Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Insomnia (2002) Christopher Nolan

Christopher Nolan film is a remake of an original which was shot in 1997 (didn't get a chance to see the first one). But to briefly sum up, the film is about a cop who comes to a small Alaska town to investigate the murder of a young girl with his partner. During the time Detective Domer (Pacino) is there, Alaska is going through it's never ending daylight summer. So even at night, it's daylight.

Domer is under investigation for planting evidence and his partner is going to testify. While tracking the murderer in Alaska, Domer "accidently" shoots his partner dead. The rest of the movie, Domer has to try and find the killer of the young girl and find a way to plant evidence to clear his name.  Talking about the mise en scene of the film, Nolan has a very effective plot device that helps chiefly with the visual style of the film. Because it's constantly daylight and the protagonist has insomnia, the director puts the viewer through a series of disorienting scenes. The editing, lighting and stage director for the film really enhances that feeling. The film is shot with a very bleak atmosphere with a light of grey which serves two meanings..to me. It helps to put the viewer in the same disorienting feeling of Domer because the gray seems to blur everything together -- just like Domer's days in Alaska. The gray also servers to show the nature of the protagonist himself. He's a cop who plants evidence. He's a cop who shot another cop. He's also a cop looking for a killer. Not exactly the white knight but not the a black hearted killer either. He's on the line between light and dark...like most cops. LOL!

As Domer tries to go to sleep, we're there to see him struggle with the daylight practically, as he fights to get some shred of darkness back in his life. Which theme-wise is such an interesting aspect of the film. The character is a cop looking for a murderer, in a sense, bring light to the case. He shoots his partner and another cop is trying to uncover the truth. He's trying to get sleep and darkness is the only thing that will bring that about. A protagonist who is trying to bring about light while desperately searching for the dark.

 

The Family That Preys

The Family That Preys

Written and Directed by Tyler Perry

I'd seen The Family That Preys once before but the second time, after watching for mise en scene really opened my eyes. Watching for setting, character and lighting really made the film a little deeper for me because of the thought and the work that was put into it. The film is about backstabbing and social climbing but in a family setting. It's seen through each of the characters eyes at least once, so we're just going to focus on one.

The movie begins with Kathy Bate's character Charlotte walking out of her home checking and double checking everything for an wedding happening that day. The weather outside if perfect with just a hint of cloudiness. She's dressed brightly and as we meet her best friend Alice, who's daughter she is throwing the wedding for, we can see that she is too. Everyone is good spirits, though each of them seems to run into a slight conflict in the beginning, requiring them to request a drink from the waiters attending the wedding. I noticed that right off the bat; the alcohol as a stress reliever. Charlotte and Pam(Alice's other daughter) request an alcoholic beverage after dealing with Andrea, the bride to be and with Alice, her worried mother.

Here's where we meet Andrea, the spoiled selfish bitch that's gone from rags to riches because of her Harvard degree in accounting. She's always been the snotty type, but she now believes she has the right to treat anyone "below" her like the scum on the bottom of her shoe.

After watching for the things that differentiated her from the rest of the characters in the film it became a lot more interesting. Her clothes were always high fashion though the colors were understated in the beginning; mostly greys and deep blues because of all of the secrets she was keeping. It was clear that she thought she was better than everyone else, not just by her attitude, but by her way of dress. When we finally get to see her house, it's in perfect condition. Not in the way that someone with obsessive compulsive disorder would have it, it's more or less she takes pride in the way that people see her; there's even a bit of sex appeal with the fire going in the fireplace. She has the baby blue walls and beige furniture to compliment. Though she has a son, it doesn't look lived in at all. We also only see him twice in the film and when we do see him, he's being babysat by her older sister. It's almost like a fascade she's holding up because she's never at the house but its perfect to the naked eye, almost like her.

But later on in the film, once she begins to stop caring about keeping her secrets, her dress becomes more provocative. On the night that it's finally revealed to someone that she is cheating on her husband( William, her boss and the man she is cheating with is caught kissing her in a hotel hall by his wife) her dress is jet black but her jewelry is the most extravagant that we see the entire time. I think this was there to reflect what was going on inside: She really has no soul to be doing what she's doing, but she dresses it up really nice.

Later on, when it's the climax of the film, her husband has just found out that she is cheating on him with her boss, that their son belongs to her boss and not him and that she was planning to leave him high and dry her dress is fire engine red. She's stopped caring about what happens to her old life and she no longer feels bogged down by her husband or their marriage. This shows in her dress and her attitude contrasts with the color of the dress; she's even colder than usual.

In the end, when her husband leaves her, her family seems to be doing ok without her and her boss denies her and his son her dress becomes low and quiet. She wears pastels of deep grey and blue again but this time instead of suits and pumps she has on sneakers, and a sweatpants.

This film was very well done in terms of mise en scene:-)

Justin Afifi - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Directed by: Terry Gilliam

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas follows journalist Raoul Duke and his lawyer Dr. Gonzo on a drug induced journey through Las Vegas. Duke and Gonzo are in town in order to cover the Mint 400 race, but that story gets lost along the way awfully fast. The film instead focuses on the pairs hallucinogenic outings in every Sin City. The pair’s adventures (or misadventures) can either have you in stitches or cringing at the strange, uncomfortable situations the two characters get themselves in. What’s more terrifying is it’s based on a true story.

The acting is top notch as Johnny Depp puts in a memorable performance as Raoul Duke (alter ego of Hunter S. Thompson), a journalist who seems to pass off his duties for any drug that’s put in front of him. Del Toro also shines as the aloof and insane Dr. Gonzo. Both making the audience laugh at their antics and then taking a turn and terrifying them.

The Mise en Scene is evident throughout this picture as Terry Gilliam is never far from outrageous sets, characters, and stories. In Fear and Loathing…Gilliam injects the audience into a drug addled mind. The world spins, shakes, vibrates, and stretches without warning. Nothing is what it seems as Duke looks at the receptionist, looks away, and turns back to see her face stretched out beyond recognition. The hallucinations of lizard people, midgets, and giants add to the disoriented feel of the film and almost make the setting feel as if it were a character. In the rare instances that the characters aren’t high on something the movie has a steady, stiff feel. A scene where both Duke and Gonzo are in a diner almost feels unsettling because the camera isn’t jerking around. Gilliam effectively uses Mise en Scene to make the film a more enjoyable one and takes something that could have been a standard film to something special.

