Today's course reading (screen matter)

CHAPTER SIX

156

The Shot. Mise -en -Scene

Of all the techniques of cinema, mise -en -scene is the one with which we are most familiar. After seeing a film, we may not recall the cutting or the camera movements. the dissolves of the offscreen sound. But we do remember the costumes in Gone with the W?,rd or the bleak. chilly lighting in Charles Foster Katie's Xanadu. We retain vivid impressions of the rainy, gloomy streets in The Big Sleep or the labyrinthine, fluorescent-lit lair of Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. We recall Harpo Marx clambering over Edgar Kennedy's peanut wagon (Duck Soup). Katharine Hepburn defiantly splintering Cary Grant's golf clubs (The Philadelphia Story), and Michael J. Fox escaping high - school bullies on an improvised skateboard (Back to the Future). In short, many of our most sharply etched memories of the cinema turn out to center on mise -en- scene.

WHAT IS MISE -EN- SCENE?

In the original French, mise -en -scene (pronounced "meez- ahn -sen ") means "putting

into the scene," and it was first applied to the practice of directing plays. Film

scholars, extending the term to film direction, use the term to signify the director's control over what appears in the film frame. As you would expect from the term's

theatrical origins, mise -en -scene includes those aspects of film that overlap with

the art of the theater: setting, lighting, costume, and the behavior of the Figures. in

controlling the mise -en- scene, the director stages the event for the camera. Any of the types of films we have examined so far can use mise -en- scene. While the cinëma-vérité director tries to capture events without controlling them, makers of other sorts of documentaries often arrange at Ieast some events, with

vivid examples including The Thin Blue line (Color Plate 2; we shall analyze this

film further in Chapter 11). Animated and abstract films may control mise -en -scene

to a degree impossible with performers shot in real time as is seen not only in

drawn or puppet animation but also in computer graphics. Most often when we

think of mise -en- scene, however, we think of fictional narratives, and most of our examples here will be drawn from such films. Mise -en -scene usually involves some planning, but the filmmaker may be open

to unplanned events as well. An actor may add a line on the set, or an unexpected

change in lighting may enhance a dramatic effect, While filming a cavalry pro- cession through Monument Valley for She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, John Ford took

advantage of an approaching lightning storm to create a dramatic backdrop for the

action. The storm remains part of the film's mise- err -scene even though Ford neither planned it nor controlled it; it was a lucky accident that helped create one of

the film's most affecting passages. Jean Renoir, Robert Altman, and other directors have allowed their actors to impmvisc their performances, making the films' mise -en -scene more spontaneous and unpredictable.

Ee,\1151`1 Before we analyze mise -en -scene in detail. one preconception must be brought to

light. Just as viewers often remember this or that bit of mise -en -scene from a film, so they often judge mise -en -scene by standards of realism. A car may seem to be

realistic for the period the film depicts, or a gesture may not seem realistic because

"real people don't act that way." Realism as a standard of value, however. raises several problems. Notions of realism vary across cultures, through time, and even among individuals. Marlon Brando's acclaimed "realist" performance in the 1954 film On the Waie front looks stylized today. American critics of the 1910s praised William S. Hart's Westerns

for being realistic, but equally enthusiastic French critics of the 1920s considered

the same films to be as artificial as a medieval epic. Moreover, realism has become one of the most problematic issues in the philosophy dart. (Sec Notes and Queries

for examples.) Most important, to insist rigidly on realism for all films can blind

us to the vast range of mise -en -scene possibilities. Look, for instance, at the frame from The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (Fig. 6.1). Such a scene certainly does not accord with our conception of normal reality. Yet

to condemn the film for lacking realism would be inappropriate, because the film

uses stylization to present a madman's fantasy. The Cabinet of Dr. Coligari borrows conventions of Expressionist painting and theater and then assigns them the

function of suggesting the madman's delusion. It is better, then, to examine the functions of mise -en -scene than to dismiss this or that element that happens not to match our conception of realism. While one film might indeed use mise -en -scene to create an impression of realism, others might seek very different effects: comic exaggeration. supernatural terror, understated

beauty, and any number of other functions. We should analyze mise -en- scene's function in the total film --how it is motivated, how it varies or develops. how it works

in relation to other film techniques.

THE POWER OF MISE -EN -SCENE

To confine the cinema to some notion of realism would indeed impoverish mise -en- scene. This technique has the power to transcend normal conceptions of reality, as we can see from a glance at the cinema's first master of the technique, Georges Méliès. Méliés's mise -en -scene enabled him to create a totally imaginary world on film. A caricaturist and magician. Méliès became fascinated by the Lumiere broth- ers' demonstration of their short films in 1895. (For more on the Lumières, see pp, 205 -206.) After building a camera based on an English projector, Méliès began

filming unstaged street scenes and moments of passing daily life. One day. the

story goes, he was filming at the Place de l'Opéra and his camera jammed as a bus was passing. After some tinkering, he was able to resume filming, but by this time

the bus had gone and a hearse was passing in front of his lens. When Méliès

screened the film, he discovered something unexpected: a moving bus seemed to

transform itself instantly into a hearse. The anecdote may be apocryphal, but it at

least illustrates Méliés's recognition of the magical powers of mise -en- scene. He would devote most of his efforts to cinematic conjuring. But to do so would require preparation, since Meli'es could not count on lucky

accidents like the bus - hearse transformation. He would have to plan and stage action for the camera. Drawing on his experience in theater, Méliès built one of

the first film studios --a small, crammed affair bristling with theatrical machinery, balconies, trapdoors, and sliding backdrops. He sketched shots beforehand and de- signed sets and costumes. Figures 6.2 and 6.3 illustrate the correspondence between his detailed drawings and the finished shots. As if this were not enough, Méliès starred in his own films (often in several roles per film). His desire to cre- ate magical effects led Méliès to control every aspect of his films' mise -en- scene, Such control was necessary to create the fantasy world he envisioned. Only

in a studio could Méliès produce The Mermaid (see Fig. 6.4). He could also surround himself (playing an astronomer) with a gigantic array of cartoonish cut -outs

in La Lune d wi rnètre (Fagg. 63). Méliès's "Star- Film" studio made hundreds of short fantasy and trick films based on such a control over every element in the frame, and the first master of mise -en -scene demonstrated the great range of technical possibilities it offers. The

legacy of Méliès's magic is a delightfully unreal world wholly obedient to the whims of the imagination

ASPECTS OF MISE -EN -SCENE

t possibilities for selection and control does mise -en -scene offer the filmmaker? We can mark out four general areas and indicate some potential uses of each, Setting

Since the earliest days of cinema, critics and audiences have understood that setting

plays a more active role in cinema than in most theatrical styles. André Bazin writes: The human being is all- important in the theatre. The drama on the screen can exist with- out actors. A banging door. a leaf in the wind, waves beating on the shore can heighten

the dramatic effect. Some film masterpieces use man only as an accessory, like an extra. or in counterpoint to nature, which is the true leading character. Cinema setting, then, can come to the forefront; be only a container for human events but can dynamically enter the narrative action. (See Color Plates 33, 42, 62, and 63 for examples of settings without characters.) The filmmaker may control setting in many ways. One way is to select an already existing locale in which to stage the action, a practice stretching back to the earliest films, Louis Lumière shot his short comedy L'Armseur arrosé ( "The Waterer Watered," Fig. 6.6) in a garden, and Victor Sjöström filmed The Outlaw and His Wife in the splendor of the Swedish countryside (Fig. 6.7). At the close of World War H. Roberto Rossellini shot Germany Year Zero in the rubble of Berlin

(Fig. 6.8). Today filmmakers often go on location to shoot. On the other hand. the filmmaker may choose to construct the setting. Mélius understood that shooting in a studio increased his control and many filmmakers

followed his lead. In France. Germany, and especially the United States, the pos- sibility of creating a wholly artificial world on film led to the development of sev- eral approaches to constructing setting. Some directors have emphasized authenticity. For example, Erich von Stro- heim prided himself on meticulous research into details of locale for Greed (Fig. 6.9). All the President's Men (1976) took a similar tack. seeking to duplicate the Washington Post office on a sound stage (Fig. 6.10). Even waste paper from the

actual office was scattered around the set. We should remember, however, that re- alism in settings is partly a matter of viewing conventions. What strikes us as re- alistic today might seem highly stylized to future audiences, Other films have been less committed to historical accuracy. Though D. W. Griffith studied the various historical periods presented in Intolerance, his Baby

Ion constitutes a personal image of that city (Fig. 6.11), Similarly. in Ivan the Ter- rible Sergei Eisenstein freely stylized the decor of the czar's palace to harmonize with the lighting, costume. and figure movement, so that characters crawl through doorways that resemble mouseholes and stand frozen before allegorical murals. 

