Section 1: Film Form and Analysis

Chapter 1: Mise en scène

Here we will consider a few brief examples showing the use of mise en scène. The films we will consider are:

  • Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945, USA),
  • On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954, USA),
  • Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960, USA),
  • The Crying Game (Neil Jordan, 1992, UK).
Image of Western Leone

Tabernas/Spain - 08/15/2010: Western Leone is a western village where Sergio Leone filmed westerns movies with Clint Eastwood located in Spain in the province of Almeria in the Tabernas desert, courtesy of Shutterstock

Costume (and make-up)

The examples we could use to illustrate the importance of dress when assessing character are clearly endless. In the Classical Hollywood film, Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945), Joan Crawford playing the title role changes her clothes from the stereotypical attire of a suburban housewife centring on an apron to power-dressing businesswoman-style suits. Through this element of costume, the audience is presented with an important indication of the transformation of her character.

A similar alteration to character (although with vastly different outcomes) occurs in The Crying Game (Neil Jordan, 1992). Here, the IRA operative, Jude (Miranda Richardson), adjusts her persona markedly from the first half of the film to the second half and signals this change by a distinctive change of dress, as with the central character in Mildred Pierce, she re-emerges in the film in a suit and with a distinctive change of hairstyle. The point is, costume is always important in helping to create meaning for the viewer and the dress codes employed can immediately communicate a lot to the viewer in a very succinct and efficient way.

Andrew Dix sets out some of the indicators that are given to us via dress codes: ‘Particular items and combinations of clothing index national identity, class allegiance, sub-group affiliation, gender position, emotional and psychological status, and so on’ (2008, 15).

Costume and symbolism

In On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954), when the first person willing to speak out against the corruption in the docks is murdered, his jacket is symbolically passed on to the next person willing to do the same and ultimately to our hero, Terry (Marlon Brando). In effect, what is seen within the film is the mantle of truth and justice being passed from one to another. When Mildred Pierce adjusts her dress code and begins to dress as a businesswoman, this is clearly symbolic of her emergence as a new woman. When in Psycho (1960), Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is first of all seen wearing white underwear and then later this has changed to black, costume is again being employed in a symbolic manner.

Props and character

This use of props to indicate character can work in all sorts of ways and sometimes provides a dark experience for the audience. In Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), as Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) leads Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) into his parlour, behind the reception of the Bates Motel we cannot avoid noticing the stuffed birds. There is the predatory owl in mid-swoop and then the ominously sharp-beaked shadow of a crow, a harbinger of death. Nor should we miss in this scene the paintings of classical nudes on the walls: the female body displayed in all its naked vulnerability before the essentially male gaze. For the purposes of film studies, we have to be intensely aware of all of this in an analytical fashion that is going to enable us to decide exactly how meaning is being created for members of the audience.

Activity

  • For any film you have seen recently, list the uses of costume and props that you believe have been employed in a symbolic fashion and/or in order to tell you something about a particular character.
  • If possible, discuss your ideas with somebody else who has seen the same film.

References

Dix, A. 2008. Beginning Film Studies. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Chapter 2: Cinematography

Here we will consider a few brief examples showing the use of cinematography taken from a variety of films. The films mentioned are:

  • Seven (David Fincher, 1995, USA),
  • La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995, France),
  • Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997, USA),
  • The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, 1999, UK),
  • Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001, USA),
  • Bloody Sunday (Paul Greengrass, 2002, UK),
  • Casino Royale (Martin Campbell, 2006, UK).
Image of a director working

Giving Directions, courtesy of Shutterstock

Black and White, or Colour?

When watching Seven (David Fincher, 1995), there are any number of scenes where you almost have to remind yourself that this is a colour film; greys and ‘washed out’ colours almost totally dominant in order to give a sense of this bleak, murky urban landscape. In the case of La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995), which looks at confrontations between the police and young people in and around Paris in the mid-1990s, a very deliberate creative choice has been made to screen this film in black and white. The question we must ask ourselves is why this might have been done. How might this have been considered appropriate or ‘correct’ for the film? There will be a range of possible answers but the key point is that we must ask ourselves the question.

Activity

  • Watch the opening to La Haine and discuss with others why you think the filmmakers decided to make this film in black and white?

