Classical Realist Texts: American Films between 1916 and 1960

Mise-en-scène

Purer Form of Realist Narrative

• Purer form of realism in narrative is found in non-diegetic elements.

• Diegetic - being relevant to the progress of a story

• Non-diegetic - being irrelevant to the progress of an imaginary story

Purer Form of Narrative

• Siegmund Kracauer points out an inverted relation between the images that further the story and the images that ‘retain a degree of independence of the intrigue and thus succeed in summoning physical reality.’

Purer Form of Narrative

• Roland Barthes characterizes as ‘reality effects’ the literary reference to objects and events that have no discernible narrative function except observation.

Purer Form of Narrative• A purer form of film

realism is found in an incidental or contingent element in narrative. ‘… in the middle of the chase the little boy suddenly needs to piss. So he does.’ (André Bazin)

• Vittorio de Sica’s Ladri di biciclette (1948)

Table of Contents

1. Visualizing methods in classical American films

2. Mise-en-scéne in classical American films

Visualizing Methods in Classical American films

(Mise-en-scène = ‘put it in the scene’; what is filmed, and how it is shot. It includes the directing of performance, the placement of cameras, camera movement, lighting, the choice of lenses, décore, costume, location hunting, etc.)

Visualizing Methods in Classical American films

(Montage = editing, how to present shots. It includes cutting, mixing sound effects andmusic, and dubbing)

Mise-en-scéne in Classical American Films

• Classical Hollywood films aim to make the viewer not notice that they were watching a film. They do so through telling a plausible narrative.

• In making narrative the dominant force in a film, the classical Hollywood cinema chose to subordinate mise-en-scène and montage to narrative.

• It lets mise-en-scène serve for the ‘invisible’, plausible and realistic narrative.

Mise-en-scéne in Classical American Films• They achieve reality and truth effects by

concealing filming techniques through sophisticated filming teachniques MISE-EN-SCENE and MONTAGE

• Unartificial → natural → real• Use of arts → make a film look artless →

natural → real

Mise-en-scéne in Classical American Films

• Film arts which are employed to make a film artless

• No unusual angles, eye-level placing of camera, follow-focus (follow shot), no strong contrast, choice of normal size lens (35 to 50 mm), balanced composition, verisimilitudinous camera movement, etc.

Mise-en-scéne in Classical American Films

• ANGLES OF FRAMING

• High angle shot• Low angle shot

• Camera angle can suggest either the vulnerability or power of a character.

Mise-en-scéne in Classical American Films• Straight-on angle

• Following the point of view of a character - the most natural way to deciding an camera angle

• Orson Wells, Citizen Kane (1941)

Mise-en-scéne in Classical American Films

• Expressive angles

• Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange (1971)

• Extreme low-angle shots

Mise-en-scéne in Classical American Films• LEVEL OF CAMERA

• Low-level and high-level placing of the camera

• Following the eye level of a character - the most natural way to decide the place of the camera.

Mise-en-scéne in Classical American Films• However, eye-level

positioning of camera becomes expressive and formalistic, when it is set at an extreme level.

• Expressive level

• Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting (1996)

Mise-en-scéne in Classical American Films

• COMPOSITION• The important figure should be place in the

slightly off-centre of the frame

Mise-en-scéne in Classical American Films

• Slightly off-centre composition: Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas

Mise-en-scéne in Classical American Films

• Yasujiro Ozu’s famous composition in which a character comes right in the middle of the screen

• Unconventional composition stands out in his films - more formalist stylistic element

Mise-en-scéne in Classical American Films

DEPTH OF FIELD: FOCUS• SELECTIVE FOCUS or SHALLOW

FOCUS = only one plane is in sharp focus• To direct the viewer’s attention to that

plane.

Mise-en-scéne in Classical American Films

• RACK FOCUS• Changing of focus within a shot in such a way

that one plane of the frame goes out of focus and instead another plane comes into sharp focus.

• Peking

Mise-en-scéne in Classical American Films

• FOLLOW FOCUS• Keeping a moving object or character in focus

More natural focusing

Mise-en-scéne in Classical American Films

• DEEP FOCUS • Keeping elements at different depths of the field

in focus, by using a relatively wide angle lens, strong lighting and a small camera aperture.

• Preferred by realist film makers

Mise-en-scéne in Classical American Films

• Watch the four clips from three different films and identify the types of focus used in them.

1. Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather 2. Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Tango in Paris 3. Federico Fellini’s Le Notte di Cabiria 4. Orson Wells’ Citizen KaneWhich one(s) serves better to the creation of truth

effects? Which one(s) are more formalist shot(s)?

Mise-en-scéne in Classical American Films

• Camera movements• The camera moves following the movement of

a character - the most natural way to move the camera

• Martin Scorsese, The Age of Innocence• Is the camera movement in the opening scene

realistic or formalistic?

Mise-en-scéne in Classical American Films

• LIGHTING• High-key lighting: all areas of the image are

equally lighted.• Low-key lighting: create strong contrast between

light and shadow e.g. A Touch of Evil

Mise-en-scéne in Classical American Films• Mise-en-scene ought to be motivated as

narrative does. The chain of cause and effect shoould dictate mise-en-scène.

• e.g. When a character is a hero, he may be placed in the centre of the frame. When he walks into a room, the camera also moves with him. When he is walking in the darkness, no strong light is cast on his face.

Mise-en-scéne in Classical American Films

• However, Mise-en-scène should not let itself stand out.

• e.g. A protagonist must be placed in the centre of the frame, but not in the dead centre. When he walks into a room, the camera also moves with him rather than it uses rack focus. When he is walking in the darkness, not too much contrast between light and shade.

Mise-en-scéne in classical American films

• F.W. Murnau, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

• Travelling shot from a tram• Motivated: when the

characters and the vehicle on which they are on move, the camera moves.

• Sunrise