Mise En Scene: Star Brown

My Own Private Idaho (1991)
Directed by Gus Van Sant

This is an independent film about a narcoleptic rogue, Mike (River Phoneix) and his endearing friendship with Scott (Keanu Reeves). Together they travel the long roads surrounded by flat fields from Idaho to Portland with their own identities facing challenges with people American society. As outcasts, they run with the underground folk, selling their bodies to earn cash. Mike is a lost soul whose mother left him when he was only a baby and his distant memories of her trigger his narcolepsy in the most spontaneous situations. Like an older brother, Scott is there to take care of him. Scott’s character is based on the rebellious Prince Hal from Shakespeare’s “Henry IV” who is heir to his father’s wealth once he turns twenty-one. Scott is consciously aware of his vagrant ways in the eyes of his father, the Mayor and knows he will change and reform when time deems it. Throughout the movie we see the slow transformation of our vibrant protagonists sowing their wild oats on the urban streets as tricksters and thieves. The close relationship of Mike and Scott solidifies Mike’s romantic feelings for his companion. This leads them to embark on a journey in search for Mike’s mother landing them in Italy. There, Scott falls in love with a native, young woman abandoning his companion to start his life as an upstanding citizen in upper class society. Mike being abandoned again, continues on with the life he knows will never change—the long and lonely road that he repeatedly states as looking like a “fucked up face.”

The mise en scene in “My Own Private Idaho” is shelled in a dream-like world around Idaho and Portland settings. The recurring metaphorical setting of the desolate straight road in the middle of nowhere symbolizes the ever-present loneliness of Mike’s life. As a traumatized narcoleptic, this road in Idaho is most familiar to him since it is the trigger for his condition. This setting of the road is the opener and closure of the movie enveloping the it in one dreamlike story. There are repeated scenes of a country house, presented as Mike’s distant memories of his lost home. These settings portray the timeless and endlessness of Mike’s life emphasizing the mood of his abandonment. In a strange way, the quiet plains appear serene-like for such a wild ride of debauchery through a self-destructive character.

The movie travels back and forth from these nature settings of Idaho’s billowing clouds above the still plains to the loud, bustling city of Portland. Again, these shots emphasize the reality of Mike’s life—wakefulness to sudden dream-like trance.
The open skies above the horizon reinforce the “road less traveled” theme of being an outcast. There are many exterior shots that allow the underground characters to roam free in their world of misconduct. The diner is where all the rascals gather to regroup and tell stories of their worst “dates.” In one diner scene, Mike and Scott are sitting in a corner table conversing about their relationship and their personal lives. The scene is cut from the interior of the diner to the exterior. It splits the audience’s viewing to give the sense of sitting with the friends then cuts to being a stranger walking by the window peering in.

The composition in this movie was excellent in repeating angular shots, long shots of windy and angled roads and city buildings. The most engraved image that was repeatedly shot was the unbalanced composition of a long road getting narrower toward the center of the horizon. In the beginning and ending of the film, Mike is standing on the same road looking toward one direction and when he lifts his hand up and says the road looks like “someone’s face—like a fucked up face.” And when he says that, the lens narrows like the ending of the Loony Tunes cartoons. All the shots of the Idaho road are asymmetrical that emphasize the unbalance and chaos of Mike’s life as a drifter and his prison of the long road under the billowing clouds of his narcoleptic dreams.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

The Shawshank Redemption

Directed by: Frank Darabount (1994)
Screenplay by: Frank Darabount, adapted from the novella "Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption" by Stephen King

"Get busy livin', or get busy dyin'"

"Hope is a dangerous thing"

"Brooks was here"

...Are just some of the memorale line from Shawshank. It's a little unfair for me to do this review since Shawshank is my favorite film of all time, but it does fill a lot of requirments of our topic. The Shawshank Redemption is the story about two men in a prison and the friendship that bonds them forever. Andy Dufrane (Tim Robbins) is wrongfully convicted of killing his wife and her lover and sent to life imprisonment in Shawshank. There, he meets Red (Morgan Freeman) a man who is known for smuggling things into the prison. Andy asks for a poster of Rita Hayworth and a friendship begins with them and a number of other inmates in the prison. Several events occure take place throughout the film. Brooks, an older librian gets promoted but kills himself when he can't live in a world he hasn't known for fifty years, Andy and the warden square off against each other to see which one can really control the prison, and Tommy, a young kid who can prove Andy's innocence is murdered by the warden. It all come to a climax when Andy Dufrane reveals a project he's been working on for 20 years: Escape from Shawshank. Andy escapes and reveals what the warden has been doing which results to in the warden's suicide. Red gets parolled and the two reunite, ending the film. That's a basic synopsis of the film. But it could never really explain the film.

In the first act of the film, Darabount creates a very dark setting. The film opens at night and most of the prison scenes involving Andy have a very dark tone to them. He spends most of the first act not saying much at all once he gets to the prison, and he also spends most of the first act getting betan on by the sister's group. But when Andy's troubles start to end in the beginning of Act II, the prison starts to have some light to it and Andy has more speaking lines and becomes less of a mysterious figure. Towards the end of Act II, the darkness in the film returns. The warden clealy becomes the antagonist (It's still called into question who the antagonist is until he plans the murder of Tommy) and Andy spends months in complete darkness in solitary. Act III brings back the lightness of the film when Red get paroled and reunites with Andy.

The film is also hard to depict one theme. One theme is friendship, since Red and Andy share a friendship for over 20 years. But then you can aruge the film is about hope. Or it could be redemption (hence the title). But if I had to choose one, it would be hope. It's the motivation for the two main charactersto keep going on even when the obstacles are too hard. If anything, it's the one thing for Red (who in my mind is the protagonist due to his narration and his emotional arc) that keeps him going at the end of the film.

There's so much more I could talk about this film including Darabount's incredible job of turning a novella into a 2 hour and 20 minute film, the acting performances (in my opinon Morgan Freeman gives the performance of his career), the changes Darabount made from the novella (including making Brooks a more fleshed out character and ending the film with the reunion) but what's important in our topic this week is stressing the tone that the film sets just with the setting, and it works.

-Chris Bergeris

American Psycho

American Psycho
Director: Mary Harron

"A wealthy New York investment banking executive hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he escalates deeper into his illogical, gratuitous fantasies."

This film is a great example of mise-en-scene because as we delve deeper into the protagonist's psyche, so does the camera. We begin with a clean, high end restaurant table around which are seated several well dressed, handsome men. Their dialogue is confident, cocky, and shockingly blunt as we discover that one of them has come back from the bathroom only because it's a "lousy place to do coke in." These are not the type of men we would have pegged as drug abusers, but wait -- it gets better.

The most important of the circle of coke abusing suits is Patrick Bateman, our protagonist. We see things through his eyes so much so that by the end of the film, nobody really knows if some of the events depicted actually took place.

Patrick goes on a killing spree sparked by an ATM requesting that he feed it a stray cat. One bullet from his gun sends a cop car soaring into the sky Die Hard style. We watch as he drags a body bag leaking blood out of his apartment building but when his friends appear, suddenly the blood vanishes and the body bag becomes a suitcase made my Jean Paul Gaultier.

