Scene Analysis

In Charles Burnett’s 1977 film, Killer of Sheep, there are many scenes were children imitate or mirror adults. There is a particular scene where a mother is getting ready in the bathroom. She is applying make up, and grooming herself in the mirror. The camera is placed outside the door, where the actual doorway is framing her. In the next room is her daughter, the young girl is singing to herself and grooming herself as she sees her mother doing. The camera is placed outside the door, with the doorway acting as a frame. Both scenes create a feeling of voyeurism, and they are compositionally similar. The camera is straight on, documenting the action. This is done to show the parallel between mother and daughter, and how children watch and copy what they see. This fits into the broader theme of responsibility in this film.
The film opens with a boy being reprimanded for not taking responsibility of his younger brother during a fight. The film is filled with many vignettes of children playing without parental supervision or guidance. No one seems to be in charge, or looking after these children. As a result, children are ultimately left to their own devices. What they do and how they act, is a direct result of what they see. Burnett chose to keep the camera position the same, to articulate to the audience that these two characters although different age are the same.

Cinematography : Citizen Kane. E. Jones

When asked to write a blog on cinematography only one film comes to mind: Citizen Kane. Gregg Toland, cinematographer, made many interesting choices which would impact the film world so much that some of his shots are used as a universal shorthand.

The easiest innovation to accesses immediately is Toland's use camera angles to tell who held power and who didn't. His "super hero" shot of Kane being shot at a drastically low angle is a shorthand for film kids all over the world of depicting a character having power. Another shot of descending down into a night club through the skylight to meet Kane's lover does the opposite effect of the "superhero" shot; through the camera movement alone we are told that she's fallen far from grace.

Another important innovation of Toland's is deep focus. Deep focus is defined as being able to see everything in the frame clearly; foreground, mid-ground, background. Nothing is fuzzy. By using this technique the entire space is active and produces an emotional feeling of powerlessness, a useful tool as the protagonist Kane looses power.

These two camera techniques employed by Toland have been long lasting innovations.

scene analysis

The slow dancing scene in Killer of sheep by Charles Brunette captured the plight of Stan's wife.

Throughout the film Stan's wife tried her hardest to draw some sort of physical and emotional reaction from her husband. This scene is no different. In this moodily lit long take, while the couple slow dances Stan's wife pulls at him trying to get him to show some emotional and physical response; she's basically proposing a more intimate moment. Stan, unable to get himself there emotionally, leaves his wife standing there. She has a bit of an emotional break while leaning against the window while she fingers baby booties.

The very fact that this entire scene is done with only one cut lets the Stan's rejection unfold over time. We have to see her do all the work in this dance. We have to sit uncomfortably as she tries to get her husband to just show her some love. Then when Stan rejects her the weight of the rejection is heavy, almost like we the viewer just got rejected.

The fact that it's darkly lit, means that we have to invest just a bit more to see what's going on in the frame. It's also a slight metaphor for their relationship. We see just the outlines of people, a lesser detailed view. A "hollower" view. Just like their relationship is hollow.

The baby booties at the end tie into Stan's wife's jealousy of their little girl. The very person she carried inside of her is the one that is "taking" her husband's attention. Stan can show more emotional interest playing with his daughter then he can a proposition from his wife. Those booties end up representing so gloomy that it's no wonder it was placed at the end of the scene.

all of the fore mentioned elements makes this scene one of the most memorable of the film. It is a perfect depiction of Stan's Wife's desperation to keep her marriage a float.

Scene Alalysis - The Conversation

When thinking of scene analysis and the film The Conversation, one particular sequence sticks out, this of course is the scene in which Gene Hackman obsessively labors over a bit of recorded information in an attempt to fully understand the conversation at hand. In essence, this scene in a microcosm of the entire film.

While sitting at his work desk toiling over a small sample of a recorded conversation, Hackman inches closer and closer to finding out the true contents of the conversation taking place. This one scene does many things at one, from showing Hackmans obsession with work, his bitter isolation, and the revelation of the films most important line, “He’d kill us if he found out.” In the context of the story as a whole, this one scene does everything from offer details into the protagonists personal life as well as let the audience know just how severe the consequences of Hackman turning over the tape to his employer may or may not be. Although the phrase is ultra ambiguous, it sets the tone for the rest of the story and proples into motion the obsessive state that Hackman enters in trying to find out the context of the situation and then prevent what he later deduces will be a murder. The murder takes place anyway, albeit, the murderers and the victim are not originally who the protagonist or the audience thought them to be, but rather the role is reversed. This single scene sets up the audience for the shock they receive when they initially find out what context the conversation took place in. As well as being a plot device to further the stories dramatic arc, it also allows us to further understand the paranoia that Hackman deals with in his every day life, and justifies him tearing his apartment apart in the final scene while searching for a wire tap he believes to be hidden there.

