Chapter 4: The Shot: Mise-en-Scene Part II (pp. 132-157)

I. Staging: Movement and Performance           

A. Acting and Actuality
- Actors’ performances consist of visual elements (appearance, gestures, facial expressions) and sound (voice, effects)
- At times, only visual (silent films) or sound can be emphasized (Scent of Green Papaya)
- Question of Realism: Has changed over times
- Today: Russell Crowe and Renee Zellweger (Cinderella Man) and Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain) are close to real-life behavior
- During the 1950s, Marlon Brando’s work was considered very realistic; appears deliberate and unrealistic to today’s audiences
- Already DeNiro’s naturalistic performance in Taxi Driver seems dated
- Because acting is part of the mise-en-scene, there are a wide variety of acting styles
- In Asian cinema, overblown performances are used for entertainment value
- Comedy (Jim Carrey) and Martial arts (Jet Li)

B. Acting: Functions and Motivations
- Performance, realistic or not, should be examined according to its function in the film
- We can consider performance along two dimensions: individualized and stylized
- In a realistic performance, acting creates a unique character that is neither too exaggerated nor too underplayed
- Example: Marlon Brando’s Don Vito Corleone in the Godfather
- He gives his character a distinctive appearance and voice by using a string of facial expressions and gestures that distinguish him from the traditional image of a mob boss
- For stylization, he keeps Don Coreleone in the middle range
- middle range is not the only option
- the Classical Hollywood narrative was built on stereotyped roles (the Irish cop on the beat, the black servant, the wisecracking waitress)
- skillful performances can give these stock characters a freshness
- characters can be more or less stylized, often a sense of realism can be created by giving the actors small tasks to complete; frequent gestures and movements in Woody Allen’s films add plausibility
- Must consider psychological motivation: Comedy and Ivan the Terrible

C. Acting in the Context of Other Techniques
- Specific movements, French New Wave
- bits and pieces can be edited together, in ways not possible on stage
- camera techniques can affect acting; actors must adjust their portrayals to camera angles (far shots and close-ups)

II. Putting It All Together: Mise-en-Scene in Space and Time

A. Space

1. Screen Space
- Like a painting
- Filmmakers attempt to balance a shot, simplest way to achieve compositional balance is to center the frame on the human body
placing a single figure at the center of the frame, minimizing distracting side elements
- unbalanced effects can create a strong effect. Il Grido – man talking to woman who’s face is obscured by a tree; viewer wants to see face
- sometimes directors will leave shots unbalanced to prime our expectations that something will change in the frame
directors use several techniques to guide the eyes; contrast of lighting is one example – light objects stand out on dark background and vice versa;  same principle works for color, for example a bright costume element shown against a subdued setting
- when lightness values are equal, warm colors (red-orange-yellow range) tend to attract attention, while cooler colors, like purple, green and blue, are less prominent
- one technique is monochromatic color design, where a director emphasizes a single color, varying it only in purity or lightness, for example in THX 1138 heads float on a white background
- Also, movement – in crowded scenes the eyes are drawn to characters we recognize
- In dance scenes, the eyes move from group to group

2. Screen Space
- Film is not merely two-dimensional
- Depth cues suggest that images have both volume and several distinct planes
- Film suggests volume by shape, shading and movement
- Facial shadowing is particularly effective
- Depth cues also pick out planes within an image; Planes are the layers of space occupied by persons or objects and are described according to how close or far away from the camera they are: foreground, middle ground, background.
- only a completely blank screen has one plain
- The most basic depth cue is overlap, when a person overlaps an object, we understand that the person is closer to the camera than the object
edge-lighting also accentuates depth by emphasizing the contour of an object
- Similarly color can be used, because cool or pale colors tend to recede, they are commonly used as background planes or settings
- Because warm or saturated colors tend to come forward, they are used for costumes or other foreground objects
- Aerial perspective is yet another cue, rendering the distance hazy, as people tend to perceive sharper outlines as belonging to the foreground
- Size diminuation – figures farther away seem to get proportionately smaller, thus the smaller an object is, the farther away it seems to us
- Mise-en-scene attempts to create a dynamic relationship between the foreground and background
- There are two types of compostions
- Shallow-space composition, in which the mise-en-scene suggests little depth, and the closest and most distant planes seem only slightly separated, work of Jean-Luc Godard (La Chinoise)
- Deep-space composition, in which a significant distance seems to separate planes
- These definitions are relative and most compositions present a moderately deep space

III. Time
- Cinema is an art of time, as well as space
- Directors control not only what we see, but when we see it
- Because we are used to noticing change, we can pick up the slightest cues
- In Chantal Akerman’s feminist film, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, the main character slowly peels potatoes most of the time
- The same rhythym is maintained for the entire film, so when she does make mistakes under emotional pressure, the action is more significant
- A static composition pulls our attention to a single element, while a composition emphasizing movement becomes more time-bound, because our glance is directed by various speeds, directions, and rhythms of movements
- Frontality (viewers assume that more story information will come from a character’s face than from their back, so they focus on front-facing characters rather than characters that are turned around)
- Frontality can change over time to guide our attention to various parts of the shot
- A flash of frontality can be very powerful
Rebel Without a Cause: Judy, Plato and Jim are all at the police station. Plato begins to shiver, so Jim drunkenly comes forward to offer Plato his jacket, causing Judy to notice him. Jim's frontality, forward movement and bright white shirt draw the eye to him