When things are simple in the beginning, Patrick looks good. When we see him undressed, he's wearing plain white briefs. As he starts losing it, not only does his appearance become shabbier, but the style of underwear he wears because more and more elaborate -- as if reflecting his personality. He wears dark boxer briefs, silk boxers, and finally, nothing at all. This reflects his personality as he tries to cover up his fears until finally, realization dawns and he breaks down completely.

All around him, the world falls to chaos. As his mind escapes him, the world turns more and more against him. There are helicopters with gigantic search lights seeking him out in places they would never know he was hiding. (Obviously this is because it's all in his head.)

The perfect man we met in the beginning is completely falling apart.



Third Post - McGuirk

White Oleander (2002)

Directed By: Peter Kosminsky

"White Oleander" is a story about a young girl, Astrid, who's mother, Ingrid, is arrested and convicted for the murder of her boyfriend. Because Astrid is only twelve when this happens, she is put into foster homes. During the film she is placed with three different familes; Starr, an ex-stripper and coke addict who has found Jesus, Claire, a shy insecure actress who's husband is never around, and Rena, a Russian woman who runs a cheap clothing business with the girls she watches. Astrid's experiences at these homes change her; some for the good and some for the bad. But most importantly, the affect the relationship with Ingrid, who tries to control her daughters thoughts and actions even from jail. It is Astrid's ultimate confrontation with Ingrid that pushes Astrid to show her mother that she can't control her anymore.

In terms of Mise en Scene, this film is truly extraordinary. I've seen it several times, but this time, watching for setting, characters, and lighting really made it a different experience. The setting is key in this film and changes several times, due to the fact that Astrid is moving from home to home. In the beginning, when she's still with her mother, the setting is their home with art projects (her mother is an artist) and pictures of family. It's a happy environment. This disappears with Ingrid's arrest. Starr's setting is out in the desert, which creates a sense of abandonment and loneliness. Her home is a mix of religious symbols and sparkly clothes showing just who her character is and what effect she will have on Astrid. Claire's home is practically all white and very classy. She's a pure spirit who wants to find order in her messed up life. Rina, in contrast, lives by selling on street corners and fairs. Their home is small and contains old cheap antiques. Each setting is a way to convey the main care-giver's personality without having to say it.

The actors in this film are another form of Mise en Scene. Alison Lohman's protrayl of Astrid is perfect. She was reatively new to movies when she did this, and that fresh face is perfect for portraying the emotions of Astrid who has to constantly change throughout the film. Michelle Pfeiffier gives the best performance as Ingrid. She is beautiful and manipulative. Evil and pure. It is these two that drive the main feel of the film and bring a sense of identity.

Lighting is the hardest aspect of film for me to understand. However there were scenes in this film that stood out. The scene at Starr's home when Astrid is doing her homework and Ray, Starr's boyfriend, comes home early. He and Astrid have been becoming closer since she's been there, and some might argue too close. This scene is where it becomes apparent that these two feel something for each other. It's dark outside and the lights are dim, setting a flirtatous mood. Shadows form across each actors face when they are closer together. It's a darkness of characters. Astrid, who was once pure, is becoming corrupted.

With all three aspects of Mise en Scene, "White Oleander" became an entirely different movie for me. I understood why I felt so strongly for these characters and why, as a viewer, I made the judgements about who they were based on the scenery around them and how they dressed.

Elyse Stefanowicz - Idle Hands

Idle Hands (1999)
Directed by: Rodman Flender

Idle Hands is a quirky, slapstick horror film that follows a boy, Anton, whose hand is possessed by some sort of demon spirit. The spirit only inhabits lazy stoner types and Anton is the perfect candidate. He has no control over his hand, and when it starts killing people (like his parents and best friends), he thinks its a good idea to cut it off. He slowly realizes that this was not a good idea. The hand is on the loose and is taking out anyone that gets in it's path and when it's main target is Anton's girlfriend, he ditches his stoner ways to save the love of his life. The film has all of the typical horror film attributes; gore, guts and slaying, but it also has a refreshing sense of humor that keeps you laughing while people are dying.

The film's setting, composition and characters attribute to making the overall film a success. The setting takes place in two places (from what I can remember)--Anton's house and the school. Most of the entirety of the film is set in Anton's house. Usually when there is one distinct location, it can be a recipe for disaster, but in this film the viewer doesn't notice the lack of sets. There are enough entertaining things going on to distract and keep the viewer busy--I know I was never bored from the setting. The overall composition of the film has a dark hue to it. Barely any of it happens in daylight and it all happens in one day. There isn't much bright lighting throughout the film which helps enhance the horror aspect of the film. The characters in the film were what in my opinion made it most enjoyable. Anton--played by Devon Sawa--is the protagonist in the film, and even though he is the killer, the audience doesn't hate him. We want him to get out of it--even when he kills his best friends. The casting of the film really enhanced the over success just because the actors did do such a good job. Devon Sawa throughout the entire first half of the film had to make his one hand seem entirely different from his other and even got in fights with it. He had such control that he made the slapstick comedy he does believable and funny. Most of the actors were somewhat unknown at this time and it was a relatively young cast. Seth Green and Jessica Alba filled some of the supporting roles. The makeup of the film was also very well done. For half the movie Seth Green was walking around with a bottle in his head. Obviously it was fake, but it was incredible makeup design that made that possible. The blood, guts and gore also had to be designed by some sort of makeup team and the only downfall I would say is that there was too much blood--but after all I am a little queasy.

Brick

Director: Rian Johnson
2006

Brick is a movie about an average boy, Brendan Frye, sent out on a classic whodunnit case, when his ex girlfriend goes missing. This is what could be considered as the closest example of a successful neo-noir. Film noir, a film category that was born in the late 40's and early fifties, with whodunnit plots and corrupt private eyes. This genre, born out of the German expressionist movement, heavily influenced by films like the Cabinet of Dr. Kaligari, relies heavily on it's mise-en-scene, but ever since we have moved into our era of color, noir seemed to have faded out, until this film came along.

I will pick out a few key scenes and describe their mise-en-scene. Right away, in the opening of the film, we have the protagonist, Brendan Frye in a phone booth. We, the audience has no idea who is the voice on the other end, right away this creates mystery and tension. To further the tension the film maker puts Frye inside a phone booth, a place, if your claustrophobic, heightens the tension even more. Add in the shakiness of Brandon's voice and the uneasy panic of the girl on the other end, and the scene becomes extremely tight.

When Brandon goes to his loyal sidekick, The Brain, we meet a quirky brainiac with a soft spot for rubik's cubes. With the thick framed black glasses and his fidgety mannerisms we have the mise-en-scene creating a memorable character. Also in this scene, we see Johnson's useof the classic noir language. Brandon and the Brain are tossing lingo back and forth, slang or some made up language even, that causes the audience to listen in a little closer, further creating a unique world that only this film can occur in.

