- liage. The figures to be animated are created either by scanning every surface of a maquette (a detailed model, such as the dinosaur in 1.29) or by using motion capture ("mocop"), filming actors or animals in neutrally colored costumes covered with dots, which are the only things visible to the camera. The dots are connected by lines to create a "wire-frame" moving image, and the computer gradually adds more detailed layers to build a textured, three-dimensional, moving figure. Backgrounds can also be created digitally, using matte-painting programs. For figure animation, see The Art of Maya: An Introduction to 3D Computer Graphics, 3d ed. (Alias Systems, 2005), which includes a CD-ROM with introductory material.

For fiction feature films, 3D animation became vi- able with digital conxpositing, used for the T:1000 cyborg in Terntinator 2: Judgment Day.Here a grid was painted on the actor's body, and the actor was filmed executing movements. As the film was scanned, the changing grid patterns were translated into a digital code similar to that used on compact discs. Then new actions could be cre- ated on the computer frame by frame. For a discussion, see Jody Duncan, 'A Once and Future War," Cinefex 47 (August 199 I ): 4-59. Since Terminator 2, sophisticated software programs have enabled directors to create "ac- tors" wholly from models that can be scanned into a com- puter and then animated. The most famous early example is the gallimimus herd rn Jurassic Park. The phases of the imaging process for this film are explained in Jody Dun- can, "The Beauty in the Beasts," Cinefex 55 (August 1993): 42-95. Both analog image synthesis and digital compositing were used in The Matrix; for background, see Kevin H. Martin, "Jacking into the Matrix," Cinefex 79 (October 1999): 66-89. The rendering of realistic hu- man and humanlike characters depended on finding a way to create the elusively translucent quality of skin. Such figures as Jar Jar Binks rn Star Wars Episode I : The Phantom Menace and especially Gollum in The Lord of the Rings finally achieved this goal. See Cinefex 78 (July 1999), completely devoted to The Phantom Menace;Joe Fordham, "Middle-Earth Strikes Back," Cinefex 92 (Jan- uary 2003): 70-142; and Joe Fordham, "Journey's End," Cinefex 96 (January 2004): 55-142.

The combination of live-action filming with com- puter animation has created a fresh range of cinematic effects. Mdlids' urge to dazzle the audience with the mag- ical powers of mise-en-scene continues to bear fruit.

Particular Aspects of Mise-eo-Scene On costume, see Eli zabeth Lees, Costume Design in the Movies (London: BCW, 1976),, and Edward Maeder, ed., Hollywood and Historv: Costume Design in Film (New York: Thames & Hudson, 1987). See also Vincent J.-R. Kehoe, The Technique of the Professional Make-Up Artist (Boston: Focal Press, 1995).

L6on Barsacq, with careful assistance by Elliott Stein, has produced the best history of setting to date, Caligari's Cabinet and Other Grand lllusions: A History of Film Design (New York: New American Library, 1976). Other major studies of decor in the cinema are Charles Affron and Mirella Jona Affron, Sets in Motion: Art Direction and Film l{arrative (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1995); Dietrich Meumann, ed., Film Architecture: Set Designs from "Metropolis" to " Blade Runner" (Munich: Prestel , 1996); and C. S. Tashiro, PretQ Pictures: Production Design and the His- tory of Film (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998). For insightful interviews with set designers, see Vincent

Where to Go frorn Herc r59

LoBrutto, By Design (New York: Praeger, 1992), and Peter Ettedgui, Production Design & Art Direction (Woburn, MA: Focal Press, 1999). An excellent overview is offered by Vincent LoBrutto in The Filntmaker's Guide to Production Design (New York: Allworth, 2002). Pascal Pinteau's gorgeously illustrated Special Effects: An Oral History (New York: Abrams, 2003) covers not only mod- els and digital effects but also make-up, setting, and even theme park rides.