Activity

  • Watch the opening to Casino Royale (Martin Campbell, 2006) and discuss with others how you feel the use of lighting and colour in this case helps to determine audience response.

Activity

  • Choose a film that you know that seems to use black and white in an interesting way and pick an extract that seems to demonstrate an especially good example of the way in which black and white works in this film. Think about how you feel the use of black and white is contributing to creating meaning and generating audience response in your film extract.
  • If possible, show your extract to others, take them through your reading of the use of black and white in this clip and allow time for them to discuss your idea.

Camerawork

If we watch a film like the docudrama Bloody Sunday (Paul Greengrass, 2002), we might be struck by the distinctive use that is made of a shaky handheld camera at certain moments. We are, perhaps, familiar with this sort of camera use from a horror film like The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, 1999) and we might tend to associate it with low budget movies. However, what two films such as these remind us is that any single style of camerawork can be used in different films to create very different but equally striking experiences for the audience.

Activity

  • Consider the elaborate camera movement forming the opening to Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001) in which the camera seems to track past half-lit undergrowth before moving towards the central character lying in the road and circling him. There is then a cut to what at first looks as if it might be a point of view shot panning across the early morning skyline before the character stands and emerges suddenly into the foreground of the shot, half turns towards the camera, and seems to smile, almost laugh to himself.
    • Why has this opening camera movement been chosen and how does it work to introduce the film and the central character?
    • In what ways is it appropriate for the film and the character?
    • How does it contribute towards ensuring the opening engages our attention? 

Activity

  • Consider the opening to Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997). What sorts of camera movement are being used here? If you watch this opening, you will see the way in which the tracking shot has been complicated by having the central character standing on a moving walkway somewhat confusing our sense of movement. You will also see how a low camera angle has been used in places to perhaps give a sense of a strong individual. Consider all of this for yourself and ask the same three questions as for Donnie Darko in the activity above:
  • Why has this opening camera movement been chosen, and how does it work to introduce the film and the central character?
  • In what ways is it appropriate for the film and the character?
  • How does it contribute towards ensuring the opening engages our attention?

Chapter 3: Editing

Here we will consider a few brief examples showing the use of editing taken from three films. The films mentioned are:

  • M (Fritz Lang, 1931, Germany),
  • The Killing Fields (Roland Joffé, 1984, USA),
  • Secrets and Lies (Mike Leigh, 1996, UK).
Image of Sound Editor

Female Video and Sound Editor Works With Her Male Colleague on a Project on Her Personal Computer with Two Displays. They Work in a Creative Loft Office, courtesy of Shutterstock

Activity

  • Watch the opening seven minutes 30 seconds of Fritz Lang’s M (1931).
  • Work in groups to storyboard this sequence of scenes showing clearly each shot that is used. You should end up with about individual 25 shots. Within this, there will be at least two that contain elaborate camera movements: one near the beginning as the camera moves up and away from the children to the woman on the walkway above; and another when Elsie is bouncing her ball and moves to the poster where she meets the murderer.
  • How many scenes are there? Notice how this is complicated by the section where we switch backwards and forwards between Elsie’s mother at home and Elsie on her way home from school.
  • The application of the concept of ‘sequence’ is rather arbitrary and ultimately down to individual judgement. However, how would you describe the integral ‘coherence’ that this series of scenes might be said to have that would enable us to describe it as a sequence?
  • This is also an excellent piece of film to analyse in four groups with each group taking one from, either mise en scène, cinematography, editing, or sound, in order to identify key points about film construction.

(M might not be the sort of film you would be expected to deal with in the first year of an A-level, but it is good to challenge yourself occasionally).

Case Study: The Killing Fields (Roland Joffé, 1984, USA) – analysing a scene

There is an interesting scene in this film around the point at which Pol Pot’s rebel communist forces are entering the outskirts of Phnom Pen: the journalist, Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterston), whose story we are following, finds himself in a Coca-Cola warehouse and the ‘camera-eye’ (from a privileged viewer’s position) becomes involved in trying to make sense of the situation.