When Brandon goes to meet The Pin, one of his many investigative steps which highlight classic noir formula, we only see The Pin's legs at first, crossed at the knees. The rest of The Pin is in heavy shadow, creating an extremely mysterious element to his character and an element of mystery to the scene.

Another example of the mise-en-scene in Brick, is the physical progression of Brandon's character. Brandon is a man on a mission who will stop at nothing until he gets his answers. He gets beat up throughout the film (like Spade, and other noir heroes) and it is noticeable. In the beginning of the film he seems like a very average kid, with a mop top and some bland clothing, but this sets us up to be surprised by the great lengths that he will go for information.  In the middle we see him dealing with bumps and bruises, and by the end he is coughing and vomiting, getting sick from all the blood he is swallowing.

Brick is a film, driven by a strong plot, that occurs in a world created by mise-en-scene. It is one of those films that you fall completely into, and you even get lost in that world, notiving all the small details. Each of its characters has ticks and flaws, The Pin's uneven leg, Brad Bramish's drug problems, Tugger's angry issues. Each and everyone in this cast is memorable which goes well with a film of such great success.

"Flash Gordon" - Ferraro

Dir: Michael Hodges
Year: 1980

"Flash Gordon"

Another "On Demand" pick. I chose this movie because after what I read in the book, I figured this might be a good example of the whole "mise-en-scene".

Speaking of which, since that's the topic this week, I won't mention anything about the lousy writing and the lame acting. Let's just talk about what creates the movie. This story is set in where else but the famously visited outer space. Obviously there's no movie sets on Mars, so you go to the next best thing: studios. The entirety of the film takes place on various planets, with geologic structures that are clearly not of Earth's (take the pointy mountains on planet Mongo for example. Reminds you of Transylvania, but surely we have nothing like that anywhere in our world). Color also plays an important part with the setting. In the beginning of the film, football legend Flash Gordon is waiting for a plane ride home, flirting with eventual gal-pal Dale Arden, in regular everyday Earth life. The tone here is set as if it were any other average film that wasn't sci-fi; normal ground, normal air, specifically normal coloring. Even the coloring filter is desaturated to present "normal" life. It isn't until the Earth is under attack and our heroes are sent into space by Dr. Zarkov is when the colors become vibrant, and even symbolic. The change from "normal" desaturation to "colorful" high intensity indicates the change from regular Earth to the comic-book world that the Flash Gordon character is associated with, from the multi-colored skies to the shining, colorful costumes everyone wears. Colors here even describe the settings: Emperor Ming's castle and planet is red, which represents evil (furthermore, his daughter Aura started out wearing red leather outfits as she followed her father's orders, and even when it came to seducing Flash. But near the end as she starts leaning towards Flash's side, the color of her clothing begins to lighten up. Before the wedding she is wearing pink, and at the end, now on the side of justice, she is wearing pure white). The Hawkmen's planet is blue with a crystal white palace, clearly representing the good guys. Finally, there's green, which obviously represents Prince Vultan's forest-like planet.

Aside from seizure-inducing color themes, this movie also includes human figures. Michael Hodges casts Sam J. Jones as the title character. Jones is tall, blonde, athletic, and every bit masculine. A skinny, nerdy, nervous type man wouldn't pass as a hero who will "save us all." His girlfriend, Dale Arden, played by Melody Anderson, is beautiful, busty, and always scantily dressed with big heels (appropriate attire in an apocalyptic situation). She doesn't pass as the damsel by looks alone. She is also clingy and is always grabbing onto Flash in a frightening situation, or if he isn't there, she even needs the protection of touch of Dr. Zarkov, who moments ago, she considered "a crazy scientist". Therefore, she passes as the pitiful woman.

Hodges also makes good use of figure placement: Near the beginning, Ming briefly takes control of Dale's mind. The camera is placed behind him as he faces Dale, moving his hand to control her body movements. During this, the hand is floating over Dale (who is actually set in the center of the stage) so it looks as if he's literally got her by the palm of his hand. It clearly states his control over her. Also, Hodges makes use of lighting here, focusing on Dale being mind-controlled as Flash and Zarkov stand in the dark background watching helplessly. Lighting can be seen in the dungeon scene as well. Clearly, Flash is the focus as he is tied up and has his head covered. The light is focused on him, but everyone else is in the shadows, their only source of light coming from the torches.

Although this movie is laughably lousy, I will admit that Hodges makes great use of the mise-en-scene structures to bring this movie alive.

Review: Mise En Scene

Paper moon 1973

Director: Peter Bogdanovich

This week I watched the film Paper Moon starring Ryan O’Neal and his daughter Tatum O’Neal, remembered as the only girl on the team in Bad News Bears. The story of this film surrounds a recently orphaned 9 year old, Addie, who is ‘accidentally’ taken in by a Bible salesman, Mose, who is also a con artist, and may or may not be her father. The two travel around running a scam selling Bibles to the relatives of people who have recently died. The film was directed by peter Bogdanovich, director of The Last Picture Show. Both films present something different for their time, they were shot in black and white. This was viewed as a bold move on Bogdanovich’s part. But he had a vision and it really brought gave the film honestly while bringing it to life. It takes place during the great depression, and we really get a feel for the time period, characters, and events through the use of mis en scene. The fact that black and white is used, versus color, is a choice that makes the viewer see crisp and clear, the emotional and physical expressions of the characters, giving away a lot more about their motivations, wants and needs in the film. We get a great understanding of the fact that Addie is wise beyond her years when she schemes a plan to get rid of Miss Trixie from traveling with them. She also smokes cigarettes consistently throughout the film, and Mose is always scolding her and treating her like a child, what she really is. The film was filled with colorful and true to life characters, including a young black girl named Imogene who is the maid for Miss Trxie Deligight, and a woodsman, Leroy, played by Randy Quaid, who wrestles Mose for a truck swap so that they can hide from the police. There is a carnival scene where Addie is supposed to get her picture taken with Mose in front of a large cut out of a paper moon. He refuses to join in because he is busy with Trixie. When Addie stands in front of the moon you can see how lonely she is, with a loving couple in the background, and everyone around her having a great time. This visual choice is part of the mise en scene that makes up this film. Bogdanovich is known for having complete control over the whole idea of mise en scene in his films and all its aspects. He uses stunning and striking scenery in the film, the lavish hotel, a barren prairie, a dinky car traveling down the endless dirt road and even the cluttered woods. His production designer Polly Platt, helped immensely in the film. Everything you see in each scene is perfectly placed to create a certain mood, tone, or feeling in the story. Where Addie and Mose visit a house with a mother holding countless children, we see it from a perspective looking down, feeling sorry for her. When we see them at a rich woman’s house we are looking up at her showing her wealth and power and the expensive items in her home. In many of the scenes Addie is in control although she is such a small statue. But she takes the lead in the restaurant scene and causes her own scene when she Mose to get frustrated at her multiple times and insisting she eat her Coney Island. Addie also takes control in the jail scene when they break loose because she steals the key from under the policeman’s nose. She has hidden the money and we see just the face on the dollar bills poking out from a hoe in her hat. We always see just as much as we need to in the film, and in every scene we are thrown into a beautiful depiction of a specific time and place that is imperative to the story. the beginning scene with the funeral of Addie's mother shows Addie looking so small put stern and staringdwn at the coffin. The others onlook and some weep but no one really cares as much as they say they do and you can see it in their posture, and gestures. From the wardrobe, to the angles we see characters engaging in situations, the mise en scene is organized, in place, and overall memorable. It’s a great story with loveable and funny characters that steal the show with effortless ability.