Setting can overwhelm the actors, as in Josef von Sternberg's Underworld

(Fig. 6.12), or it can be reduced to zero, as in Godard's Le Gai satoir (Fig. 6.13) and Dreyer's La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (Fig. 6.14). Settings need not possess

realistic- looking buildings, as witness the comic -book cityscapes of such films as Tim Burton's Batman and Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy. The overall design of a setting can significantly shape how we understand story action. In Louis Feuillade's silent crime serial The Vampires, a criminal gang has killed a courier on his way to a bank. The gang's confederate, Irma Vep, is alsoa bank employee. and just as she tells her superior that the courier has vanished. an

imposter. in beard and bowler hat, strolls in behind them (Fig. 6.15). They turn away from us in surprise as he comes forward (Fig. 6.16). Working in a period when cutting to closer shots was rare in a French film, Feuillade draws our attention to the man by putting him in the center of the shot. So far our examples have been taken from black- and -white films, but color can also be an important component of settings. Robert Bresson's L'Argent creates parallels among its various settings home, school, and prison by the recurrence

of drab green backgrounds and cold blue props and costumes (Color Plates 6-8). By contrast, Jacques Tati's Play Time displays sharply changing color schemes. In

the first portion of Play Time, the settings and costumes are mostly gray, brown, and black cold, steely colors, Later in the film, however, beginning in the restaurant scene, the settings start to sport cheery reds. pinks, and greens. This change

in the settings' colors supports a narrative development which shows an inhuman

city landscape that is transformed by vitality and spontaneity. A full -size setting need not always be built. Through much of the history of the

cinema, filmmakers used miniature buildings to create fantasy scenes or simply to econ- omize. Parts of settings could also be done as paintings and combined photographi- cally with full -sized sections of the space. More recently, digital special effects are used

to fill in portions of the setting, such as the royal city in The Phantom Menace. Since

such special effects also involve cinematography, we look at them in the next chapter. In manipulating a shot's setting. the filmmaker may create props short for "property," This is another term borrowed from theatrical mise -en- scene. When an object in the setting has a function within the ongoing action, we can call it a "prop," Films teem with examples: the snowstorm paperweight that shatters at the beginning of Citizen Kane, the little girl's balloon in M, the cactus rose in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Sarah Connor's hospital bed turned exercise machine

in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Luis Buñuel's films teem with the surrealistic use of props, as when a blind man uses a dove to cure a woman's illness (Fig. 6.17). In the course of a narrative, a prop may become a motif. The shower curtain

in Psycho is at first an innocuous part of the setting. but when the killer enters the bathroom the curtain screens her ( ?) from our sight. Later, after the murder. Nor- man Bates uses the curtain to wrap up the victim's body. In The Crime of M. Lange a poster outside Batala's publishing house advertises its new dime -novel series "Javert" (Fig. 6.18), but after the tyrannical Batala has left the company, Lange

and his associates pull the poster down to reveal the window and room that have

for so long been blocked from sunlight (Figs. 6.19, 6.20), When the filmmaker uses color to create parallels among elements of setting, a color motif may become associated with several props. Souleymane Cissë's Finye

(The Wind) begins with a woman carrying an orange calabash as the wind rustles

through weeds (Color Plate 9). Later, in a fantasy sequence, a boy carries water

in an orange -brown bowl to the main male and female characters. Stilt later, the vengeful grandfather prepares to stalk his grandson's persecutor by dressing in or- ange and making magic before a lire (Color Plate 10), At the film's end, the little boy passes his bowl to someone offscreen possibly the couple seen earlier

(Color Plate 11). The recurrent color creates a cluster of nature motifs around the drama. Later in this chapter we shall examine in more detail how elements of setting can weave through a film to form motifs within the narrative.

Costume and Make -up

Like setting, costume can have specific functions in the total film, and the range

of possibilities is huge. Erich von Stroheim, for instance, was as passionately com- mitted to authenticity of dress as of setting, and he was said to have created un- derwear that would instill the proper mood in his actors even though it was never

to be seen in the film. In Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, a poignant moment oc- curs when the Little Sister decorates her dress with "ermine" made of cotton dotted with spots of soot (Fig. 6.21). The costume displays the poverty of the defeated Southerners at the end of the Civil War. on the other hand. costumes may be quite stylized, calling attention to their purely graphic qualities. Throughout }van the Terrible costumes are carefully or- chestrated with one another in their colors, their textures. and even their move- ments_ One shot of Ivan and his adversary gives their robes a plastic sweep and

dynamism (Fig. 6.22), In Freak Orlando, Ulrike Ottinger (herself a costume de- signer) boldly uses costumes to display the spectrum's primary colors in maximum

intensity (Color Plate 12). Costumes can play important motivic and causal roles narratives. The film di- rector Guido in Fellini's $ 1!1 persistently uses his dark glasses to shield himself From the world. To think of Dracula is to recall how his billowing cape enwraps his victims. When Hildy Johnson, in His Girl Friday, switches from her role of aspiring housewife to that of reporter, her hats change as well (Figs. 6.23, 6.24). In Roberto Rossellini's The Rise to Power of Louis XN, the king wants to keep

his nobles indebted to him, so he creates outlandish, expensive fashions in dress

(Color Plate 13). To the runaway bus section of Speed, during a phone conversation with Jack, the villain Howard refers to Annie as a "Wildcat;" Jack sees An- nie's University of Arizona sweater.and realizes that Howard has hidden a video

camera aboard the bus. Thus a costume provides the clue that allows Jack to out- wit Howard. Any portion of a costume may become a prop: a pair of glasses (Potemkin. LA. Confidential), shoes (Strangers on u Train, The Wizard of Oz), a jacket (Le Million). In Titanic, Rose's diamond pendant is both a treasure which the explor- ers hope to Find and her romantic link with Jack. Film genres make extensive use of costume props the frontier six -gun. the

gangster's automatic pistol, the dancer's top hat and cane_ Every major film co- median has turned a specific costume into a panoply of props: Chaplin's cane and derby, Fields's cigar and top hat, Laurel and Hardy's derbies and too -tight suits, Harpo Marx's capacious pockets. As we have already seen in L'Argem and Play Time (p, I 60), costume is often coordinated with setting, Since the filmmaker usually wants to emphasize

the human figures, setting may provide a more or less neutral background, while costume helps pick out the characters. Color design is particularly important here. The Freak Orlando costumes (Color Plate 12) stand out boldly against the neutral gray background of an artificial [ake. In the climactic skirmish of The Night of the Shooting Stars. luminous wheat fields set off the hard black -and- blue costumes of the fascists and the peasants (Color Plate 14), The director may instead choose to match the color values of setting and costume more

closely. One shot in Fellini's Casanova (Color Plate 15) creates a color gradation that runs from bright red costumes to paler red walls, the whole composition set of by a small white accent in the distance. This "bleeding" of the costume into the setting is carried to a kind of limit in the prison scene of THX

1138, in which George Lucas strips both locale and clothing to stark white on white (Color Plate 16). Ken RusselI's Wooten in Love affords a clear example of how costume and setting can coordinate and contribute to a film's overall narrative progression. The

opening scenes portray the characters' shallow middle -class life by means of highly

saturated primary and complementary colors in costume and setting (Color Plate 17). In the middle portions of the film, as the characters discover love on a country estate. pale pastels predominate (Color Plate 18). The last section of Women

in Love takes place around the rvIatterhorrt, and the characters' ardor has cooled. Now the colors have become even paler, dominated by pure black and white (Color Plate 19). By integrating itself with setting, costume may function to reinforce the

fit's narrative and thematic patterns. An these points about costume apply equally to a closely related area of mise- en- scene, the actors' make -up. Make -up was originally necessary because actors' laces would not register well on early film stocks, And, up to the present, it has been used in various ways to enhance the appearance of actors on the screen. Over

the course of film history, a wide range of possibilities has emerged. Dreyer's LEI Pr7ssrota fie Jeanne d'Arc was famous for its complete avoidance of make -up (Fig. ,14), This film relied on close -ups and tiny facial changes to create an intense religious drama. On the other hand, Nikolai Cherkasov did not look particularly like Eisensteïn's conception of Czar Ivan IV, so he wore a wig and false beard, nose, and eyebrows for hart the Terrible. Changing actors to took like historical per- sonages has been one common Function of make -up. Make -up can aim at complete realism. When Laurence Olivier blackened his skin and hair to make u film of Othello. he strove to be as convincing a Moor as possible. Women often wear make -up that looks like the ordinary street cosmetics currently in fashion, and most men's make -up is designed to look as if they were not wearing any. Yet it is equally possible to use make -up in nonrealistic ways. Bizara make -up plays a major role in genus like honor and comedy. Just as they adopted distinctive costumes, famous comedians often created an amusing look using makeup (Fig. 6.25). In recent decades the craft of make -up has developed in response to the pop- ularity of horror and science - fiction genres. Rubber and plasticenc compounds ere - ate bumps, bulges. extra organs, and layers of artificial skin in such films as David Cronenberg's The Fly (Fig. 6.26) and Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands, In such

contexts, make -up. like costume, becomes important in creating character traits or motivating plot action.

Lighting Much of the impact of an image comes from its manipulation of lighting. In cin- ema, lighting is more tharr}ust illumination that permits us to see the action, Lighter and darker areas within the frame help create the overall composition of each shot and thus guide our attention to certain objects and actions. A brightly illuminated

patch may draw our eye to a key gesture, while a shadow may conceal a detail or build up suspense about what may be present Lighting can also articulate textures

the soft curve of a face, the rough grain of a piece of wood, the delicate tracery of a spider's web, the sheen of glass, the sparkle of a faceted gem. Lighting shapes objects by creating highlights and shadows. A highlight is a

patch of relative brightness on a surface. The man's face in Figure 6,27 and the edge of the fingers in Figure 6.8 display highlights. Highlights provide important cues to the texture of' the surface. If the surface is smooth, like glass or chrome, the highlights tend to gleam or sparkle; a rougher surface, like a coarse stone facing, yields more diffuse highlights. There are two basic types of shadows, each of which is important in film com- position- attached shadows, or shading, and cast shadows_ An attached shadow oc- curs when light fails to illuminate part of an object because of the object's shape

or surface features. If a person sits by a candle in a darkened room, patches of the

face and body will fall into darkness. Most obviously, the nose often creates a patch of darkness on an adjoining cheek. This phenomenon is shading, or attached

shadow. But the candle also projects a shadow on the wall behind. This is a cast shadow. because the body blocks out the light. The shadows in Figure 6,27, for ex- ample, are cast shadows, made by bars between the actor and the light source. But,

in Figure 6.28 the small dark patches on the hand are attached shadows. for they are caused by the three dimensional curves and ridges of the hand itself. As these examples suggest, highlights and shadows help create our sense of a

scene's space, In Figure 6.27. a few shadows imply an entire prison cell. Animated

films can use the same cues to one degree or another. In Color Plate 20, from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, human and cartoon figures display both cast shadows and

attached shadows. or shading, Lighting also shapes a shot's overall composition. One shot from John Huston's Asphalt Jungle welds the gang members into a unit by the pool of light cast by a hanging lamp (Fig. 6.29). At the same time, it sets up a scale of importance, emphasizing the protagonist by making him the most frontal and clearly Iit figure. A shot's lighting affects our sense of the shape and texture of the objects de- picted. If a bail is lit straight from the front, it will appear round. If the same ball is lit from the side, we will see it as a half circle. Hollis Frampton's short film

Lemon consists primarily of light moving around a lemon, and the shifting shad- ows create dramatically changing patterns of yellow and black. This film almost seems designed to prove the truth of a remark made by Josef von Sternberg, one of the cinema's masters of film lighting: The proper use of light can embellish

and dramatize every object" For our purposes, we can isolate four major features of Film lighting: its quality, direction, source, and color, Lighting quality refers to the relative intensity of the illumination. "Hard" lighting creates clearly defined shadows, crisp textures, and sharp edges, whereas "soft"

lighting creates a diffused illumination. In nature, the noonday sun creates hard

light, while an overcast sky creates soft light. The terms are relative, and many

lighting situations will fall between the extremes, but we can in practice easily rec- ognize the differences (Figs. 630, 6.31).

