Mise en scène

The title of this article contains the character è. Where it is unavailable or not desired, the name may be represented as Mise en scene.

The distinctive mise-en-scène of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Germany, 1920) features stark lighting and jagged architecture

Mise-en-scène (French pronunciation: [mizɑ̃sɛn] "placing on stage") is an expression used to describe the design aspects of a theatre or film production, which essentially means "visual theme" or "telling a story"—both in visually artful ways through storyboarding, cinematography and stage design, and in poetically artful ways through direction. Mise-en-scène has been called film criticism's "grand undefined term."^[1]

When applied to the cinema, mise-en-scène refers to everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement—composition, sets, props, actors, costumes, and lighting.^[2] Mise-en-scène also includes the positioning and movement of actors on the set, which is called blocking. These are all the areas overseen by the director, and thus, in French film credits, the director's title is metteur en scène, "placer on scene."

Interpretation

This narrow definition of mise-en-scène is not shared by all critics. For some, it refers to all elements of visual style—that is, both elements on the set and aspects of the camera. For others, such as U.S. film critic Andrew Sarris, it takes on mystical meanings related to the emotional tone of a film.

Recently, the term has come to represent a style of conveying the information of a scene primarily through a single shot—often accompanied by camera movement. It is to be contrasted with montage-style filmmaking—multiple angles pieced together through editing. Overall, mise-en-scène is used when the director wishes to give an impression of the characters or situation without vocally articulating it through the framework of spoken dialogue, and typically does not represent a realistic setting. The common example is that of a cluttered, disorganized apartment being used to reflect the disorganization in a character's life in general, or a sparsely decorated apartment to convey a character with an "empty soul" (e.g., Robert De Niro's house on the beach in Heat), in both cases specifically and intentionally ignoring any practicality in the setting.

In German filmmaking in the 1910s and 1920s one can observe tone, meaning, and narrative information conveyed through mise-en-scène. Perhaps the most famous example of this is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) where a character's internal state of mind is represented through set design and blocking.

The similar-sounding, but unrelated term, "metteurs en scène" (figuratively, "stagers") was used by the auteur theory as a disparaging label for directors who did not put their personal vision into their films.^{[citation needed]}

Because of its relationship to shot blocking, mise-en-scène is also a term sometimes used among professional screenwriters to indicate descriptive (action) paragraphs between the dialog.

Only rarely is mise-en-scène critique used in other art forms, but it has been used effectively to analyse photography.

Key aspects of mise en scène

Set design 

An important element of "putting in the scene" is set design—the setting of a scene and the objects (props) there in. Set design can be used to amplify character emotion or the dominant mood of a film, or to establish aspects of the character.

Lighting 

The intensity, direction, and quality of lighting have a profound effect on the way an image is perceived. Light (and shade) can emphasise texture, shape, distance, mood, time of day or night, season, glamour; it affects the way colors are rendered, both in terms of hue and depth, and can focus attention on particular elements of the composition.

Space 

The representation of space affects the reading of a film. Depth, proximity, size and proportions of the places and objects in a film can be manipulated through camera placement and lenses, lighting, set design, effectively determining mood or relationships between elements in the story world.

Costume 

Costume simply refers to the clothes that characters wear. Using certain colors or designs, costumes in narrative cinema are used to signify characters or to make clear distinctions between characters.

Acting 

There is enormous historical and cultural variation in performance styles in the cinema. Early melodramatic styles, clearly indebted to the 19th century theater, gave way in Western cinema to a relatively naturalistic style.

References

1. ^ Brian Henderson, "The Long Take," in Movies and Methods: An Anthology, ed. Bill Nichols (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 315.
2. ^ Bordwell, David; Thompson, Kristin (2003). Film Art: An Introduction, 7th ed.. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0072484551. 

Further reading

• Bordwell, David; Thompson, Kristin (2010). Film Art: An Introduction, 9th ed.. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 9780071220576.  Contains a chapter on mise en scène with a concise definition of it.

External links

• The Straight Dope: What do artsy film critics mean by "mise-en-scene"?
• Yale University Film Analysis Site: "mise-en-scene"
• Buster Answers: Mise en Scène
• Indy Mogul 4 Minute Film School: Mise en SceneItalic text