Kill Bill Vol. 1 by Amber S. Palmer -Third Post


Kill Bill Vol. 1

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Screenwriter: Quentin Tarantino

Quentin is the director that everybody loves too hate by I love him because he breaks the rules and tells stories in an unorthodox style that most directors wouldn’t be able to do. Tarantino is obviously an avid lover of mise en scene. He uses this filmmaking technique in most of his films like his first big hit Reservoir Dogs, the groundbreaking Pulp Fiction, Natural Born Killers, From Dusk Till’ Dawn, and the sexy thriller Jackie Brown. Mise en scene has a variation of different meanings when it comes to most critics of theater. The French term means “putting on stage”. In cinema, everything happens in one shot and everything happens with little camera movement, if not none at all.
In Kill Bill Volume 1, Tarantino takes us on the journey of Beatrix Kiddo a.k.a. Black Mamba played by Uma Thurman. Beatrix is a bitter assassin murdered by her boss, killed after seconds before being shot in the head, revealing she was having Bill’s baby. The first scene Tarantino entails the scene with a close up of Beatrix beaten and battered to a bloody pulp as her voice trembles, a baritone voice creeps in while clicking a gun. The mystery man is Bill, even though his face is never seen. Bill tells her he’s being his most “masochistic”. Beatrix’s eyes are filled with terror and betrayal as she says, “Bill it’s your baby.” Boom! Blood spatters out of her head. The credits appear and Tarantino has caught the audience is his web. The entire shot focuses on her in black and white. In this moment, the audience wants to know more about Beatrix Kiddo and we also sympathize with her knowing she was shot in the head while with child.
Beatrix has a list of those she wants bloody revenge on and her second victim is Vernita Green a.k.a Copperhead (Played by Vivica A. Fox). Beatrix and Vernita engage in a bloody and entertaining fight in her living room. The place turns into shambles as the two women fight. Before the women tear each other into shreds, the camera focuses on a school bus pulling in front of the house. A little girl steps out and Vernita opens the door for her daughter. Vernita introduces Beatrix and tells her that the dog tore up the living room. She sternly tells her daughter to go to her room. This whole entire scene took place in the living room and not once was I bored or lost. Tarantino uses the technique in an incredibly powerful way.
Tarantino moves the story into the kitchen where he gives the audience backstory of the two women’s business relationship. They both worked for Bill and Vernita was one of the women that beat the crap out of Beatrix. Vernita tries to be sneaky and shoot Beatrix but she pulls out a knife and stabs Vernita right in the heart. The daughter comes into the kitchen and Beatrix advises her she’ll be ready if the little girl ever wants to avenge her mother’s death. One scene: the kitchen and it’s engaging to the very end.
Tarantino takes the audience back to when she was in the hospital coming out of a four year coma. During this entire time in the hospital, the audience knows: A male nurse had sex with her (during the coma) and Elle Driver (one of the women who brutally beat her) tried to kill her while Beatrix was sleeping but the mission was aborted after Bill felt like that was a “sneaky” way to kill someone. Beatrix gets out of the hospital after the male nurse (Buck) hooks up a disgusting truck driver to have sex with her. She bites the man’s bottom lip off and Buck steps in. Beatrix cuts Buck’s ankle and slams the door into his head killing him.
The scene moves into Beatrix getting into Buck’s truck after taking his keys and trying to make her paralyzed legs move. The voiceover of Beatrix tells the story of Oren-Ishii (played by Lucy Liu), a woman who took part of beating her up too. At the end of Oren’s story, Beatrix’s legs restore back to normality. Tarantino brings a sense of unrealism to this part of the film but is only overlooked because it’s the story of a modern day “warrior”.
Tarantino takes one scene to show how brutal and coldhearted Oren-Ishii, her council, and her gang The Crazy 88’s truly is. Boss Tanaka sits impatiently and obviously upset that a Chinese-Japanese woman could lead a criminal organization. Oren immediately jumps on the table in her kimono, whips out her sword and cuts off Boss Tanaka’s head. She tells her council that if anyone has a problem with her that now was the time, while holding Boss Tanaka’s head, of course.
Tarantino makes a grand introduction with background music and slow motion editing as Oren Ishii and the Crazy 88’s make their way into a club. The camera follows into the club while it also focuses on the band playing. While in the club, we see Beatrix following Oren-Ishii and her crew as a shot that’s following her very move, almost documentary like. Oren-Ishii hears something outside of their room and throws a dagger. She orders her bodyguard (a 17 year old girl) to see whose outside. Beatrix is on top of the wall looking down on the bodyguard. While in the club, Beatrix calls Oren Ishii out. Basically, Beatrix kills Oren Ishii’s entire crew. Her lieutenants, bodyguard, and the Crazy 88’s. The most spectacular thing about this scene is that it’s long and the music changes according to the actions going on the scene. Tarantino did an extremely well job of constructing this scene.
Tarantino takes the audience to the next scene where Beatrix faces Oren-Ishii in the snow. The music changes once again and it’s actually a dance song but the mood shifts into a grand finale of an ongoing battle that’ll finally end. Tarantino does a masterful job of putting together a film that completely throws out the three act structure and instead tells the story the way he feels it needs to be told. All the scenes happened in one location and focused on the main character for the entirety of the film. This technique allowed the audience to feel like they were actually following the journey of a scorned woman and this is what makes Tarantino’s films accentuate a new spin on filmmaking through mise en scene.

Reservoir Dogs: Review by Brian Herron

Reservoir Dogs

Quentin Tarantino

Released: 1991

Reservoir Dogs is a story about a group of criminals who are paid to rob a jewelry store, however, the robbery goes bad when they are encountered by the police very quickly during the robbery. A few of the criminals manage to escape; one of them shot really badly in the stomach. The survivors rendezvous at an abandoned warehouse where they realize that one of the men in the group set them up and is working with the police.

In the beginning of the film, the setting is based in a cheap restaurant and all the main characters, with the exception of two, are all dressed in black suits, black ties, and white shirts. The Mise en Scene so far in the film shows the viewer that these men are not rich white collar workers because the setting shows them at an average restaurant and most of them are wearing the same clothes. This tells the viewer that they either work for the government or are a group of gangsters. The filthy language and conversations that these characters have in this setting tell the viewer that these men are real hard asses, which in most people’s minds would tell them that they are most likely a group of gangsters.