\The direction of lighting in a shot refers to the path of light from its source or sources to the object lit "Every light," wrote von Sternberg, "has a point where it

is brightest and a point toward which it wanders to lose itself completely, , .. The

journey of rays from that central care to the outposts of blackness is the adventure and drama of light" For convenience we can distinguish among frontal lighting. sidelighting, backlighting, underlighting, and top lighting. Frontal lighting can be recognized by its tendency to eliminate shadows_ In Color Plate 21. a shot from Codard's La Chiiaoia'e. the result of such frontal lighting is a

fairly flat - looking image. Contrast Figure 632, from Touch of Evil, in which Welles uses a hard sidelight (also called a crossliglit) to sculpt the character's features. Backlighting, as the name suggests. comes from behind the subject filmed. It can be positioned at many angles: high above the figure. at various angles off to

the side, pointing straight at the camera, or from below, Used with no other sources of light, backlighting tends to create silhouette, as in Figure 6.33. Combined with more frontal sources of light, the technique can create an unobtrusively illuminated

contour. This use of backlighting is called edge lighting or rim lighting (Fig. 6.34). Underlighting suggests that the light comes from below the subject_ In Fig- ure 6.33, the underlighting suggests an offscreen fire. Since underlighting tends to distort features, it is often used to create dramatic honor effects, but it may also

simply indicate a realistic light source, such as a fireplace. As usual, a particular

technique can function differently according to context. Top lighting is exemplified by Figure 6.36, where the spotlight shines down

from almost directly above Marlene Dietrich's face. Von Sternberg frequently used

such a high frontal light to bring out the line of his star's cheekbones. (Our earlier example from Asphalt Jungle in Figure 6.29 provides a less glamorous instance of

top Lighting.) Lighting can also be characterized by its source. In making a documentary. the

filmmaker may be obliged to shoot with the light available in the actual surroundings. Most fictional Rims, however, use extra light sources to obtain greater control of the image's look. In most fictional Elms, the table lamps and street lights you see in the mise -en -scene are not the principal sources of illumination for the

filming. Such visible sources of light, however, will serve to motivate the lighting decisions made in production. The filmmaker will usually strive to create a lighting design that is consistent with the sources in the setting. In Figure 6.37, from e Miracle Worker, the window in the rear and the Lantern in the right foreground are purportedly the sources of illumination, but you can see the many studio lights used in this :shot reflected as tiny white dots in the glass lantern. Directors and cinematographers manipulating the lighting of the scene will Mari from the assumption that any subject normally requires two light sources: a

key light and a fill Sight, The key light is the primary source, providing the dominant illumination and casting the strongest shadows. The key light is the most directional light. and it usually corresponds to the motivating light source in the

setting. A fill is a Iess intense ïlIumïnatïon which "fills in." softening or eliminating shadows cast by the key light. By combining key and fill, and by adding other sources. lighting can be controlled quite exactly. The key Sighting source may be aimed at the subject from any angle, as our examples of lighting direction have indicated, Color Hate 28, from Iran, the Terrible, shows underlighiing as the key source, while a softer and dimmer fill falls on the setting behind the figure. Figure 6.38 shows a frame from Abel Gance's La Roue. The bold backlighting is complemented by a key light from the left side. This casts attached shadows on the left side of the actress's face, notably by the nose and eye. The fill light comes from the right. thus ensuring that this side of her face will not appear com- pletely dark, as does part of the Face in Figure 6.32,

Figure 639 shows a shot from Bezhin Ale dow in which Eisenstein uses a number of light sources and directions. The key light falling on the figures comes

from the left side, but it is hard on the face of the old woman in the foreground

and softened on the face of the man because a fill light comes in from the right. This fill light falls on the woman's forehead and nose. Classical Hollywood filmmaking developed the custom of using at least three

light sources per shot: key light, fill light, and backlight- Figure 6.44 shows the most basic arrangement of these lights on a single figure. The backlight comes

from behind and above the figure, the key light comes diagonally from the front, and a fill light comes from a position near the camera. The key will usually be

closer to the figure or brighter than the fill. Typically, each major character in a

scene will have his or her own key, fill, and backlight. If another actor is added (as

in the dotted figure in Figure 6.40), the key light for one can be altered slightly to

form the backlight for the other and vice versa, with a Eli light on either side of

the camera. lii Figure 6.41, the Bette Davis character in Jezebel is the whose important fig- ure, and the three -point lighting centers attention on her A bright backlight aunt the

rear upper right highlights her hair and edge- lights her left arm. The key Light is off

left, making her right arm brightly illuminated. A fill light comes from just to the

right of the camera. It is less bright than the key. This balanced lighting creates mild

shading, modeling Davis's face to suggest volume rather than flatness. (Note the

slight shadow cast by her nose.) Davis's backlight and key tight serve to illuminate

the woman behind her at the right, but less prominently. Other fill lights, called back greand or set iighzing, fall on the setting and on the crowd at the left rear. Three -point lighting emerged during the studio era of Hollywood filmmaking. and it is still widely used. In Color Plate 23, from Woody Allen's Purple Rose of Cairo, the two figures are modeled by a strong key light from the left side, a hill light from off right of the camera, and a trace of edge lighting to pick out their clothes. The office behind the couple is lit more dimly and softly. as is typical with background light. You may have already noticed that this "three- point" lighting system demands

that the lamps be rearranged virtually every time the camera shifts to a new framing of the scene_ In spite of the great cost involved. most Hollywood films will have a different lighting arrangement for each camera position. Such variations in

the light sources do not conform to reality, but they do enable filmmakers to cre- ate clear compositions for each shot. Three- point lighting was particularly well suited for the high -key lighting

used in classical Hollywood cinema and other filmmaking traditions. High -key

lighting refers to an overall lighting design which uses fill and backlight to create

low contrast between brighter and darker areas. Usually, the light quality is soft, making shadow areas fairly transparent. The frames from Jezebel (Fig. 6.4 1) and

from The Purple Rose of Cairo (Color Plate 23) exemplify high -key lighting_ Hollywood directors and cinematographers have relied on this for comedies, adventure films, and most dramas. High -key lighting is not used simply to render a brightly lit situation, such as a dazzling ballroom or a sunny afternoon. High -key lighting is an overall approach

to illumination that can suggest different lighting conditions or times of day. Con- sider, for example, two frames from Back to the Future. The first shot (Fig. 6.42) uses high -key illumination matched to daylight and a brightly lit malt shop. The

second frame (Fig. 6,43) is from a scene set in a room at night, but it still uses the high-key approach. as can be seen from the lighting's softness, its low contrast, and its detail in shadow areas.

Low -key illumination creates stronger contrasts and sharper, darker shadows. Often the lighting is hard, and fill light is lessened or eliminated altogether, The

effect is of chiarnscu . or extremely dark and light regions within the image. An

example is Figure 6.44, From Andrzej ajda's Kaxrnf. Here, the fill light and back - ground light are significantly less intense than in high -key technique_ As a result. shadow areas on the left third of the screen remain hard and opaque. In Figure

6.461 low -key shot from Welles's Touch of Evil, the key light is hard and comes

from the side. Welles eliminates both Eli and background illumination. creating

very sharp shadows and a dark void around the characters. As Our examples indicate. low -key lighting has usually been applied to somber or mysterious scenes. It was common in horror films of the 1930s and, ifms norrs

( "dark films ") of the 1940s and 1950s. The low -key approach was revived in the

1980s in such f-tltt s as Blade Runner and Rumble Fish and continued in the 1990s

in flats rroïrs like Se7eri and The Usual Suspects. In E! Sur (Color Plate 25) Hector Erice's low -key lighting yields dramatic chiaroscuro effects that portray the

adult world as a child imagines it, full of mystery and danger- When the actors move, the director must decide whether to alter the lighting. By overlapping several different key lights, the filmmaker can maintain a constant

intensity as actors move around the set. Although constant lighting is not partic- ularly realistic. it has advantages, the main one being that distracting shadows and highlights do not move across actors. At the end of Fellioï's Nights of Cabirio, For example, the heroine moves diagonally toward us, accompanied by a band of singing young people (Figs. 6.46, 6.47), Alternatively, the filmmaker may have

his or her figures move through patches of light and shadow. The swordfight in Rashomon is intensified by the contrast between the ferocious combat and the

cheerfully dappled lighting pouring into the glade (Fig. 6.48). Like arty technique, lighting can become a motif in the course of a film. Woody Allen's Purple Rose of c:'airo presents a woman torn between a brutal, abusive mar- riage and her fantasy of a movie hero (who steps down from the screen to meet her). Scenes with her fictional hero are presented in moderately High -key, using

the three -point system we have just mentioned (Color Plate 23). But scenes with

her husband at her home are given the harsh, hard -edged treatment characteristic of low -key technique (Color Plate 24). We tend to think of film lighting as limited to two colors the white of sunlight or the soft yellow of incandescent interior lamps. In practice, filmmakers who

choose to control lighting typically work with as purely while a light as they can, By use of filters placed in front of the light source, the filmmaker can color the

onscreen illumination in any fashion. There may be a realistic source in the scene

to motivate the hue of the light. For example, cinematographers often use filters to

suggest the orange tint of candlelight, as in François Truffaut's The Green Roam

{Color Plate 26), In Douglas SSirk's Written on the Wind, purplish -blue lighting is motivated as the color of right (Color Plate 27). But colored light can also be un- realistic in its motivation. Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible, Pan 2, uses a blue light suddenly cast on an actor, nondiegeticatty. . to suggest the character's terror and un- certainty (see Color Plates 28 and 29). Such a shift in stylistic function using

colored light to perform a Function usually confined to acting is all the more effective because it is so unexpected. We are used to ignoring the illumination of our everyday surroundings. sa film

lighting is also easy to take for granted. Yet the look of a shot is centrally controlled

by light quality, direction, source. and color. The filmmaker can manipulate and com- bine these factors to shape the viewer's experience in a great many ways. No com- ponent of raise-en-scene is more important than "the drama and adventure of light." Staging: Movement eme and Acting

