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If any of you are film buffs you may be familiar with the term mis-en-scene (also mise-en-scene). I was introduced to the term by a friend of the family who gave it a certain definition (below, in white), and I've been using it that way for some time. I looked it up tonight and found a decidedly drier definition. So I was wondering if you would share what the term means to you, if anything. I'll white out my take on it to avoid leading the witness. I was informed that the phrase refers to techniques that put the viewer "into the scene." For example, the camera may linger on sunlit curtains blowing gently in the breeze not only to convey a serene mood, but also to give an organic feel to the movie so that the viewer feels more like they are in the room with the characters, rather than a passive viewer at a safe distance. One example that comes to mind is in "Master and Commander" in the opening scenes when the camera lingers on the rigging of the ship and we just see the ship itself sailing along, creaking and swaying, with the sounds of the water and the wind in the background.
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Pooh-Bah
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I was about to answer that it's one of the terms whose meaning I can never remember. Then I clicked on your link, and discovered why. For my money, the definition given in the fourth paragraph of that article is the most useful.
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Alex, did you follow the Straight Dope link at Wiki? certainly a less pedantic take.
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Pooh-Bah
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Yeah I followed it.
My main point was that I had been led to believe that the term described an artistic or stylistic choice. What the definitions say is more akin to set dressing, a more pedestrian take on it.
I guess what I really want to know is, if the technique I described isn't properly called mis-en-scene, then what is it called (if it has a name at all)?
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Pooh-Bah
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In its most significant sense, mise-en-scene refers to everything under the control of the director, that is, the aggregate effect created by art direction, placement and movement of camera and actors, lighting, and other visual elements in a given scene. In other words, mise-en-scene is what the director does. By extension, but somewhat more vaguely, mise-en-scene can refer to the dominant visual features of a film or film genre, e.g., the typically cramped, somber mise-en-scene of the film noir.
-- Straight Dope
Directors may take credit for all this, and a minority might deserve to, but . . .
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Without looking at any other posts, I'll say to me it means "made right there." I think I know passively what its particular film meaning is but I couldn't articulate it right now. It may well have taken on other specific meanings in other contexts.
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I understand mise-en-scene to mean the sum total of the cinematic results of the film's original raison d’ętre, whatever it might be.
But I think that in the real world the term garners more usage by serving as one of those fuzzy, vaguely and voguely, artsy words that serves to enhance the status of the paid critic.
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I've also seen the term used in recipes, to mean "set-up" (e.g. specific pans or utensils you will need, how hot to preheat the oven, etc).
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Well, for obvious reasons,  , I shall wait for everybody to check in before putting in my two cents.
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Quote:
Well, for obvious reasons, , I shall wait for everybody to check in before putting in my two cents.
What makes you think yuo would have any special knowledge, BelM? After all, the language in question is French, not kwebeckese.  
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Not to mention, an English or, at least, international interpretation.
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Quote:
I've also seen the term used in recipes, to mean "set-up" (e.g. specific pans or utensils you will need, how hot to preheat the oven, etc).
That's mise en place.
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Quote:
Quote:
I've also seen the term used in recipes, to mean "set-up" (e.g. specific pans or utensils you will need, how hot to preheat the oven, etc).
That's mise en place.
Oops. Thanks, Myridon!
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I was very surprised to see the generalised “everything that happens between the script and the screen” kind of definition. I have always heard it used to explicitly mean the ‘scene setting’ – in other words a particular framing or keynote shot that defines the emotional tenor of the film. Sure, that obviously reflects the directorial eye – but the latter meaning comes, I believe, by extension from the simple meaning: scene setting.
The Straight Dope article, btw, is simply bollocks. They have the meaning of metteur-en-scéne completely wrong by 180 degrees – even wiki gets that right.
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>>>kwebeckese >>>HA! An odd spelling, but very phonetically apt. =========== >>>Not to mention, an English or, at least, international interpretation. Aye, but it's like when you hear a tune it's hard to get it out of your head. It is a very common expression here so if I give the French definition that is what will niggle its way into people's thoughts. My abstaining is exactly like Alex's "whited-out" section. He wanted peoples' opinions without influencing them.
Last edited by belMarduk; 03/27/06 05:53 PM.