The setting in the big empty warehouse is where most of the movie takes place. The lighting is one of the aspects of the Mise en Scene that gives this away to the viewer because you can see shadows of steel up holdings and pipelines. The light also tells the viewer that it is still daytime because of the shadows created as well as the amount of light in the warehouse. Because of this lighting effect, the viewer can assume that the warehouse isn’t too far from where the robbery took place because the time of day effect never changed. The setting also shows ladders, brooms, ramps, and other work equipment that tells the viewer that this was once a place of labor.

Tarantino likes to use a lot of loose framing, even during intense moments of a characters dialogue. This is to show the audience other characters reactions to anothers dialogue. It is also used to remind the viewer of the setting the characters are in which links to why the dialogue is so intense. For example, when Mr. White wants to leave the warehouse in fear of being caught by the police is stopped by Mr. Blonde, Mr. White yells at Mr. Blonde about how they need to leave and pulls out his gun to show how serious he is. The whole time Tarantino has a loose frame showing the viewer that they are still in the warehouse and that this is why Mr. White is so intense.

Brian Herron

High Fidelity

High Fidelity by Stephen Friars (2000)

Rob Gordon played by John Cusack is a lonely Record Store Owner struggling with the loss of his girlfriend Laura. Rob examines his top three break-up list in order to figure out why he acts the way he does. Dick played by Todd Louiso is the quiet, opinionated overachiever, and Barry played by Jack Black is the funny, obnoxious employee at the Record Store. The film follows Rob throughout his past relationships in order to deal with his Love of Laura.
Stephen Frears sets the mood of the characters in the Record Shop by having a wide-shot when Rob and Barry were arguing about Rob’s girlfriend Laura. They both walked out of the shot leaving only Dick in the middle out of control of the situation. All three characters contrast one another. For example, Rob is having female problems throughout the entire film. Dick the quiet clerk gets in a relationship with no problems and Barry doesn’t encounter being in a relationship.
Anyone is capable of understand what Rob is going through by the lines and diagonals of the film. At Rob’s job the records of formed of vertical and diagonal lines. In Rob’s personal office, it’s made out of horizontals, circles, all kind of shapes. Compared to Rob and Laura’s friend Liz, her lines are always identical. In Rob’s house, he has bottles thrown around all over the place, his living room is full of stuff, no order what so ever.
The scene when the two boys were stealing records was great because it showed how Rob thought he is not in control. Rob told Dick that he was going to sell five records but the boys distracted his mission. The scene following that one pushed Rob a little into having control of his relationship with Laura. He left the house feeling relieved.

---Anisha Payne

We Are The Strange

We Are The Strange
Dir. M. dot Strange
Released 2007

What a film. I first sat down to watch this movie with three other friends. We sat in a narrow room, using a projector to blow up the film so that it fit on a wall. There were multiple times when I just couldn't take how intense this movie got. So many things blew me away about this movie.
We Are The Strange uses stop motion, computer graphic artwork, and green screens to follow two characters. It’s a style M. dot Strange has dubbed “Str8nime” (pronounced Stray-knee-may) It includes "Strange", "8 bit", and "Anime". One is a living doll, the other is a woman named Bleu who was abused by, I think her boss or boyfriend. Bleu also has some kind of degenerative disease. The plot is the two of them trying to find the perfect ice cream store, while running into various monsters on the way. A third character, Rain, is on a spree to avenge his son. He basically comes in and destroys all the monsters. There’s a final battle between good and evil, Rain dies, but something ends up coming out of the ground to finally defeat the “source of all that is evil in Stopmo City”.
Each scene is full of wild detail. You could look at each frame as if it’s a stand lone photograph. Every pixel seems to have meaning. Dot Strange uses programming language itself as a way to show certain qualities in the characters. Blue’s disease is shown as if there was a sudden glitch in a computer game you were playing.
I have to say though, that I’ve seen this film a few times now. I only truly enjoyed it the first time because I had no idea what I was in for. The conditions were perfect, and I’ve yet been able to recreate the same atmosphere. I recommend using a projector, it needs to be seen huge!

JOSH COHEN

The Lady From Shanghai

The lady from Shanghai, starring Rita Hayworth and Orson Wells is about a man called Black Irish who becomes a crewmember on a yacht. He falls in love with the captain’s wife and gets involved in murder and betrayal. The hall of mirrors sequence at the end of the film is classic Orson Wells, which is a great example when talking about mis en scene.

After Wells’s character is drugged and wakes up in an abandoned theme park, he goes through a bizarre fun house that represents the chaotic situation in which he has ended up. He’s been played with, a puppet in the hands of villains. He falls in love with a woman who frames him for murder and whose husband wants him to suffer. Wells walks through a dark corridor with elongated shadows intertwining on the wall. I feel like I’m inside his mind. He feels alone and very small at this point. Everything is larger than life. There is nothing he can do to escape these monstrous characters.

~Brianna P.

In the room of mirrors his ex lover faces her husband, both with guns drawn. Their images overlap and repeat into the distance. This implies an infinite nature about these evildoers. They talk about the natural state of a person. The repetition of their evil, the true nature of who they are, is evident. When the finally shoot, they miss each other and keep firing, shattering the glass and the reflection until they finally kill each other. Also referred to in the film is a speech by Wells who describes a situation in which he was surrounded by ravenous sharks, so blinded by their rage, that they started devouring themselves. This is what happens to his lover and her husband. They destroy everything they touch, including themselves.

Cabin Fever: Reviewed by Davis Rivera

In his 2003 directorial debut “Cabin Fever,” writer/director Eli Roth has carefully crafted a film of mood where the actors appear to effortlessly support themselves without the interference of Roth to help develop their characters. Roth does this in many ways, most notably the higher ratio of key to fill distilling the screen with a low-key lighting set up rarely seen since the “golden years” of horror which included such heavyweights as Hooper, Raimi, and Carpenter. He begins the film using strictly saturated colors even panning to the sky at one point to reveal that it is as red as the blood that will be shed later. As the blood begins to flow, so do the desaturated colors in the faces, clothes and walls belonging to the characters’, dampening the bright hues of the first forty-five minutes to a memory. This is to emphasize the fact that the life-threatening virus has reached them and there’s nothing they can do about it. The film is not picturesque nor is it exquisitely adorned; but by eliminating these textbook examples of presenting the mise-en-scène to the viewer, Roth has allowed us to pay attention to the characters and since there are so few we can quickly look around at the scenery and determine whether the subtle changes are signaling their impending doom or their possible relief.