The director may also control the behavior of various figures in the mise -en- scene. Here the word "figures" covers a wide range of possibilities, since the figure may

represent a person but could also be an animal (Lassie, the donkey Balthasar, Don- ald Duck), a robot (R2D2 and C3P0 in the Star Wars series). an object (as in Ballet m canique's choreography of bottles. straw hats, and kitchen utensils), or even

a pure shape (as in Ballet mécarrigrre's circles and triangles). Mise -en- scene allows such figures to express feelings and thoughts; it can also dynamize them to create

various kinetic patterns. In Figure 6.49 (from Seven Samurai) the samurai have wen the battle with the

bandits. Virtually the only movement in the frame is the driving rain, but the slouching postures of the men leaning on their spears express their tense weariness. By contrast, in White Heat explosive movement and ferocious facial expression pre- sent an image of psychotic rage (Fig. 6.54),

In cinema, facial expression and movement are not restricted to human figures. As mentioned in Chapter 5, animation can end on drawings or three -dimensional objects with highly dynamic movement. For example, in science - fiction and fantasy

films, monsters and robots may be given expressions and gestures through the tech - nique of stop - action (also called "stop- motion "), Typically a small -scale model is made with articulated parts. hi filming, it is posed as desired. and a frame or two is shot,

Then the figure is adjusted slightly and another frame or two is exposed. and so ou. The result on screen is a continuous, if sometimes jerky, movement. The horrendous onslaught of ED-209. the crimefightìng robot in Robocop. was created by means of a twelve -inch miniature films in stop - action (Fig. 6.51). (A full -soie but unmoving mode] was also built for long shots.) Stop- action can also be used for more abstract und unrealistic purposes. as in Jan `varrkmajer's D!rrrerrsiorrs of Dialogue (Fig. 6.52). The tiilmma.ker can stage action without three- dimensional figures or objects. Cel animation presents us with drawings of Aladdin or Daffy Duck. Filmmakers may also blend photographed action with animated mise -en- scene. Highly detailed

computer - generated animation made it possible for James Cameron to create the outrageous metamorphoses of the cyborg in Terminator 2; Judgment Da- (See Notes and Queries for more on computer generated mise -en scene.) Acting and actuality. Although abstract shapes and animated figures can become

important in the mise -en- scene. the most intuitively familiar cases of figure expres- siou and movement are actors playing roles. Like other aspects of mise -en- scene, the performance is created in order to be filmed. An actor's performance consists of vi- sual elements (appearance, gestures, facial expressions) and sound (voice. effects). At times, of course, an actor may contribute only visual aspects, as in the silent period

of film history. Similarly, an actor's performance may sometimes exist only on the

sound track of the filing in A Lejrer ra Three Wives, Celeste Holm's character, Addle Ross. speaks a narration over the images but never appears on the screen. Acting is often approached as a question of realism. While some broad con- ception of realistic behavior is probably indispensable as a First step to under- standing acting, we cannot stop there. It is not always fruitful to judge an actor's performance by what would be likely behavior in the world outside the movie the- ater. and this is for several reasons. For one thing, concepts of realistic acting have changed over film history. To- day we may think that the performances of Russell Crowe and Al Pacino in The

Insider or those given by Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn in Dead Mann Walking are reasonably close to people's real -life behavior. Yet in the early 1950s, the New

York Actors Studio style, as exemplified by Marlon Brando's performances in On

the Waterfront and A Streetcar Named Desire, was also thought to he extremely

realistic. Fine though we may still find Brando's work in these films, it seems deliberate. heightened, and quite unrealistic. The same might be said of the perfor- mances, by professional and amateur actors alike, in post World War II Italian

neorealist films, which were hailed when they first appeared as almost documentary depictions of Italian fife but many of which now seem to us to contain polished performances suitable to Hollywood films. On fact, one of the main

neorealist actors. Anna Magnani, went to Hollywood and won an Oscar there.) Already major naturalistic performances of the I 970s, such as Robed De Niro's protagonist in Taxi Driver, are coming to seem quite stylized. Who can say what the acting in The Insider. Dead Man Walking, and other recent films will look like

in a few decades? Changing views of realism are not the only reason to be wary of this as a con- cept for analyzing acting. Often when people call a performance "unrealistic. they are evaluating it as bad. But not all films try to achieve realism, Since the perfor- mance an actor creates is part of the overall mise -en- scene, films contain a wide

variety of acting styles. Instead of assuming that acting must be realistic. we should

try to understand what kind of acting style the film is aiming at. If the functions of acting in the film are best served by a nonrealistic performance, that is the kind

that the skillful actor will strive to present. Obvious examples of nonrealistic acting style occur constantly in The Wizard of Oz, for fantasy purposes. (How would

a "real" Wicked Witch behave ?) Moreover, "realistic" performance will always be

only one option in film acting. In mass - production filmmaking such as Hollywood, India, Hong Kong, and other traditions, overblown performances are a crucial source of the audience's pleasure. Viewers do not expect narrowly realistic acting

from Jim Carrey or from martial arts stars like Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. Finally, when we watch any fictional film, we are to some degree aware that the performances of the screen are the result of the actors' skills and decisions. When we use the phrase "larger than life" to describe an effective performance, we seem to be tacitly acknowledging the actor's deliberate craft. In analyzing a

particular film, it is usually necessary to go beyond assumptions about realism and consider the functions and purposes which the actor's craft serves. Acting; functions and motivation. In 1985 a considerable controversy arose in Hollywood because Steve Martin was not nominated for an Academy Award for his acting in Ail of Me. In that film, Martin portrays a man whose body is suddenly

inhabited on the right side by the soul of a woman who has just died. Martin used sudden changes of voice, along with acrobatic pantomime, to suggest a "split" body. In 1999. a very similar outcry occurred when Jim Carrey was not nominated

for an Oscar for The Truman Show, a comedy about a man who is unaware that his entire life has been broadcast as a sitcom on television. Neither Martin nor Car- rey could be expected to perform "realistically" in the narrow sense of the word, since the situations they portray could not exist in the real world. Yet in the context of each of these fantasy- comedies, the actor is completely appropriate. In films like All of Me and The Truman Shon a more muted and superficially

"realistic" performance would clearly be inappropriate to the context established

by the genre. the film's narrative, and the overall mise -en- scene. This suggests that

in order to determine the acting's functions, we need to determine overall normal factors, such as narrative causality and genre conventions. In addition, if we want also to evaluate the actors' performances, we might set forth this criterion: 11' the ctor looks and behaves in a manner appropriate to his or her character'sfunction

in the context of the film. the actor has given a good performance whether or not he or she looks or behaves as a real person would. As a first approximation, we can consider performance styles along two di- mensions. The performance will be more or less individualized, and it will be more or less shdized. Often we have both in mind when we think of a "realistic" per

formance: It will create a unique character. and it will not seem too exaggerated

or too underplayed. Yet less individualized and more stylized performances may

also be appropriate to the context of a particular fiIm's mise -en- scene. Although we often think of good acting as creating highly individualized roles. many filmmaking traditions emphasize the creation of broader, more anonymous

types. Classical Hollywood narrative was built upon ideologically stereotyped roles: the Irish cop on the beat, the black servant, the Jewish pawnbroker, the wisecracking waitress or showgirl. Through "typecasting." actors were selected and directed

to conform to type. Often, however, skillful performers gave these conventions a

freshness and vividness. In the Soviet cinema of the I920s, several directors used a similar principle, called twage. Here the actor was expected to portray a typical representative of a

social class or historical movement (Figs. 653, 6.54). Whether more or less " typed," the performance can also be located on a contin- uum of stylization. A long tradition of film acting strives for a resemblance to what is thought of as realistic behavior. This is often motivated by appealing to the char- acter's psychological states. The introspective performances of Woody Allen and Di- ane Keaton in Annie Hail (Fig. 6.55) suit a film about characters trying to define and

articulate their feelings. More intense and explicit emotions dominate Winchester 73. in which James Stewart plays a man driven by a desire for revenge (Fig. 6.56). Psychological motivation is less important in a film like Trouble in Pkvadise, a

sophisticated comedy of manners in which the main concern is with more stereotypical characters in a comic situation. In Figure 6.57 two women competing for

the same man pretend to be friendly. Again. the performances are perfectly appro- priate to the genre. narrative, and overall style of the film. Comedy does not provide the only motivation for greater stylization. ¡van the Terrible is a film that heightens every element music, costume, setting to cre- ate a larger- than -life portrait of its hero. Nikolai Cherkasov's broad, abrupt gestures

fit in perfectly with all of these other elements to create an overall unity of com- position (Fig. 6.58) figure.