Rarely does one single scene due so much for the story of a film, but in this case, this particular scene offers an extraordinary amount of detail into the personal life of the protagonist, as well as set the story in motion for it’s eventual twist.

Editing - Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Using a kinetic directing style and constant flashbacks and flash-forwards, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead constantly takes you from one location to another as well as one time frame to another.

While most films will flash forward or backward a substantial amount of time in order to reveal information about characters or the plot, this particular film does it not only as a means for the audience to grasp a deeper understanding of the situation at hand, but also to build tension leading up to a plot point. For example, the robbery of a mom and pop jewelry store is the main backdrop for the film; with flashbacks often taking place and then going right back to the store. The editing goes a step further here by flashing back and forth only a few seconds before the store is robbed, creating a stuttering, almost flip book like quality in the film. Also, the same scenes will be shown numerous times, but from another characters point of view, giving the audience a chance to fully grasp from each of the characters perspective the tension, and eventual repercussions for their criminal act.

Adding another layer to the story, the entire film is told out of chronological order. This allows the story to unfold at a brisk pace, and is aided by the use of the flip book-esque style of editing as mentioned earlier.

Cinematography - Blood Diamond

Cinematography plays a key role in the development of a film. It is used to set tone, location, and add a layer of depth to the action that is taking place within the frame. Blood Diamond uses this to great effect, allowing the viewer to better grasp the chaos and uncertainty that takes place within the illegal diamond trade of Sierra Leone.

First and foremost, the cinematography in Blood Diamond paints a beautiful picture of the African wilderness with long portrait shots of mountains, and tranquil pans scanning across the mostly uninhabited landscape. This offers two different perspectives, the innocence and beauty of the uncorrupted African landscape, and at the same time the setting for some of the most brutal actions against human rights. A few key examples of this are the opening scene of a local fisherman walking his son home from school. Everything is quiet and settled on their home front until a group of rebels storm their small village and take the fisherman captive. Against the backdrop of sunny African day, a man has his hand hacked off and is subsequently killed at the hands of the rebels. Another strong scene that represents the duality of this particular cinematography takes place at the end of the film during its climax. Searching for his lost son, the fisherman and a local diamond smuggler engage in a firefight with the child army of a rebel warlord, spilling gallons of blood in the process. Fatally wounded during the shootout, the smuggler sits atop a mountain as he provides cover fire for the fisherman and his reunited son to escape. As he lies dying above the chaos below, the smuggler stares out into the void, seeing a beautiful landscape portrait of the African countryside, while war rages below.

There are also many tracking and dolly shots in this film that are used to escalate the tension of war torn Sierra Leone, particularly when rebels invade Cape Town and pillage everything in their path.

Mise-En-Scene - Fight Club

Mise-en-scene is a tricky topic in that the term often refers to many things at once within the frame. Fight Club offers a good example of how stylization is a form of mise-en-scene.

In Fight Club there is basically one character acting as both the protagonist and antagonist. The audience does not realize this until the end, but once the revelation is made, numerous clues can be found throughout the film. For example, the protagonist, played by Edward Norton, is a jaded insomniac who has become disillusioned with his job, his daily routine, and basically his life in general. A fine example of this can be seen in the beginning of the film when Norton recounts how he has a hobby of buying furniture and appliances that he never uses from Ikea. The scene shows his apartment with price tags and descriptions floating above all of his furniture, ala a page setup from a retail catalog. Norton plays on the fact that this is what his life has become, a mundane existence of shopping and never putting to use any of the goods. While away on a business trip, his apartment, along with all of his possessions, are destroyed in a fire caused by gas emitting from a faulty stove and then igniting when his refrigerator clicks on. Everything Nortons character had been aimlessly clinging to is gone, and essentially his life his torched in the fire as well.

This is just one example of mise-en-scene in this film, but other examples can include the use of the house Norton moves into, which is a run down dump very contrasting to what he had previously been living in, and the books that he finds in there, detailing in the first person how certain organs in the human body think for themselves.

Narrative Form/Structure - The Usual Suspects

Conventional storytelling has a set structure of beginning, middle, and end, however, they do not always happen in this order. The Usual Suspects is one such example.