Initially, it calmly surveys the scene, taking in the irony of the expulsion of American influence from this country occurring in the midst of piles of coke bottles. As soon as the first explosion takes place, however, perhaps significantly shattering the fragile glass bottles, the camerawork becomes increasingly frantic and the editing from shot to shot much quicker. Thus, the sudden confusion of the situation is reinforced and the spectator finds herself having to work at an increased pace to take in all the images being thrown in front of her. Images of Coca-Cola dispenser-machines and lorries (first of all relatively intact even if broken but later being blown up) continually intrude inter-cut with shots of child soldiers, lost or abandoned toddlers screaming, and cattle in their death throes. East and West are continually juxtaposed, the West in the shape of high-tech weapons and Coca-Cola and the East in the shape of a low-tech Cambodian bullock-cart way of life.

Coca-Cola is the symbol, perhaps, of Western capitalism, the American way of life, multinational globalisation of trade, and American imperialism. We note the American soldier’s introduction of himself as ‘Made in the USA’ as well as the way he enters at speed, in a jeep, sounding the horn. However, more powerfully than anything else because of the editing the spectator notices the presence of children in this extract: this is an indictment of war, and of what war does to ordinary people and to children and the innocence of children. These children have guns instead of toys: see the carefully composed shot of the child-soldier firing above a dead child and the final shot of the child crying with his hands over his ears. Through the juxtaposition of a series of shots, additional meaning is produced, although the exact nature of that meaning is highly dependent upon the work being done in terms of interpretation by the viewer.

Study Note

In looking at this scene from The Killing Fields (above), we have focused on editing, but you will have noticed that in reality we cannot divorce this element of film construction from camerawork, mise en scène, and sound, and we certainly cannot divorce all of this from the way in which film continually works to create meaning for us.

Activity

  • In groups, film a short section from the exchange between Cynthia and Hortense in Secrets and Lies (Mike Leigh, 1996), in which the two characters sit next to each other in a café after they have met for the first time.
  • Storyboard it, and then film and edit it, in such a way that you have two versions, one in which there is just one long take and the other in which you use a shot-reverse shot technique.
  • Show the two versions of your film not simply to the group who have been involved in the filmmaking but to a wider audience, if possible, and discuss the ways in which people respond to the two versions.

Chapter 4: Sound 

Here we will consider a few brief examples showing the use of editing taken from a range of films. The films mentioned are:

  • M (Fritz Lang, 1931, Germany),
  • Seven (David Fincher, 1995, USA),
  • La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995, France),
  • Scream (Wes Craven, 1996, USA),
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (Gore Verbinski, 2006, USA),
  • Casino Royale (Martin Campbell, 2006, UK).
Image of Cameraman and sound recordist on location

Cameraman and sound recordist at work on location, courtesy of Shutterstock

Activity

  • View Casino Royale (Martin Campbell, 2006) from the moment Bond and Vesper Lynd enter the hotel reception area to pick up a package to the point at which Bond hides the bodies of his attackers under the stairs (1 hour 14 minutes 35 seconds to 1 hour 18 minutes 33 seconds). Pay special attention to the variety of ways in which sound is employed in this extract.
  • List as many different sound effects as you can identify. Does each example of SFX sound authentic? If not, what seems to have been done to the sound and did you recognise it as unrealistic on a first viewing?
  • List the different uses of vocals in the extract. Note in particular where volume, pitch, tone, or emphasis has been used in a particular way.
  • Are there any moments at which a musical soundtrack is not employed? Try to identify moments at which there seems to be some significant change to the music and try to explain how and why this change has occurred.
  • As usual, for each sound that is identified, you need to ask yourself why the filmmaker has made this choice of sound, remembering that often there may be several types of sound functioning together in order to achieve a particular end.

Activity

  • List as many memorable uses of special effects sounds as you can from films you have watched recently.
  • Compare your list with those arrived at by other people.
  • Try to find clips of these sounds in your films in order to help you to explain your understanding of how the sounds are being used.