 Filmed from very far away, the actor is a dot on the screen much tinier

than an actor on stage seen from the back of the balcony. Filmed from very close, the actor's tiniest eye movement may be revealed. Thus the film actor must behave differently than the stage actor does, but not always by being more restrained. Rather, she or he must be able to adjust to each

type of camera distance. If the actor is far from the camera, he or she will have to gesture broadly or move around to be seen as acting at all. But if the camera and

actor are inches apart, a twitch of a mouth muscle will come across clearly. Between these extremes, there is a whole range of adjustments to be made. Basically. a scene can concentrate on either the actor's facial expression or on pantomimic gestures of the body. Clearly, the closer the actor is to the camera, the more the facial expression will be visible and the more important it will be (although the filmmaker may choose to concentrate on another part of the body, ex- cluding the face and emphasizing gesture). But if the actor is far away from the

camera, or turned to conceal the face, his or her gestures become the center of the performance. Thus both the staging of the action and the camera's distance from it determine how we will see the actors' performances. Many shots in Bernardo Bertolucci's Tice Spider's Stratagem show the two main characters from a distance, so that their man- ner of walking constitutes the actors' performances in the scene (Fig. 6.61). In con- versation scenes, however, we see their faces clearly, as in Figure 6.62. Turning back to some earlier examples, we see that in Figure 6.6 the actors are placed at either side of the garden, far back from the camera. The actors are so distant in Figure 6.11 that we see each one only as part of a moving crowd. Figures 6.20, 6.33, 6.49, 6.58, and 6.59 are all shots in which bodily behavior rather than facial ex- pression forms the basis for the acting. Contrast these with Figures 6.14, 6.23, 6.34, 6.36, 6.38, 639, 6.50, 6.54. 6.56, and 6.57, where the faces are close enough for small changes to be visible. A performance typically combines facial expression with bodily gesture, as is evident in Figure 6.62: see also Figures 6.13. 6.32, 6.50, 634, 6.55, 6.56. and 6.57. In Figure 6.28, small gestures become crucial. Such factors of context are particularly important when the performers are not actors, or even human beings. Framing. editing. and other film techniques can make

trained animals give appropriate performances. Jonesy, the cat in Aliens, seems

threatening because his hissing movement has been emphasized by lighting, framing, editing, and the sound track (Fig. 6.63). In animated films. the filmmaker's manipulation must go farther, as in Ladislav Starevich's Mascot. There a conver- sation between a devil and a thief includes subtle facial expressions and gestures, all created through the frame -by -frame manipulation of puppets (Fig. 5.72). As with every element of a film, acting offers an unlimited range of quite distinct possibilities. It cannot be judged on a universal scale that isseparate from the concrete context of the entire film's form.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: MISE-EN-SCENE IN SPACE AND TIME

Setting, costumC. lighting, and staging these are the components of mise -en

scene. Yet one element seldom appears in isolation. Each usually combines with

others to create a specific system in every film. The general Formal principles of unity, disunity, similarity, difference, and development will guide us in analyzing

how specific elements of mise -en -scene can function together. What are some ways

in which mise -en -scene affects our attention? What pulls our eye to a portion of

the frame at a given moment? Most basically, our visual system is attuned to perceiving change. both in time

and space. Our eyes and brains are better suited for noticing differences than for concentrating on uniform, prolonged stimuli. Thus aspects of mise -en -scene will attract our attention by means of changes in light, shape, movement, and other aspects of the image. Moreover. looking is purposeful: what we look at is guided by our assumptions and expectations about what to look for These, in turn, are based upon our previous experiences of artworks and of the real world. In viewing a film image, we frame expectations on the basis of many factors. One general factor is the total organization of the film's form. In u narrative film, characters and their actions offer strong cues, If a shot shows a crowd, we will tend to scan it looking for a character we recognize from earlier scenes. In Figure 6.64, although there are several people in the foreground of this shot from Tootsie, we will likely notice Julie (Jessica Lange) and Dorothy Michaels

(Dustin Hoffman) quickly, since they are our main characters. Similarly. we will notice Les, seen here for the first time, because he and Dorothy are exchanging

smiles. Similarly, sound can become an important factor controlling our attention. As we shall see in Chapter 9, sound can draw attention to areas of the im- age in various ways. Written language can also shape the viewer's expectations. as when an intertitle cues us what to look for in the next shot, In what follows, we shall concentrate on another source of hypotheses: the elements and patterns

in the mise -en -scene itself. Mise -en -scene contains a host of purely spatial and

temporal factors to guide our expectations and hence shape our viewing of the

image.

pace We already know that cinema is involved with different sorts of space. The image projected on a screen is flat, of course, and it displays a composition within a frame, just as a still photograph or a painting would. The arrangement of the mise -en- scene creates the composition of the screen space. That two- dimensional compo- sition consists of the organization of shapes, textures, and patterns of light and

dark. In most films, though, the composition also represents a three - dimensional space in which the action occurs, Since the image projected on the screen is flat, the mise -en -scene must give the audience cues that will enable us to infer the three- dimensionality of the scene. The filmmaker uses mise -en -scene to guide our attention across the screen. shaping our sense of the space that is represented and

emphasizing certain parts of it. In cinema. our vision is attuned to changes of several kinds:movement, color diferences, balance of distinct components, and variations in size. Our sensitivity to these changes allows the filmmaker to direct our notice across the two- dimensional space of the frame. Almost invariably. a moving item draws our attention more quickly than a static item does. We are sensitive to even the slightest activity within the frame. Nor- mally, for instance, we ignore the movement of scratches and dust on a film. But in David Rimmer's Watching for the Queen, in which the first image is an ab- solutely static photograph (Fig, 6.65), the jumping bits of dust on the film draw

our attention. In Figure 6.66 (from Yasujiro Ozu's Record ofa Tenement Gentleman), many

items compete for our attention. But the moment that a scrap of newspaper flaps, it immediately attracts the eye because it is the only motion in the frame. When

several moving elements appear on the screen, as in a ballroom dance, we are likely

to shift our attention among them, according to other cues or depending on our ex- pectations about which one is most salient to the narrative action. In Figure 6.67, from John Ford's Young Mt: Lincoln, Lincoln is moving much less than the dancers we see in front of him. Yet he is framed centrally; he is the major character; and

the dancers pass rapidly through the frame. As a result, we are likely to concentrate on his gestures and facial expressions, however slight they might becompared

to the energetic action in the foreground. The filmmaker, like the painter, can also exploit principle of color contrast to

shape our sense of screen space. For instance, bright colors set against a more sub- dued background are likely to draw the eye. Jill Menzel exploits this principle in Larks on a String, where the junkyard setting provides earthy grays and blacks against which the characters' lighter clothes stand out sharply (Color Plate 30). Another pertinent principle is that when lightness values are equal, "warm" colors in the red- orange yellow range tend to attract attention, while "cool" colors

like purple and green are less prominent. In Yilmaz Guney's Yod, for example, the

setting and the characters' outfits are already quite warm in hue, but the hot pink vest of the man in the central middle ground helps make him the primary object of attention (Color Plate 31). Sometimes the filmmaker will treat color design in terms of what painters call a 'limited palette:' This involves a few noncontrasting colors, perhaps along with white, browns, grays, and black. An extreme example of a limited palette is Jan Lenica's animated film A, which uses fine -point black and white before enlivening

its absurd comedy with the brief appearance of pastel flowers (Color Plate 32). The limited palette allows the viewer to make finer distinctions of intensity or saturation in the composition. Our earlier example from Fellini's Casanova (Color Plate 15) uses various shades of red. A limited palette drawing on the cooler end

of the spectrum is seen in Peter Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract (Color Plate 33). An extreme use of the "limited palette" principle is sometimes called mono- chromatic color design. Here the filmmaker emphasizes a single color, varied only

in purity or lightness. We have already seen an example of monochromatic mise- en -scene in the white -on -white scene of TNX 1138 (Colar Plate 16). A more com- mon usage can be found in 1970s and 1980s action films, which often envelop battle sequences in a silver or blue -gray haze, (See Color Plate 34, from Tsui Hark's A Better Tomorrow III). In a monochromatic design, even the slightest fleck of a

contrasting color will catch the viewer's attention. The color design of Aliens is dominated by metallic tones, so even a dingy yellow can mark the stiltlike loader as an important prop within the narrative (Color Plate 3S). Black- and -white films also rely on our sensitivity to changes in tonalities. The

colors of setting, costumes, lighting, and Figures register on the film in shades of black, white, and gray. The differences among these provide cues for us as we scan

the image. Usually lighter shapes leap to our notice while darker ones recede (Fig. 6.68). The same principle works in Figures 6.32 through 6.39. All things being

equal, if several light areas compete in the composition ( Figs. 6.55, 6.60), we will tend to shift our attention back and forth. Dark shapes may become prominent, however, if they are clearly defined and placed against a light background. In Fig- ure 6.59. the actor and the trees draw our eyes instantly because they stand out so

starkly from the lighter area. Compositional balance refers to the extent to which the areas of screen space have equally distributed masses and points of interest. Filmmakers often assume

that the spectator will concentrate more on the upper half of the frame (probably because in most shots that is where characters' faces are placed)_ Thus because of viewers' prior expectations the upper half needs less "filling up" than the lower. Since the film shot is composed within a horizontal rectangle, the director usually takes care to balance the left and right halves. The extreme type -of such balancing is bilateral symmetry. In the wedding banquet ofIvan the Terrible, Eisen

stein stages the action symmetrically (Fig. 6.69). A more grandiose example is

the battle scene of Chen Kaige's Life on a String (Color Plate 36). More common than such near perfect symmetry is a loose balancing of the

shot's left and right regions. The simplest way to achieve compositional balance is

to center the frame on the human body. Filmmakers often place a single figure at the center of the frame and minimize distracting elements at the sides. as in Fig- ure 6.70. Many of our earlier illustrations display this sort of balance (for exam- ple, Figs. 6.14. 6.36. 6.38. and 6.41). Other shots may balance two or more ele- ments. encouraging our eye to move back and forth, as in Figure 6.71. (For other examples. see Figs. 6.39, 6.57, and 6.60.) The balance can be roughly equal, as in Figure 6.57, or more unequal. In Figure 6.49. we will most likely pick out the Iwo

standing men first, since they are at the center, before we notice the crouching villagers at the far left. These examples suggest that compositional balance helps

shape our expectations about where significant action will be located on the screen. Balanced composition is the norm, but unbalanced shots can also create strong effects. A mild example comes from Vittorio de Sica's Bicycle Thieves (Fig. 6.72). A bolder example occurs in Michelangelo Antonionits ft Grido (Fig. 6.73). In Chapter 8, we will see how editing can create balance between two relatively unbal- anced compositions. Our effort to monitor differences also affects our sense of onscreen size. Looking at a static shot, we will register the larger shapes first and then discriminate

smaller ones. In Figure 6.1 I, the huge pillars and statues of the Babylon set contribute more to our sense of the overall composition than do either the individual actors or the light and dark patches on the steps near the bottom. In Figure 6.32 we are likely to look first at the actor's face and the paper he holds. rather than at