The film opens as the main protagonist lays dying, waiting to be executed. In the context of the story this takes place just as the climax has come to a close and the credits are minutes from rolling. The basis of the story is a small time criminal named Verbal Kint, who while waiting to make bail, recounts the story of how himself and a group of criminals ended up at the scene of a major heist gone awry, resulting in the death of all his colleagues and the men they were there to kill. As a result of the Kint recounting the previous six weeks to the detective in the police station, the films narrative makes use of constant flashbacks that are used to reveal how the heist came about and subsequently goes wrong. Cutting back and forth between the past and present, Kint offers perspective into the mental make up of his partners in crime and each of their motives for taking place in the job at hand. This constant flashing back and forth from the past to present day allows the film to move at a brisk pace, while at the same time offering the viewers a chance to understand the complexity of the situation and what each of the criminals have at stake.

By using these flashbacks to flesh out the story, the film not only finds a unique way of grasping the audiences attention, but also a unique twist in how conventional storytelling is able to be altered in film for the sake of it’s story structure.

Scene Analysis: Meshes of the Afternoon

Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon is a work that maintains all of the mystery, tranquility, unpredictability, and personal attachment that is ever present within the world of dreams. In the opening scene of the short film, these dreamy motifs are immediately established, bringing us into the strange world that we are about to inhabit for the next few minutes.

            The first formal aspect of the film that becomes immediately evident is that of a very hard, very drastic cut that appears seconds into the film. This cut begins with the image of an arm gently placing a white flower onto the ground, and then immediately jumps to the exact same shot, yet with the arm suddenly gone. The effect is an awkward and obvious disconnect, as if an alternate chain of events, things that could have but did not happen at this exact moment time, is about to be explored.

            Complementing this bit of hard editing is the curious cinematography within the scene. These first few minutes of film are just about completely comprised of close-ups, with deviances only toward mid-shots, which are still quite close, and full figure shots that obscure the identity or even form of the subject onscreen. Almost like a story being told on the fly, the viewer is presented with sequential details, given only the slightest bit of context, and focusing on very tiny bits of a larger picture.

            Surrounding both of the aforementioned techniques within the film is the addition of Tijo Ito’s soundtrack. I am no musician, and do not venture to guess the instruments used in this piece, but the overall quality of the sound is one of methodical thumps which gently lull the viewer into the film, while simultaneously acting as sound effects for certain events within the film. At key moments, the music speeds up, and suddenly our meandering lull is broken by panic or anticipation. 

            Put together, these three formal aspects not only carry over into the rest of the film physically, but also establish the dream settings that the viewer is about to enter. The disconnected feeling of the hard cut that appears seconds into the film is truly a disconnect as we are just that quickly taken from physical and mental reality, placed into a dreamscape. The close ups and denials of identification play right into this theme as, just like a dream, we are only subjected to individual details, unable to really grasp what is occurring around us or throughout the rest of our minds. Here, the soundtrack to the film ties things up, as the dreamscape we enter is supposed to be one of meandering relaxation. However, these dreams begin to turn nightmarish as the viewer is subjected to anxious anticipation and excitement. The soothing dreamscape is musically interrupted by loud pounding, completing the technical trifecta that brings us into the dreams of Maya Deren and the dreamscape of Meshes of the Afternoon.

Editing: Be Kind, Rewind

Be Kind, Rewind is a good study in editing as it compresses time in two distinct yet similarly humorous ways. The first is a meandering long shot, while the second is a succession of quick cuts.

            During the most famous meandering long shot of the film, several days worth of activity are condensed not only into one scene, but also into one back lot alley. The camera pans slowly to the right at first, but then begins to swing around and loop in several interesting ways as several different contraptions parodying several different famous movies are strung together seamlessly. Despite what must have been a long period of hectic activity, this scene condenses all of that into a few minutes, highlighting the most humorous portions of the activities portrayed, drawing the viewer deeper into the staged productions shown, and humorously illustrating the long haul of activity that the featured characters went through. This very similar to a longer joke, where one is entertained by the content, but is not truly made to laugh until the entire thing comes together.
            In contrast to this, many of the scenes within the film compress time in a completely different way with quick, snappy cuts. Here again, the aim is to highlight the most hilarious moments of the actions on the screen, where the main characters attempt to break into a friend’s video store. Instead of a long take or instead of utilizing subtle camera movements, the editing is done to convey rapid, humorous bits of information. The effect is a bit awkward and has an improvised feeling, but this perfectly suits the mood as the main characters are far from professional robbers, and aside from acting impulsively, are know for being quirky and awkward.

Mise en scene: Gettysburg

The 1993 American Civil War epic Gettysburg tells the story of the brutal three days of fighting surrounding the small town in southern Pennsylvania of the same name. Ronald F. Maxwell’s film on this battle is one primarily devoted to historical accuracy, yet with a flair for the dramatic and heartfelt thrown in. This is shown clearly when studying the mise en scene of the production.