A wide-ranging analysis of performance in film is Richard Dyer, Stars (London: British Film Institute, 1979). This book is complemented by Charles Affron, Star Acting: Gish, Garbo, Davis (New York: Dutton, 1977), and James Naremore, Acting in the Cinema (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988). Useful practical guides are Patrick Tucker, Secrets of Screen Act- ing (New York: Routledge, 1994), and Tony Barr, Acting

fo, the Camera (NewYork: Perennial, 1986). The ways in which a performance can be integrated with a film's over- all form are considered in two other manuals, The Film Director's Intuition: Script Analysis and Rehearsal Tech- niques, by Judith Wilson (Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese,2003), and Delia Salvi's Friendly Enemies: Max- imizing the Director-Actor Relationship (New York: Bill- board, 2003). Michael Caine's Acting in Film: An Actor's Take on Movie Making (New York: Applause Books) of- fers excellent and detailed discussion; see also the ac- companying video, Michael Caine on Acting in Film.

Two fine surveys of lighting are Kris Malkiewicz, Film Lighting: Talks with Hollywood's Cinematogra- phers and Gaffirs (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1986); and Gerald Millerson, Lighting for Television & Film, 3d ed. (Boston: Focal Press, 1999). John Alton's Painting with Light (New York: Macmillan, 1949) and Gerald Miller- son's Technique of Lighting fo, Television and Motion Pictures (New York: Hastings House, l9l2) are useful older discussions, with emphasis on classical Hollywood practices. A useful reference book is Richard K. Fern- case's Film and Video Lighting Terms and Concepts (Newton, MA: Focal Press, 1995).

Depth Art historians have long studied how a two-dimensional image can be made to suggest a deep space. A compre- hensive introductory survey is William V. Dunning, Changing Images of Pictorial Space: A History of Spatial Illusion in Paintins (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1991). Dunning's history of Western painting emphasizes the manipulation of five techniques we have considered in this chapter: linear perspective, shading, the separation of planes, atmospheric perspective, and color perspective.

Though film directors have of course manipulated the image's depth and flatness since the beginning of cin- ema, critical understanding of these spatial qualities did

160 CHAPTER 4 The Shot: Mise-en-Scene

not emerge until the 1940s. It was then that Andr6 Bazin called attention to the fact that certain directors staged their shots in unusually deep space. Bazin singled out F. W. Murnau (for Nosferatu and Sunrise), Orson Welles (for Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons), William Wyler (for The Little Foxes and The Best Years of Our Lives), and Jean Renoir (for practically all of his 1930s work). By offering us depth and flatness as analyt- ical categories, Bazin increased our understanding of mise-en-scene. (See "The Evolution of the Language of Cinema," in What /s Cinema? vol. 1.) Interestingly, Sergei Eisenstein, who is often contrasted with Bazin, ex- plicitly discussed principles of deep-space staging in the 1930s, as recorded by his faithful pupil, Vladimir Nizhny, in Lessons with Eisenstein (New York: Hill & Wang, 1962). Eisenstein asked his class to stage a murder scene in a single shot and without camera movement; the result was a startling use of extreme depth and dynamic move- ment toward the spectator. For a discussion, see David Bordwell, The Cinema of Eisenstein (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), chaps. 4 and 6. For a general historical overview of depth in mise-en-scene, see David Bordwell's On the History of Film Style (Cam- bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), chap. 6.

Color Design Two clear and readable discussions of color aesthetics in general are Luigina De Grandis, Theory and Use of Color trans. John Gilbert (NewYork: Abrams, 1986), and Paul Zelanski and Mary Pat Fisher, Colour fo, Designers and Artists (London: Herbert Press, 1989).

For general discussion of the aesthetics of film color, see Raymond Durgnat, "Colours and Contrasts," Films and Filming 15, 2 (November 1968): 58-62; and William Johnson, "Coming to Terms with Color," Film Quarterly 20,, 1 (Fall 1966): 2-22. The most detailed analysis of color organi zation in films is Scott Higgin s, Harnessing the Rainbow: Technicolor Design in the 1930s (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006).

Frame Composition and the Vewerts Ey" The film shot is like the painter's canvas: It must be filled up, and the spectator must be cued to notice certain things (and not to notice others). For this reason, composition in film owes much to principles developed in the graphic arts. A good basic study of composition is Donald L. Weismann, The Visual Arts as Human Experience (En- glewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall , 1974), which has many interesting things to say about depth as well. More elaborate discussions are to be found in Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye, rev. ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press,

1974), and his The Power of the Center: A Study of Com- position in the Visual Arts, 2d ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).