the small white labels on the file drawerseven though the labels are just as bright and in the same centered area of the screen. Nevertheless movement, color, or bal- ance can override size as a compositional cue and can draw our attention quickly

to very small areas of the screen. For example, if one of the file - drawer labels sud- denly fluttered to the floor. we would almost certainly notice it. Such compositional qualities guide our attention across the flat screen space, but they do more as well. In virtually all films. mise -en -scene functions to suggest a three - dimensional space, abstract or representational. real or fictitious. The factors in the image which help create such a sense of space are broadly called depth cues. There is no real space extending behind the screen, of course, but depth cues prompt us to imagine that space, to construct a three- dimensional world in which the film's action takes place. Again, we develop our understanding of depth cues from our experience of space in the real world and from conventions of space in such arts as painting and theater. In cinema, depth cues are largely pro- vided by lighting, setting, costumes. and staging. The depth cues suggest that a space has both volume and several distinct planes. When we speak of an object as having volume. we mean that it is solid and occupies u three dimensional area. A film suggests volume by shape, shading, and movement. In Figures 6.60 and 6.74 (the latter from Dreyer's La Passian de Jeanne d'Arc), we

do not think of the actors' faces as flat cutouts, like paper dolls. The shapes of those

heads and shoulders suggest solid people. The attached shadows on the faces suggest the curves and recesses of the actors' features and give a modeling effect. We assume

that if the actor in Figure 6.60 turned her head, we would see a profile. Thus we use our knowledge of objects in the world to discern volume in filmic space. An abstract film, because it can use shapes that are not everyday objects. can

create compositions without a sense of volume. The shapes in Figure 6.75 give us no depth cues for volume they are unshaded. do not have a recognizable shape, and do not move in such a way as to reveal new views which suggest roundness. Depth cues also pick out planes within the image. Planes are the layers of space occupied by persons or objects. Planes are described according to how close or far away from the camera they are: foreground. middle ground. background. Only a completely blank screen has a single plane. Whenever a shape even

an abstract one appears, we will perceive it as being in front of a background.

In Figure 6.75, the four dark S shapes are actually painted right on the frame surface as is the lighter. textured area. Yet the textured area seems to lie behind the

four shapes. The space here has only two planes, as in an abstract painting. This example suggests that one of the most basic depth cues is overlap of edges. The

curling S shapes have edges which overlap the background plane, block our vision of it. and thus seem to be closer to us. In Figure 6.72. the people overlap the lad- ders. so we understand that they are closer to the camera than the ladders are while

in Figure 6.73. the tree overlaps the figure of the woman. Through overlap a great many planes can be defined, Color Plate 21. from Jean- Luc Gsodard's La Ciina-Ar, displays three distinct planes: the background of fashion cutouts, the woman's face that overlaps that background, and her hand which overlaps her lower face, In the three - point lighting approach, "edge- lighting" ac- centuates the overlap of planes by emphasizing the contour of the object, thus sharply distinguishing it from the background. (See again Figs. 6.34, 6.39, and 6.4I.) Color differences also create overlapping planes. Because cool or pale colors

tend to recede, filmmakers commonly use them for background planes such as setting. Similarly, because warm or saturated colors tend to come forward, such hues are often employed for costumes or other foreground elements. In Sarah Maldoror's Surrtbìzanga (Color Plate 37), the heroine's dress has very warm and fairly saturated colors. making it stand out distinctly against the pale background. (See also Color Plates 9, 12, 13, and 35.)- Animated films can achieve brighter and more saturated color than most live

action filming, so depth effects can be correspondingly more vivid. In Chuck Jones's One Froggy Everting (Color Plate 3S), the luminous yellow of the umbrella and the

frog's brilliant green skin make him stand out against the darker red of the curtain

and the earth tones of the stage floor. In Color Plate 39, from B3amrrbi, spatial lay- ers are defined by contrasting pastels and darker hues: light yellow in the fore- ground, then pure black and white for the skunk, then milder pastels for the flow- ers behind him, and finally darker green and black for the backgrounds. Because of the eye's sensitivity to differences, even quite muted color contrasts

can suggest three - dimensional space. In L'Argent (Color Plates G -81 Bresson uses a limited. cool palette and relatively flat lighting. Yet the compositions pick out several planes by means of overlapping slightly different masses of black, tan, and

light blue_ Our shot from Casanova (Color Plate 15) articulates planes by means of slightly differing shades of red. In the Draughtsman's Contract example (Color Plate 33), much of our sense of distant space is created by strong black verticals and by horizontal strips of various shades of green. Together these colors define

listïnct layers in the scene. Color Plate 22, from La Chinoise. suggests another depth - producing factor:

the movement of the cigarette smoke in the foreground. In cinema, movement is one of the most important depth cues, since it strongly suggests both planes and

plumes. Note also the cast shadow in the background of Color Plate 22, which is

.urother depth cue. Aerial perspective, or the hazing of more distant planes, is yet another depth

cue. Typically, our visual system assumes that sharper outlines, clearer textures, and purer colors belong to foreground elements, In landscape shots, the blurring and graying of distant planes can be caused by actual atmospheric haze, as in Gtiney's The Wall (Color Plate 40). Even when such haze is a minor factor, our vision typically assigns strong color contrasts to the foreground, as in the 5am- bizanga shot (Color Plate 371. In addition, very often lighting is manipulated in

conjunction with lens focus to blur the background planes (Fig. 6.76).

In Figure 6.77, the mise -en -scene provides several depth cues: overlap of edges. cast shadows. and size diminution. That is, figures and objects farther away

from us are seen to get proportionally smaller; the smaller the figure appears, the

farther away we believe it to be. This reinforces our sense of there being a deep

space with considerable distances between the various planes. The same illustration dramatically displays linear perspective. We will con- sider perspective relations in more detail in the next chapter, since they derive as much from properties of the camera lens as they do from mise-en- scene. For now, we can simply note that a strong impression of depth emerges when parallel lines

converge at a distant vanishing point. Figure 6.77 illustrates off-center linear per- spective, where the vanishing point is not the geometrical center. Color Plate 33.

from The Draughtsman's Contract, exemplifies central perspective. In many of the examples already given, you may have noticed that mise -cn- scene serves not simply to direct our attention to foreground elements but rather

to create a dynamic relation between foreground and background. In Color Plates 21 and 22, for instance. Godard keeps our attention on the whole composition by using prominent backgrounds. In Color Plate 21, the pictures behind the actress's head lead us to scan the various small shapes quickly, while the bright red wall in Color Plate 22 comes forward strongly, making us aware of the background even

if we concentrate on the actor's face. The last two instances both exemplify shallow -space compositions. In such

shots, the mise -en -scene suggests comparatively little depth, and the closest and most distant planes seem only slightly separated. The opposite tendency is deep - space composition, in which a significant distance seems to separate planes. Our earlier example from Chrrmkle of Anna Magdalena Bach (Fig. 6.77) exemplifies deep -space mise -en- scene. Often a director creates a deep -space composition by making the foreground plane quite Iarge and the background plane quite distant (Fig. 6.78).

.`Shallow" and "deep" mise -en -scene are relative terms. Most compositions present a moderately deep space, falling between the extremes we have just con- sidered. Sometimes a composition will manipulate depth cues to make a space ap- pear deeper or shallower than it really is creating an optical illusion (Fig. 6.79),

At this point, you might want to return to shots illustrated earlier in this chapter. You will notice that these images use depth cues of overlap, movement, cast shadows, aerial perspective. size diminution, and linear perspective to create distinctive foregroundlbackground relations. The fact that our vision is sensitive to differences allows filmmakers to guide our understanding of the raise -en- scene. All the cues to story space interact with

one another, working to emphasize narrative elements, direct our attention, and set up dynamic relations among areas of screen space. We can see this interaction

clearly in two shots from Carl Dreyer's Day of Wrath. In the first shot, the heroine Anne is standing before a grillwork panel (Fig. 6.80). She is not speaking, but since she is a major character in the film. the nar- rative already directs us to her. Setting, lighting, costume, and figure expression

create pictorial cues that confirm our expectations. The setting yields a screen pattern of horizontal and vertical lines which intersect in the delicate curves of Anne's

face and shoulders. The lighting yields a patch of brightness on the right half of

the frame and a patch of darkness on the left, creating pictorial balance. Anne is

the meeting point of these two areas. Her face becomes modeled by the relatively

strong key lighting from the right, a little top lighting on her hair, and relatively

little fill light. Coordinated with the lighting in creating the pattern of light and dark is Anne's costume a black dress punctuated by white collar. a black cap

edged with white which again emphasizes her face. The shot is comparatively shallow, displaying two major planes with little distance between them. The background sets off the more important clement, Anne. The rigid geometrical grid in the rear makes Anne's slightly sad face the most ex- pressive element in the frame. thus encouraging our eye to pause there. In addition, the composition divides the screen space horizontally, with the grid pattern running

across the top half and the dark, severe vertical of Anne's dress dominating the lower half. As is common, the upper zone is the stronger because the character's head and

shoulders occupy it. Anne's figure is positioned slightly off center. but with her face

turned so as to compensate for the vacant area on the right. (Imagine how unbal- anced the shot would look if she were turned to face us squarely and the same

amount of space were left empty on the right.) Thus compositional balance reinforces the shot's emphasis on Anne's expression. In all, without using motion. Dreyer has channeled our attention by means of lines and shapes, lights and darks, and the

foreground and background relations in the mise -en- scene. In the second example. also from Day of Wrath, Dreyer coaxes our attention

into a to-and -fro movement (Fig. 6.81). Again, the plot guides us, since the char- acters and the cart are crucial narrative elements. Sound helps too, since Martin is at the moment explaining to Anne what the cart is used for. But mise -en -scene also plays a role. Size diminution and cast shadows establish basic foregroundlback- ground relations, with Anne and Martin on the front plane and the cart of wood in

the background. The space is comparatively deep (though the foreground is not as exaggeratedly close as that in Ashes and Diamonds, Fig. 6.78). The prominence of

the couple and the cart is reinforced by line, shape, and lighting contrasts. The fig- ures are defined by hard edges and by dark costumes within the predominantly

bright setting. Unlike most shots, this puts the human figures in the lower half of

the frame, which gives that zone an unusual importance. The composition thus cre- ates a vertical balance, counterweighting the cart with the couple. This encourages us to glance up and down between the two objects of our attention. Similar processes are at work in color films. In one shot ofYasujiro Ozu's Art Autumn Afternoon (Color Plate 41), our attention is concentrated on the woman

in the center foreground. Here many depth cues are at work. Overlap locates the two figures in two foreground planes, setting them against a series of more distant planes. Aerial perspective makes the tree foliage somewhat out of focus. Move- ment creates depth when the bride lowers her head. Perspective diminution makes

the more distant objects smaller. The figure and the bright silver, red, and gold

bridal costume stand out strikingly against the muted, cool colors of the background planes. Moreover, the colors bring back a red and- silver motif that Logan in the

very first shot of the film (Color Plate 42).