If these effects have stayed in your memory, they will probably be uses of sound that have been attempting to achieve a heightening of audience response and/or expectation as in the sound of the kitchen knife being drawn from its holder in the opening to Scream (Wes Craven, 1996). Or, rather than a sudden noise like this, they may be noises that have been almost constantly present in the background. The traffic noise in Seven (David Fincher, 1995), for example, seems to be always there somewhere in the film soundscape, maybe suggesting something like the inescapable, oppressive, and intrusive presence of the city. In La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995), the sound of a Metro train running on its tracks might be seen simply to add to a sense of realism but it is also used at the start of the final sequence to echo what is perhaps the key recurring sound effect in the film that of a clock ticking. In the opening to M (Fritz Lang, 1931), the sound of the girl bouncing her ball performs the same function of echoing a ticking clock.

Activity

  • View Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (Gore Verbinski, 2006) from the moment we hear the first rendition of ‘Fifteen Men on a Dead Man’s Chest’ to the point at which we cut away to a long shot of Jack’s ship sailing away beneath storm-filled skies (4 minutes 10 seconds to 9 minutes 30 seconds). Pay special attention to the variety of ways in which sound is employed in this extract.
  • List as many different sound effects as you can identify. Does each example of SFX sound authentic?
  • List the different uses of vocals in the extract. Note in particular where volume, pitch, tone, or emphasis has been used in a particular way.
  • Are there any moments at which a musical soundtrack is not employed? Try to identify moments at which there seems to be some significant change to the music and try to explain how and why this change has occurred.
  • How does sound work to bring us into this sequence from what the scene that has gone before and to take us out to the next scene?
  • As usual, for each sound that is identified, you need to ask yourself why the filmmaker has made this choice of sound, remembering that often there may be several forms of sound functioning together in order to achieve a particular end.

Chapter 5: Performance

Here we will consider one brief example demonstrating the role of performance within film construction.

Image of actors getting ready to shoot a scene outside with a clapboard

Young couple shooting a romantic scene outside, courtesy of Shutterstock

Case Study: Seven (David Fincher, 1995, USA)

It is only when you look closely at actual examples of screen acting that you begin to realise the ways in which all the various elements of body language can be employed. There are, of course, countless examples that would serve to display a range of these aspects of performance but to take one example, consider Seven (David Fincher, 1995). In this film, there is a scene in which Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt (playing two detectives who do not get on well) are together in the confined space of an office where Pitt’s character is about to take over from Freeman’s older character, who is leaving the force. While they are cramped together in what is a small space made all the more uncomfortable by the fact that they do not really like each other (note the use of specific type of setting for a specific reason, again), they receive a phone call from Pitt’s wife.

Activity

By way of contrast, in the same film used in the activity above, you could consider the lines delivered in the grey, box-like space of the police interview room by the man from the brothel who has just been forced to commit the ‘lust’ murder. This is delivered in close-up but notice how the body posture remains important (and how the use of clothing in the shape of the white towel works to frame our attention on his face). Each movement of the facial muscles across the forehead, near the eyes, in the cheeks, and around the mouth is intimately linked to movements of the eyes, to the heaving of the chest, to twitches of the head to one side or the other, and to the carefully timed rising and falling voice pattern used to deliver the lines themselves.

Activity

  • Watch the scene described above several times and as you do so, consider the ways in which the body codes we have outlined are being employed by the actor. If you can do this together with other people, you might like to have each member of the group looking for different (perhaps related) codes.

We could also consider the scene in Seven in which, in the face of opposition from Freeman’s character, Pitt as Mills asks the police chief to be allowed to take over the whole case himself. Both his language and his gestures are brash and expansive, but this air of confidence is reinforced by the use of low angle camera shots. Then, by contrast, when next morning Mills is given his own case involving the murder of a district attorney, we are shown an image of someone who is nervous and uncertain of his abilities. This is revealed through Pitt’s performance, especially the way in which he folds his arm across the top of his head to reveal an almost childlike vulnerability. But we should also notice that this gesture is highlighted for us by the use of a close-up and our interpretation is further aided by the use of point of view sound as Pitt’s character enters the building which is used to give a sense of the isolation and pressure he is feeling. It is Pitt’s performance that provides us with an understanding of his character as someone who displays confidence but who is in reality much more fragile and vulnerable. However, what we should really note is that it is his performance in conjunction with the use of camerawork, sound, and editing that is really at work here. It is, also, the juxtaposition of Pitt in one scene that shows his apparent confidence with him in another that reveals his vulnerable uncertainty which drives home this understanding of his character for us.