Mise-en-scene assignment

Mise-en-scene choices: SettingLightingColourPropsSpacePosition of the camera Framing Performance

1

Your case study: examining the elements of mise-en-scène to “read” the meaning of the film sequence, and of the film as a whole.

Mise-en-scène as a means of visual storytelling and communicator of meaning.

Sunday, 22 February by 23:55

“The cinema is one of the most technological of art forms. The result of an extraordinary confluence of disciplines in the sciences (chemistry, physics, engineering, optics) and the humanities (writing, painting, photography, drama)…” Pam Cook, The Cinema Book, p.45

Technology & The ‘dream factory’

Technology & film: a case of ‘eureka!’ moments?

• The teleological model: film history as a series of technological breakthroughs that solve aesthetic problems.

• Heroic individual inventions• Non-teleological model:

“assimilation”

- Invention (scientific)

- Innovation (cost-benefit, risk assessment)

- Diffusion (commercial application,

acceptance and implementation)

5

Can you date some of cinema’s key technological innovations?

•Sound?

Sound

8

Safe (Todd Haynes, 1995)

9

Colour?

Imitation of Life (Sirk, 1959)

In anticipation of Imitation of Life…

12

13

Widescreen?

Expansion of film space.

Opposition to TV.

Cinerama & Cinemascope: key features of ‘50 American cinema

The Apartment (Wilder, 1960)

16

Format?

35mm; 4:3

History of aspect ratio

18

Multiple aspect ratios—film

19

Rebel: planned in b/w. But shooting in Cinemscope included a clause about the use of colour!

3-D?

22

Steadicam?

• A development of mobile camera technologies, evolving since cinema’s earliest days.

• Intended as a functional equivalent of dollying, it was discovered to produce a different, “floating” effect

• Exploration of diegetic space; subjective; bringing the spectator closer.

CGI?

Summary

Technology is related to, and a part of, the different dimensions of film: aesthetics, socio-economic contexts of cultural production, scientific knowledge, narrative demands, and ideological content.

Back to Gomery’s model of assimilation and away from the teleological notion of goal-oriented technological “progress.”