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BTW I meant to initiate this discussion in the Q&A forum rather than "wordplay & fun" but no matter. So is there a term for setting up a shot in a way that puts the viewer into the scene emotionally or in terms of point of view? Some examples of this that come to mind are: (1) The early scenes in "Saving Private Ryan" when the camera is in the landing craft with the soldiers as they approach the beach, giving the perspective of the soldiers (the floor of the boat, or the back of someone's head). (2) The long opening shot in "The Dancer Upstairs" in which we're riding through the South American countryside at dusk in a vehicle. The people in the car are not speaking and the only sound is the radio and the road noise. (3) In "Rosemary's Baby" a phone rings in another room, and the camera stays put while the character goes to answer the phone just beyond our view. We're left in the position of the visitor waiting in the living room. (Director Polanksi remarked that he delighted in watching audience members lean to one side to try to see around the corner.) (4) In "In the Bedroom" after Tom Wilkins has resolved the conflict (leaving this deliberately vague in case you haven't seen the movie), the camera lingers on sunlight coming through a window while the curtains sway in the breeze. One term that comes to mind is cinema verite but that's not quite it. In example (1) Spielberg dabbles in cinema verite such as letting water slosh up on the lens as if the footage we're seeing is shot by a combat cameraman who is himself in harm's way. But really the techniques are separate but not mutually exclusive. In example (4) I'd say that the shot does more than symbolize serenity -- it is exactly the sort of sensuous domestic detail that you might take notice of and pleasure in yourself if all were right in the house, so it manipulates you to feel the way the character feels at that moment. The common thread is that each example puts the viewer into the action in some way. The scenes have other attributes as well. Three of those four create tension by making the viewer wait, for example.
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1) might be called 'subjective POV' or 'subjective camera,' I suppose. I don't think Cinema Verite is the right term. It is not an attempt to cut away layers of production, but, rather, highly designed production effect that I think he uses not only to lend a feeling of immediacy, but of authenticity: since it is typical of that kind of filming, and, perhaps, of the archival material that comprises the visual frame of reference most of us have of the war. With respect to the latter, Spielberg used a similar technique in Schindler in staging a number of scenes to closely resemble archival stills.
2) [don't know the film]
3) Although this does bring the viewer into the set, it also removes -- or alienates -- him from the action. Since it both makes us aware of the camera and causes us to identify with it it would be a sort of hybrid of objective and subjective perspective.
4) Don't know the film but "in danger of being cheesy" comes to mind as a term.
Hitchcock famously played with breaching the plane of the screen and, rather than drawing the viewer in, rupturing the plane and attacking him. His pretty much says this of the cold, staring eye of the shower scene victim in Psycho. What he does *not* say is why he holds the shot so long that she finally can't help but twitch her eye. I suspect it's all part of the same ploy, though.
Sorry, that's not much help with the specific terminology. I just wanted to point out the the techniques you mention are related, but quite different from each other.
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Pooh-Bah
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While watching a movie with director's commentary last night, I took note that the director referred to a certain shot as mes-en-scene; he used it to label a lingering master shot.
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Quote:
4) Don't know the film but "in danger of being cheesy" comes to mind as a term.
He he well don't judge it too harshly by my description alone. It's not nearly as cheesy as it sounds. (Unlike, say, the deliberately cheesy shot of the [clearly fake] robin in the window in "Blue velvet".) It's actually a very good movie characterized by its restraint.
I agree that the four examples I provided use different technical devices, but it seemed that they achieved similar emotional results. I think we disagree on what cinema verite means. I was using the term (perhaps incorrectly) to apply to fake-documentary styles. An extreme example of this would be the faux documentary The Battle of Algiers. "Saving Pvt Ryan" as a whole does not fall into that category but the Omaha Beach section seems to dabble in it IMO by mimicking the look of old newsreel footage, with the color desaturated a bit to approach the feel of black and white.
If you like mysteries and thrillers you might like "The Dancer Upstairs." It's not a car-chases-and-gunfights sort of movie. It's more atmospheric. I'd compare it to "Gorky Park" in terms of pace and tone. Incidentally, it was directed by John Malkovich.
Last edited by Alex Williams; 03/28/06 06:14 PM.
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> a lingering master shot
Yes, that's what I have always heard it used to describe - what I referred to as a keynote shot.
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Certainly, Spielberg admitted that the opening scenes of SPR were done for dramatic impact. He wanted the audience to understand that the Normandy landings weren't the nice, clean walk in the park that other films, such as "The Longest Day" tried to portray.
I spoke to a British vet along our street who landed with the Americans at Utah beach on June 6 1944. He was seventeen. He went to see SPR and said that Speilberg's rendition was so accurate that the fear and the confusion came back to him and he ended up curled up in his seat crying. His daughter, whom he had gone to see it with was, he said, most embarrassed.
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I spent the night throwing up after seeing that film.
formerly known as etaoin...
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I found the walk through the graveyard much more psychologically moving than the beach assault.
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I don't generally watch war films. Don't need to be reminded. Don't want to, either.
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I don't generally watch war films. Don't need to be reminded. Don't want to, either.
I'm with Dr Woofy. Not that I've ever experienced a war first-hand, but.
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I can't watch that scene either. My sweet rented it the other night and I decided to wash dishes until they were off the beach. I watched it when it first came out with a vet whose first day on the job, at the age of 18, was that landing. He also verified that it was as real as if he'd been sent back in time. I spent the whole movie with my arms around him and the beginning scene with my face in his chest.
Last edited by consuelo; 03/30/06 11:18 PM.
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