In all these cases, compositional elements and depth cues have functioned to

focus our attention on the narrative elements. But this need not always be the case. Bresson's Lancelot due Lac uses a limited palette of dark and metallic hues, and warmer colors tend to stand out. In one scene (Color Plate 43), a group of con- versing knights is centered and balanced in the foreground planes. Yet a paIe pur- ple saddle blanket on a passing horse momentarily draws our eyes away from this action. Such a "distracting" use of color becomes a stylistic motif in the film, Time

So far we have examined some spatial factors that guide our viewing of an image. In addition. both the shot and our viewing of it take place in time. As we will see in more detail when we consider editing (Chapter 8). the film- maker decides how long the shot will last on the screen. Within the confines of the

shot's duration, the director can control the rhythm of time as it unfolds. Although

the issue of rhythm in cinema is enormously complex and still not well understood, we can say roughly that it involves. at least, a beat or pulse, a pace (what musi- cians call tempo). and a pattern of accents, or stronger and weaker beats. We are most familiar with these factors in the filming of dance. When Fred Astaire or Ann Miller performs, the bodily movements obey strongly patterned rhythms. We should recognize, though, that any movement within the mise -en -scene may in- volve the same rhythmic components. Movement on the screen can have a distinctive

visual beat, such as the flashing of a neon sign or the steady rocking of a ship. Move- ment can also have a marked pace, such as the acceleration of a car in a chase scene. And visual movement can create distinctive, accented instants as well. These factors combine to create a sense of the shot's overall rhythm. in Fig- ure 6.82, from Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielmatt, 23 girui der Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, the protagonist simply prepares a meal. This feminist film emphasizes

the daily routine of a Belgian housewife, and many of its shots show small move- ments carried out slowly. Because there are no competing movements on the screen, her gestures create accented moments. Overall, the film's rhythm concentrates attention on minute variations in her habits. A far busier shot is Figure 6.83, from Busby Berkeley's 42nd Street. Here we

find strongly opposed movements. The central and outer rings of dancers circle in

one direction. while the second ring turns in a contrary direction_ The dancers also

swing strips of shiny cloth back and forth. The result is a partially abstract com- position, emphasized by a steady beat, rapid tempo, and strong accents all ap- propriate to the shot's placement as part of a musical number. The dancers in 42nd Street are synchronized to a considerable degree, but Fig- ure 6.84, from Tail's Play Time, contains movements of differing speeds, with different visual accents. Moreover, they occur on different planes and follow contrasting trajectories. These diverse movements accord with Tati's tendency to cram

his compositions with gags which compete for our attention. As we have already seen, we scan any film frame for information. This scan- ning brings time sharply into play. Only a very short shot forces us to try to take in the image all at once. In most shots we get an initial overall impression that cre- ates formal expectations. These expectations are quickly modified as our eye roams around the frame. Once again, our scanning of the shot is strongly affected by the presence of movement. A static composition. such as our first shot from Day of Wrath (Fig. 6.80), may keep pulling our attention back to a single element (here. Anne's face). By contrast, a composition emphasizing movement becomes more "time- bound" because our glance may be directed from place to place by various speeds, directions, and rhythms of movements. In the second image from Day of Wrath (Fig. 6.81) Anne and Martin are turned from us (so that expression and gesture are min -

imized), and they are standing still. Thus the single movement in the frame the

cartcatches our attention. But when Martin speaks and turns, we look back at

the couple, then back at the cast, and so on, in a shuttling, dynamic shift of attention. In such ways mise -en -scene can control not only what we look at but also when we look at it, Our time -bound process of scanning involves not only looking to and fro across

the screen but also, in a sense, looking "into" its depths. A deep -space composition will often use background events to create expectations about what is about

to happen in the foreground. 'composing in depth isn't simply a matter of pictorial richness;' British director Alexander Mackendrick has remarked. "It has value

in the narrative of the action, the pacing of the scene. Within the same frame, the director can organize the action so that preparation for what will happen next is

seen in the background of what is happening now." In fact, movement can occur moving forward From depth (Figs. 6.85. 6.86) or away into the distance within the

shot (Figs. 6.87, 6.88). Another fairly straightforward way to guide the viewer's attention over time

is to adjustfrank/14v of figure placement, All other things being equal, the viewer expects that more story information wilt come from a character's face than from a

character's back. The viewer's attention will thus usually pass over figures which

are turned away and fasten on figures which are positioned frontally. We have already seen this cue at work in our second still from Day of Wrath (Fig. 6.81), as well as in our Vampires examples (Figs. 6.15, 6.16, p. 161). In La Terra Trerna

(Fig. 6.89), this deep -space composition favors the far background plane by turning the foreground and middleground figures away from the viewer. This shifts our attention to the most frontally positioned characters, even though they are the most distant. in our Naniwa Elegy examples (Figs, 6.87, 6.88), both figures are turned from us, so other cues, such as the centrality and movement, drive our attention to

the woman. The frontality cue can shift the viewer's attention according to what

the filmmaker wants to stress. Like movements through a lighted volume and the

filling of empty zones, the frontality cue shows mise-en- scene's indebtedness to

theatrical staging (Figs. 6.90 - 6.93). As a set of techniques, mise -en -scene helps compose the film shot in space and time. Setting, lighting, costume, and staging interact to create patterns of movement, of color and depth, line and shape, light and dark. These patterns deline and develop the space of the story world and emphasize salient story infor- mation. The director's use of mise -en -scene not only guides our perception from moment to moment but also helps create the overall form of the film.

ARRATIVE FUNCTIONS OF MISE-EN-SCENE: OUR HOSPITALITY

Up to now we have looked at the general stylistic possibilities offered by mise- en- scene. Its potential for creating graphic compositions is vital to the abstract film and can be useful as well to the other types of formal organization. Fictional, documentary, experimental, and animated films all can use mise -en -scene

to guide our attention, our understanding, and our inferences about what we see. The rest of this chapter considers how mise-en -scene can function in a ftctionaI narrative film. Mise -en -scene functions not only in isolated moments, but in relation to the narrative organization of the entire film. Our Hospitality, like most of Buster Keaton's films, exemplifies how mise -en -scene can economically advance the narrative and create a pattern of motifs. Since the film is a comedy, the mise -en- scene also creates gags. our Hospitality. then, exemplifies what we will find in our study of every filin technique: An individual element almost always has several functions, not just one. Consider, for example. how the settings function within the plot of Our Hos- pinif ly. For one thing, they help divide the Film into scenes and to contrast those

scenes. The film begins with a prologue showing how the feud between the Mc- Kays and the Canfields results in the deaths of the young Canfield and the hus- band of the McKay family. We sec the McKays living in a shack and are left in

suspense about the fate of the baby, Willie. Willie's mother flees with her son from

their southern home to the North (action narrated to us mainly by an intertitle). The plot skips over several years to begin the main action, with the grown -up Willie living in New York. There are a number of gags concerning early nineteenth - century life in the metropolis, contrasting sharply with the prologue scene. We are

led to wonder how this locale will relate to the southern scenes. and soon Willie

receives word that he has inherited his parents' home in the South. A series of amusing short scenes follows as he takes a primitive train back to his birthplace. During these scenes Keaton uses real locales, but by laying out the railroad tracks

in different ways, he exploits the landscapes for surprising and unusual comic effects we shall examine shortly. The rest of the film deals with Willie's movements in and around the south- ern town. On the day of his arrival he wanders around and gets into a number of comic situations. That night he stays in the Canfield house itself. Finally, an extended chase occurs the next day, moving through the countryside and back to the Canfield house for the settling of the feud. Thus the action depends heavily on

shifts of setting that establish Willie's two journeys, as baby and as man, and later his wanderings to escape his enemies' pursuit. The narration is relatively unre- stricted once Willie reaches the South. shifting between him and members of the Canfield family, We usually know more about where they are than Willie does, and

the narrative generates suspense by showing them coming toward the places where Willie is hiding. Specific settings fulfill distinct narrative functions. The McKay "estate;' which Willie envisions as a mansion, turns out to be a tumbledown shack. The McKay house is contrasted with the Canfield's palatial plantation home. In narrative terms

the Canfield home gains even more functional importance when the Canfield father

forbids his sons to kill Willie on the premises: Our code of honor forbids us to shoot him while he is a guest in our house." (Once Willie overhears this, he determines never to leave.) Ironically the home of Willie's enemies becomes the only safe spot

in town, and many scenes are organized around the Canfield brothers' attempts to

lure Willie outside. At the end of the film another setting takes on significance: the

landscape of meadows, mountains, river banks, rapids, and waterfalls across which

the Canfields pursue Willie. Finally. the feud ends back in the Canfield house itself. with Willie now welcomed as the daughter's husband. The pattern of development

is clear from the opening shootout at the McKay house that breaks up Willie's home. to the fmal scene in the Canfield house with Willie becoming part of a new family. In such ways every setting becomes highly motivated by the narrative's system of causes and effects, parallels and contrasts, and overall development. The same narrative motivation marks the film's use of costume. Willie is char- acterized as a city boy through his dandified suit, whereas the southern gentility or the elder Canfield is represented through his white planter's suit. Props become