The film begins by introducing us to the five main characters: Jeff, Karen, Paul, Marcy, and Bert. They are all recent college graduates who decide to celebrate this momentous occasion by going out into the woods and having lots of premarital sex and drinking plentiful amounts of alcohol. A not-quite naturalistic high-key lighting that sets the optimistic mood of fresh-faced kids having one final celebration before they begin their lives as adults emphasizes these scenes and every scene presented before the group reaches the woods. Once they reach the woods, however, natural-key lighting slowly takes over. The group’s string of unfortunate events begins when Bert goes hunting and accidentally shoots a violently ill vagrant thinking he is a squirrel and leaves him to die alone. Later in the film, once the lighting has reached its final stage of low-key, the vagrant returns to their cabin asking for help only to be beaten and set on fire as he walks away and collapses into the town’s water supply. At this point, Roth’s evocative score returns with its diegetic use of the sound of flies, segueing into the next crucial scene.

The following day, Karen, the love interest of Paul, is shown drinking from a glass of water. Beginning with this scene, the contamination of the water becomes part of the film’s drinking motif, which repeatedly shows each of the main characters, except for the selfish Jeff, drinking the one substance that can harm them. The disheartening series of events begins with a shot whose composition emphasizes the foul water, which appears to have bits of waste inside of it. The glass Karen drinks from is granted an exaggerated visual importance in the foreground of the composition and leaves Karen almost completely blocked out of the shot. Its proximity to the camera and its size make it impossible for the viewer to ignore, reminding us of the vagrant’s death only minutes before. Very soon after, Karen begins to exhibit the same symptoms shown by the vagrant earlier. Not knowing what to do with her, the group locks her in a tool shed to guarantee she’s been fully quarantined. This proves to no avail as Paul later finds out when he opens the shed and finds the virus has eaten away almost all of her flesh.

Soon after the fall of Karen, the other members of the group begin to turn on one another. They all decide its best to stay together regardless of their bickering, except for Jeff, who has been sure of the cabin’s perilous nature ever since the diseased vagrant showed up and was beaten and killed by the group. Jeff wisely leaves them and, carrying a case of beer, runs into the woods to make it on his own. After Jeff’s departure, everyone else soon becomes infected. Bert decides to take action and drives into town to get help only managing to infect a young child whose caretakers are aware of the disease Bert is carrying and attempt to chase and kill him. When they all reach the cabin a caretaker of the child kills Bert, Paul kills all three caretakers, a vicious dog kills Marcy, and Paul attempts to make it into town but soon collapses in the middle of the highway. Luckily he is picked up by a trucker and dropped off in front of a hospital. The doctors decide that they cannot help Paul so the sheriff arranges for his body to be discarded in the woods. Ironically, he ends up partially in the water supply used to produce the town’s tap water and local “natural spring water” brand of bottled water. The one survivor, Jeff, awakens in a bush surrounded by empty beers cans and walks back to the cabin to check on everyone. He is somewhat grief-stricken to see that they are all dead but immediately becomes filled with joy at surviving the ordeal. The camera tightly frames Jeff in his moment of jubilation confusing the viewer as to why Roth has chosen to constrict him in such a way. Moments later, he is gunned down by police who believe he is a raving victim of the disease.

The main reason Roth successfully maintains such a clear mood of trepidation throughout the film is that he doesn’t allow us to maintain any kind of long-lasting bond with his characters and he stays away from an over-usage of prostheses or props to create the mood he’s so craftily formed. He understands that something that is beyond these characters’ control, their poisoned surroundings, is infinitely more frightening than any monster and allows the ominous tone to reverberate until the film is over.

Monday, September 29, 2008

The Shawshank Redemption- Isaac Richter

Released in 1994

Directed by Frank Darabont

"These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them." I believe these lines spoken by Morgan Freeman in the film describe the concept of setting when it comes to this film. Most of the film takes place in a prison, which is the last place most people want to be in (unless you're a warden or a guard), and yet, we come to feel comfortable in this prison. The slow pace and episodic nature of the narrative help to do that, but that's discussion for other posts. The prison feels like a closed college campus, except for the fact that the dorms are prison cells and the men there have a curfew and have to ask the guards permission to do most simple tasks, but there's a dining hall, there's a lot of space outside and even a library.
The Shawshank Redemption is the story of two prisoners and their 20-year-relationship in Shawshank prison. "Red" Redding (played by Morgan Freeman) had served 20 years of life sentence in Shawshank the day Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) was brought into Shawshank prison for killing his wife and her lover, wrongly accused. Red is known around Shawshank as the guy who can get things, so Andy uses him to make his stay in Shawshank prison a more bearable one. When Andy first walks into his prison cell, it's nothing but black, dusty stone walls and a mattress for him to sleep in. Tight framing is used in this scene to make us feel claustrophobic. As time goes on, and he gets acquainted with his prison cell, he has a poster of Rita Hayworth on the wall, a book and some rocks polished into chess pieces on the window. As soon as all of these pieces are brought into this cell, it becomes a somewhat comfortable place to be, even for us. It's still tight framing, but it feels warm and familiar. Tight framing is used through most of the film, in some parts to create the feeling of being locked up, but in other parts to create a place that feels comfortable to the audience, that as soon as we walk outside this prison, the world is overwhelming.
This is a film that requires that the audience to care for the characters, so in that sense. You can't distance your audience from these two main characters, because if you do, then we won't care every time Andy is put in the Hole, or we won't care that Red keeps getting rejected for parole. We need actors that the audience can relate to. Morgan Freeman is an actor who has been typecast into the role of the wise old man who narrates the story and offers insights into the main characters, which is exactly the type of actor we need for a role such as Red. He's a man who has been in Shawshank long enough to call it a home, long enough to be a legend inside and a nobody outside, so we need an actor who can wear those years on his shoulders with as much ease as Morgan can. For Andy, on the other hand, it was important to get a character actor who had the char of a leading man. In Andy Dufresne, Tim Robbins is able to carry a heavy weight on his shoulders, a mysterious grimace, and he's at his best when he has all the hope in the world staring out on you in his eyes. Robbins never overplays any of his emotions. He knows exactly how much to show, keeping Andy quiet, mysterious, but ultimately a restless soul, and it's that passion on the screen that makes us believe Andy every step of the way.
For a prison movie, the color in this film are very bright. Most of the film is shot out in daylight, where characters talk and work out in the field, or in places with windows, where the sun comes in. When the film turns dark, it usually means that something bad is about to happen, and this happens whenever Andy goes into the hole, or a character is about to be killed or beaten up. These are the scenes where we lose some hope, and we can't see the light beyond the darkness, but whenever there is some light coming in, it means there is some hope. Even in Andy's climactic escape from prison, as soon as he comes out of the sewer in the middle of the night, the moonlight shines right on him and expresses his freedom. In the final scenes when we're out into the real world, the difference between fear and hope are represented by the framing. When we see Red at his new job, the framing is tight and claustrophobic, just like we saw earlier with Brooks before he killed himself, but after Red reads Andy's letter, it turns to a loose framing, where Red finally feels he can go anywhere and finally feels free, much like an earlier scene where a bunch of prisoners are up on a roof drinking beer and staring at the sky, like the world belongs to them.
Prison is the last place anyone wants to be, but if you're in there long enough, you get used to it, even come to depend on it. And the way to do that is to make the environment around us a place we want to stay in, and yet a place we want our characters to get out of. We need to feel comfortable enough in prison to be able to stand it for the duration of the film, just like our characters do, but we need to still hold some desire to get out. We may not feel very comfortable when we are out, but that's only because we've gotten so used to being in prison, we're afraid of the outside, or at least Red is and we fear for him. But we always hope that Andy and Red achieve what they want to achieve, and their love for each other (r should I say affection) is what keeps us hoping.