Andr6 Bazin suggested that shots staged in depth and shot in deep focus give the viewer's eye greater freedom than do flatter, shallower shots: The viewer's eye can roam across the screen. (See Bazin, Orson Welles [New York: Harper & Row, 19781.) Noel Burch takes issue: 'All the elements in any given film image are perceived as equal in importance" (Noel Burch, Theory of Film Practice [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 19811, p. 34). Psychological research on pictorial percep- tion suggests, however, that viewers do indeed scan im- ages according to specific cues. In cineffi&, static visual cues for "when to look where" are reinforced or under- mined by movement of figures or of camera, by sound track and editing, and by the overall form of the film. The psychological research is outlined in Robert L. Solso, Cognition and the Visual Arts (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994), pp. 129-156. In Figures Traced in Light: On Cinematic Staging (Berkeley: University of Califor- nia Press, 2005), David Bordwell studies how the film- maker uses staging and frame composition to guide the viewer's scanning of the shot.

Websites www.thescenograph er.com/ Website for The

Scenographer magazine, which deals with production design and costume design; has some online articles.

www.makeupm ag.com/ Website for Make-Up Artist Magazine, professional journal for film and television workers; has some online articles.

www.l 6-9.dk/2}03-O5/sidell minnelli.htm,z In a well- illustrated article, "Medium Shot Gestures: Vincente Minnelli and Some Came Running," Joe McElhaney provides a very good example of close analysis of long- take staging. The page is hosted by the Danish online magazine 16:9.

Recommended DVD S,rpplements DVDs often include galleries of designs for sets, cos- tumes, and occasionally make-up. Documentaries on the subject include Pulp Fiction's "Production Design Fea- turette." The unusually large, labyrinthine, enclosed spaceship interior in Alien, as well as the film's other sets, are discussed in the "Fear of the Unknown" and "The Darkest Reaches" segments. (The former also deals with costume design.) Speed's "On Location" supplement deals with the 12 different buses that appeared at various stages of the film's action, as well as how the freeway locations were used.

Lighting is an area of mise-en-scene that receives rel- atively little coverage. An exception is "Painting with

Light," a documentary on cinematographer Jack Cardiff 's work on the extraordinary color film Black lr,.larcisszs. A brief but informative look at lighting comes in the "Shooting on Location: Annie's Office" supplement for Collateral. In the "Here to Show Everybody the Light" section of the "Working like a Dog" supplement for A Hard Day's Night, director of photography Gilbert Taylor talks about how high-key lighting on the Beatles achieved the characteristic look of the images and about such challenges as rigging lighting equipment in a real train. Toy Story's "Shaders and Lighting" section reveals how computer animation can simulate rim and key lighting.

Auditions are commonly included in DVD supple- ments, such as those for "The Making of American Graf- rtfi" and especially The Godfather-where 72 minutes cover the casting, including many screen tests ! Some discs go more deeply into aspects of acting. Collateral's extras include a short segment, "Tom Cruise & Jamie Fox

Where to Go from Here 161

Rehearse." "The Stunts," included with Speed, shows how the drivers' maneuvers with the vehicles involved in the accidents and near-misses were choreographed using models, as well as covering how decisions are made about whether to let stars do their own stunts. "Becoming an Oompa-Loompa" details the training Deep Roy un- derwent to play all the Oompa-Loompas in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. A detailed exploration of the dis- tinctive acting in the films of Robert Bresson is offered by Babette Mangolte's "The Models of Pickpocket," includ- ing lengthy interviews with the three main performers re- calling the director's methods.

The Dancer in the Dark supplement "Choreography: Creating Vincent Paterson's Dance Sequences" takes an unusually close look at this particular type of staging. (This section can be best appreciated if you have watched the whole film or at least the musical numbers "Cvalda" [Track 9] and "I Have Seen It All" fTrack 13].)