important here: Willie's suitcase and umbrella succinctly summarize his role as visitor and wanderer, and the Canfields' ever - present pistols remind us of their goals of continuing the feud. Note also that a change of costume (Willie's disguising

himself as u woman) enables hint to escape from the Canfield household. At the end, the putting aside of the various guns by the characters signals the end of

the feud. Like setting. lighting in Our Hospiralizy has both general and specific functions. The film alternates scenes in darkness with scenes in daylight. The feuding

in the prologue takes place at night; Willie's trip south and wanderings through

the town occur in daylight; that night Willie comes to dinner at the Canfield's and

stays a.s S guest: next day, the Canfields pursue him; and the film ends that night with the marriage of Willie and the Canfield daughter, Mute specifically, the bulk of the film is evenly lit in the three -point method. Yet the somber action of the prologue takes place in hard sidelighting (see Figs. 6.94, 6.95). Later. the murder scene

is played out in flashes of light lightning, gunfire which fitfully punctuate the

overall darkness. Because this sporadic lighting hides part of the action from us,

it helps build suspense. The gunshots themselves are seen only as flashes in the

darkness, and we must wait to learn the outcome the deaths of both opponents until the next flash of lightning, Most economically of all. virtually every bit of the acting functions to support and advance the sail ;e- tffccl chain of the narrative. The way Canfield sips and sa- \IIr' In ,tikp establisitQN hit southern ways; his southern hospitality in turn will not allow him to shoot a guest in his house. Similarly. Willie's every move ex- presses his diffidence or resourcefulness. Even more concise is the way the film uses staging in depth to present two

narrative events simultaneously. While the engineer drives the locomotive, the other cars pass him on a parallel track (Fig. 6.96), In other shots. Willie's awareness or

ignorance of a situation is displayed through planes of depth (Figs. 6.97. 6.98). Thanks to such spatial arrangements, Keaton is able to pack together two story events. resulting in a tight narrative construction and in a relatively unrestricted

narration_ in Figure 6.97, we know what Willie does and we expect that he will probably flee now that he understands the sons' plans. But in Figure 6.98. we are

aware, as Willie is not, that danger lurks around the corner; suspense results, as we wonder whether the Canfield boys' ambush will succeed. All of these devices for narrative economy considerably unify the film, but some other elements of mise -en -scene function as specific motifs. For one thing,

there is the repeated squabble between the anonymous husband and wife. On his

way to his "estate:' Willie passes a husband throttling his wife. Willie intervenes

to protect her: the wife proceeds to thrash Willie for butting in. On Willie's way back, he passes the same couple, still fighting, but studiously avoids them. Nevertheless, the wife aims a kick at him as he passes. The mere repetition of the motif strengthens the film's narrative unity, but it functions thematically. too, as an- other joke on the contradictions surrounding the idea of hospitality. Other motifs recur. Willie's first hat is too tall to wear in a jouncing railway

coach. (When it gets crushed, he trades it for the flat Keaton trademark hat.) Willie's

second hat serves to distract the Cantlelds when Willie coaxes his dog to fetch it. `here is also a pronounced water motif in the film. Water as rain conceals from us

the murders in the prologue and later saves Willie from leaving the Canfield home

after dinner ( "It would be the death of anyone to go out on a night like this! "). Wa- Figure 6.99 After an explosion

ter as a river functions significantly in the final chase. And water as a waterfall ap- demolishes u dam, the water spills over pears soon after Willie's arrival in the South (Fig. 6.99). This waterfall initially a Cliff and creates a waterfall, protects Willie by hiding hire (Figs. 6.100, 6.101) but later threatens both him and

the Canfield daughters as they are nearly swept over it (Fig. 6.107). Two specific motifs of setting powerfully unify the narrative. First there is the

recurrence of an embroidered sampler hanging on the Canfield wall: "Love Thy Neighbor." It appears initially in the prologue of the 111m, when seeing it motivates Canfield's attempt to stop the feud. It then plays a significant role in linking the

ending back to the beginning. The sampler reappears at the end when Canfield. en- raged that Willie has married his daughter. glances at the wall, reads the inscription, and resolves to halt the years of feuding. His changes in attitude is motivated by the earlier appearance of the motif. The 111m also uses gun racks as a motif. In the prologue each feeder goes to his mantelpiece to get his pistol. Later, when Willie arrives in town, the Canfields hurry to get their gun rack and begin to load their pistols. Near the end of the film. when the Canfields return home after failing to find Willie, one of the sons notices

that the gun rack is now empty. And in the final shot, when the Canfields accept

the marriage and lay down their arms. Willie produces from all over his person a

staggering assortment of pistols taken as a precaution from the Canfields' own sup- ply. Thus mise -en -scene motifs unify the film through their repetition. variation, and development. Yet Our Hospitality is more than a Film whose narrative system relates eco- nomically to patterns of mise -en- scene. It is a comedy, and one of the funniest. We

should not be surprised to find, then, that Keaton uses mist -en -scene for gags. In- deed, so unified is the 111m that most of the elements that create narrative econ- omy also function to yield comic effects. The mise -en -scene bristles with many individually comic elements. Settings are exploited for amusement the ramshackle McKay estate, the Broadway of 1830, the specially cut train tunnel that just fits the old fashioned train and its

smokestack (Fig. 6.102). Costume gags also stand out. Willie's disguise as a woman

is exposed by a gap in the rear of his skirt; later. Willie puts the same costume on a horse to distract the Canfields. Most strongly, comedy arises iron the behavior of the figures. The railroad engineer's high kick unexpectedly swipes off his con - ductor's hat (Fig. 6.103). The elder Canfield sharpens his carving knife with fero- cious energy, just inches from Willie's head. When Willie lands at the bottom of

the river, he stands there looking left and right. his hand shading his eyes. before

he realizes where he is. Later. Willie scuds down the river, leaping out of the water like a fish and skidding across the rocks. Perhaps the only aspect of mise -en -scene that competes with the comic brilliance of the figures' behavior is the film's use of deep space for gags. Many of the shots we have already examined function to create comedy as well: The engi- neer stands firmly oblivious to the separation of train cars from the engine (see Fig. 6.96) just as Willie is unaware that the Canfield boy is lurking murderously

in the foreground (see Fig. 6.98). Even more striking, though, is the deep -space gag that follows the demolition of the dam. The Canfield boys have been searching the town for Willie. In the meantime. Willie sits on a ledge. fishing. As the water bursts from the darn and

sweeps over the cliff, it completely engulfs Willie (Fig. 6.100). At that very in- stant, The Canfield brothers step into the foreground from either side of the frame, still looking for their victim (Fig. 6.10l). The water's concealment of Willie re- duces him to a neutral background for the movement of the Canfields, This sud- den eruption of new action into the scene surprises us, rather than generating sus- pense, since we were not aware that the Canfield sons were so close by. Here

surprise is crucial to the comedy. However appealing the individual gags are, Our Hospitality patterns its comic aspects as strictly as it does its other motifs. The film's journey pattern often

arranges a series of gags according to a formal principle of theme and variations. For instance, during the train trip south. a string of gags is based on the idea of people encountering the train. Several people turn out to watch it pass, a tramp

rides the rods, and an old man chucks rocks at the engine. Another swift series of gags takes the train tracks themselves as its "theme," The variations include a humped track. a donkey blocking the tracks. curled and rippled tracks. and finally

no tracks at all. But the most complex theme- and variations series can be seen in the motif of

the fish on the Line.'' Soon after Willie arrives in town, he is angling and hauls up

a minuscule fish. Shortly afterward, a huge fish yanks him into the water (Fig. 6.104). Later in the film, through a series of mishaps, Willie becomes tied by a

rope to one of the Canfield sans. Many gags arise from this umbilical -cord link- age, especially one that results in Cantleld's being pulled into the water as Willie was earlier. Perhaps the single funniest shot in the film occurs when Willie realizes that since the Canfield boy has fallen off the rocks (Fig. 6.105), so must he (Fig. 6.106). But even after Willie gets free of Canfield, the rope remains tied around his waist. So in the film's climax Willie is dangling from a log over the waterfall (Fig, 6.107). Here again, one element fulfills multiple functions, The fish -on- the -line device advances the narrative, becomes a motif unifying the film, and takes its place in a pattern of parallel gags involving variations of Willie on the rope. ln such ways Our Hospitality becomes an outstanding example of the integration of cinematic mise -en -scene with narrative form.

SUMMARY

The viewer who wants to study mise -en -scene should look for it systematically. Watch, fast of all, for bow setting, costume, lighting, and the behavior of the fig- ures present themselves in a given film. As a start, try to trace only otte son of element say, setting or lighting through a scene. We should also reflect on the patterning of mise -en -scene elements. How do

they function? How do they constitute motifs that weave their ways through the

entire film? In addition. we should notice how mice -en -scene is patterned in space and time to attract and guide the viewer's attention through the process of watching the film, and to create suspense or surprise. Finally, we should u-y to relate the system of raise-en-scene to the large

scale form of the film. Hard and -fast prejudices about realism are of less value here than an openness to the great variety of mise -en -scene possibilities. Aware- ness or those possibilities will better help us to determine the functions of mise- e n- scene.

 NOTES AND QUERIES 

On the Origins of Bise -en -Scene

As a concept. mise -en -scene reaches back into the nine -

teenth -century theater. For a historical introduction that is

relevant to film. see Oscar G. Brockett and Robert R. Findlay, Cerriniry of innovation (Englewood Cliffs, I+1.J.Ï Prentice- Hall, I973). More specialized are Brooks McNamara, "'The Scenography of Popular Entertainment," The Drama Review 18, 1 (March 1974): 16--4; and Martin Meisel,

Realizatir,rn,s. Narrative, Pictorial. and Theatrical Arts in Nineteenth- Century England (Princeton: Princeton Univer- sity Press, 1983). The standard film works Are Nicolas ar- dac, Stage ra Screen ('Cambridge. Mass,: Harvard Univer- sity Press, 19491 and Ben Brewster and Lea Jacobs, Theatre

to Cinema: Stage Pïctarralisnt and the Early 1'eun4re Film

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).