Theresa Corvino - Brothers Grimm

Brothers Grimm
Terry Gilliam
2005

Brother Grimm is a story based around Will and Jacob Grimm, conmen pretending to be monster catchers escapading across Germany. This backfires when they are forced to confront a real magical force in order to save a town from the curse of an evil witch.
The casting of Matt Damon and Heath Ledger in this movie is perfect. They are completely unexpected and the opposite of type casting. Heath Ledger, being a method actor, must have studied his role well because it worked for him. His neurotic performance was completely on par. His performance allows him to describe his character through exposition less because he was able to display that, including incidents in his past that created ticks.
The setting created by Terry Gilliam completely sells the world and the story. It’s dark and gloomy nature sets the tone from the first shot and maintains the feeling until the end. Many of the sets are crooked and rigid like a Tim Burton set that makes it seem slightly unrealistic like a fairy tale but also ominous like the mood that he was creating. Most of the characters wore only muddy browns and blacks to further create a dark feeling. The female lead is the only one to wear red because she is the only character that truly fights with all she believes against evil witch.
Terry Gilliam created a world that is, at what time, very believable and historically accurate due to the environment and the way the minor character act, allowing the main characters to allow more ridiculous because the minor characters and setting sell the realism of the story.

Jose Saca – A Short Film about Killing (Third Post)

“A Short Film about Killing” is a dramatic film directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski and released in 1988. The film is an extended version of the fifth episode (Thou Shalt Not Kill) of Kieslowski’s “The Decalogue,” a ten-part miniseries made for Polish television based on the Ten Commandments. The film deals with an unmotivated murder committed by the lead character, Jacek, who brutally murders a cab driver in cold blood. The film then shifts to Jacek’s sentencing to death by hanging. The film is a renowned proposal against the death penalty, arguing that murder is murder no matter how you put it.

The following post will analyze mise-en-scène in “A Short Film about Killing” by looking at setting, human figure, lighting, composition, and how all the latter points manage to create a distinctive staging for the action taking place.

A.) The setting is Warsaw, Poland. We get a glimpse of ghettos in Warsaw when following the protagonist and the cab driver he’ll eventually murder. The film also shows upper-class sections in Warsaw, as seen in a scene where the protagonist wanders around aimlessly and is hounded by tourists looking for a hotel. The film manages to make a good parallel between the successful and the destitute by using the upper- and lower-class areas to its advantage. The film also manages to convey a deep sensation of despair enveloping the protagonist that is assisted in its choice to use the projected cynicism given off by its urban setting.

B.) The placement of characters plays an important part in the film. The director has chosen to do away with typical crowded streets and concentrate more on the isolation of his characters. In that aspect, this is perhaps one of the only films I can think of that manages to place its characters in a sort of intimacy not found in most films set in urban areas. For instance, the protagonist, as he wanders the streets of Warsaw, is placed at the center of many shots with flourishes of human activity coming in and out of the frame. He speaks with a few strangers, but the way he is placed, out of their viewpoint, conveys the distance between him and the public at large. Another key scene in Jacek’s placement is when walking the streets, he is placed dead center against an arriving crowd of protesters who bypass him without giving the slightest notion of importance. The choice to place him straight in the middle against these flourishes of human behavior heightens the loneliness and alienation on Jacek’s part. A character that plays an integral part in the story is that of a young lawyer who eventually is given Jacek’s case. We see the placement of him, especially in a scene where he has an intimate conversation with a judge, as close to the people who are literally in charge of his success. The lawyer, in the judge’s chambers, is placed in an over-the-shoulder where we feel his inferiority against this powerful figure.

C.) Lighting is one of the most talked about factors in Kieslowski films. The cinematographer in this particular film. Slawomir Idziak, uses natural light and filters in his lenses that give the film a dreary, cloudy look with an almost bizarre emphasis on reds and browns. An extensive use of shadows gives particular emphasis on the latter colors, giving the film a look of moody despair that heightens the alienation Jacek feels towards the world. The lighting, particularly in scenes with Jacek, manages to cast a shadow on everything surrounding the protagonist. The cinematographer creates a sort of effect resembling iris shots in silent films, a sort of bleakness that is only present when the viewer is presented with Jacek. Lighting also plays a key role in the film’s climactic hanging of Jacek. The underground gallows are lit from below with red lights, and the use of shadows gives an almost spooky vibe to the viewer. Indeed, if someone saw the film without viewing the past sections, they would probably think it was of the horror genre. Lighting plays a key part in the film’s epilogue as well. Jacek’s lawyer, innocence now lost at having been privy to Jacek’s hanging, is seen crying in his car in a wooded area. The lights cast a heavenly glow on the lawyer as he weeps, as if the worst is now over and the future might seem brighter.

D.) The film utilizes browns, reds, and blacks extensively in its composition. Browns are evident in the crisp, depressing hue given off by the Warsaw exteriors, especially in scenes where the viewer is taken deep into the recesses of Warsaw’s ghettos. Filth and dirt play an integral part in these scenes, and the characters look as if they were in a post-apocalyptic film when present in these exteriors. The compositions in most of the film’s shots are helped by the costume choices on the director’s part. The parallels between upper- and lower-classes are particularly emphasized in the overall costume choices seen on the characters. The film is emotional in its composition, especially in the scenes that lead up to Jacek’s decision to murder the cab driver in cold blood. Shadows are cast above the cab driver, while Jacek is lit with a bright light on his face that emphasizes the redness in his complexion and hair. Through these scenes , the composition establishes a mood of desperation and violence that ultimately climaxes in Jacek’s strangling and then clubbing the cab driver to death. The violence is not sudden, and its overall slowness is further enhanced by the placement of the characters in a “middle-of-nowhere” scenario (a wooden area far from Warsaw).

E.) The film uses all of the above factors to create an emotional experience that is distinctly European, with an emphasis more on the visual and on the characters themselves rather than plot or story. The film utilizes mise-en-scène as a tool to create a visceral yet mournful experience for the viewer. One that he or she may not easily forget anytime soon.