            It is obvious that great lengths were taken to provide historical accuracy in the presentation of soldiers’ uniforms, generals’ faces, and other such details. On the surface, this film appears to be nothing but a dramatized documentary, taking pride in offering up even small and obscure bits of detail concerning the actual events of the battle, the men involved on both sides, and the atmosphere and grandeur of over one hundred thousand soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder, brawling for their rights and the rights of others. A closer look will not only reveal small historical inaccuracies, but also simple and sometimes very subtle ways of dramatizing the conflict.

            Most noticeably, for all of the brutal fighting presented within the film, very few scenes of outright gore exist. There are of course blood pools and splatters. There are also several instances of obvious shock gore scenes featuring severed and amputated limbs. This is done to create a sense almost boredom with the gore, which all of the characters within the film share. These characters are tired of the fighting, numb to it. As such, only in instances where the characters themselves are shocked by it, the audience is not subjected to moments of outright gore, making the death and maimings just as complacent to the viewer as it is to the characters.

            There is also an excellent effect within the movie that conveys the hectic lifestyle of both leading and following a large army. In most scenes, characters are lost within a flurry of action, even if the forces nearby are simply at rest. Only during poignant times of self-reflective thought are main characters left out of the whirling madness behind them. Otherwise, most scenes throughout the movie focus on everyday life in both armies, several scenes paying particular attention to the poor conditions of and dirty atmosphere of the Confederate camps.

            In addition, some subtle and clever cinematography lends particular feelings to raging battle scenes, conveying both the similarities and differences in particular points of the battle. During the battle of McPherson’s Ridge, quick cuts and extreme close ups of both sides engaging in battle lend a frenetic and hectic feeling to the fighting. This accurately reflects the plight of the smaller, somewhat ill-equipped force holding off a larger enemy force that actually occurred. In contrast, during the battle for Little Round Top, in which a force is entrenched and stationary at the top of hill, battle scenes tend to show more troops at once, with less severe camera cuts that cover less drastic distances. This reflects the stationary, withering assault that the forces defending the hill staved off. Only when these troops make their final, desperate countercharge are extreme close-ups and a flurry of quick cuts once again implemented. 

Bare-bones three act structure: Hotel for Dogs

As I was forced to watch this over Thanksgiving break, I might as well use it as a study in bare-bones three-act structure, with even a bit of deus-ex machina thrown in at the end as well. Expectedly, the Nickelodeon/DreamWorks production of Hotel for Dogs follows a wonderfully bland course of exposition, complication, and resolution. Yet despite the predictable structure of the film, all the two final portions of the film, complication and resolution, have a slightly less predictable component to them. These twists do not necessarily make the plot anything extraordinary, and could even be considered as lazily constructed, but neither of those subjective inquiries are my responsibility.

             The exposition does a good job of introducing the main characters, their plight of poor foster parents, and said fallible foster parents fairly early. Fairly coherently, every strand in the web of the upcoming tale are laid out for the viewer, so that these strands can eventually come together for the finale. Before reaching the finale, however, the strands encounter the complication within the plot structure

            Here, the main characters and their ragtag group of friends have been secretly sheltering many stray dogs within an abandoned hotel now filled with rube-Goldberg esque pet service contraptions. Interestingly, the main plot of the movie is formed as somewhat isolated from the main characters’ conflicts. When the complication occurs, however, these two plots meet. Several of the rube-goldberg contraptions are made out of ‘borrowed’ items belonging to the fallible foster parents. The foster parents happen to uncover the secret ‘hotel for dogs’ and also their stolen property. Cue the immediate shutting down of the hotel, its exposition to the public, a teen-drama meltdown involving an antique dress and liquid, and the threatened euthanization of scores of dogs. The complication is complete and the main characters devise a plan to rebel against the foster system that has now separated them.

            This leads the film to the exposition. Here, within the exposition, the final strand laid out in the beginning of the movie intersects with the first two. The main characters stage a daring rescue of the threatened canines, and almost able them to flee the state and capture, but this plan fails. The horde of dogs, which had been running through New York City streets, suddenly divert from their goal and head to the now investigated ‘hotel for dogs’. This leads the public to ‘hotel’ where we see a small bit of dues-ex machina. Don Cheadle, playing the part of the main characters’ social worker, Bernie, gives the roaring public a grand speech just before they begin to call for the destruction of the hotel. The movie humorously plays as if Bernie’s speech is not the final act of exposition, but it is, as his actions during the speech convince the public, police force, news anchors, dog catchers, and fallible foster parents, that the hotel should not only stay available, but also be expanded upon. As if all of this were not enough, Bernie and his wife then go on to adopt the main characters mere moments later. While the obvious dues ex machina leads to a sappily happy ending to the tale, the film still holds very minor twists to the same old structure, adhering to its rigid under-form, but still providing a small amount of discussable material concerning story structure.