FAMST 96 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Mise-En-Scène
9 May 2018
School
Department
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Professor
"dynamic energy of the scene" - Anne Rutherford (305-6)
Arguing that style somehow constructs meaning and is nuanced
Not just paying attention to denotative practices
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Meaning isn't made in a very structured way … open our audience
analysis to become more broad
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Elements and sequences in a shot contribute to meaning
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Experiential Excess - Bordwell pg. 53
Film can generate excess
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"is there anything in a narrative film that is not narrational?"
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Excess: materials which may stand out perceptually but which do not fit
either narrative or style elements (Film Art, Bordwell Pg. 480)
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Bordwell definition of mise-en-scene
All of the elements placed in front of the camera to be photographed:
settings, props, lighting, costumes and makeup, and figure behavior
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Limited and rigid definition
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Only what is within the frame
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Rutherford asks "if we think of mise en scene as a set of inert elements in the
frame, what does that teach us about the way film works?
'How do dynamic and energetic processes open up our ways of
understanding a film?"
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"Mise en scene is literally what is put into the scene, but not just what is
put into the frame"
What is put into the moment of experience
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How the spectator is drawn into the scene
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How the scene unfolds in time
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Emotional and embodied engagement
Physically, mentally, emotionally, materially, experientially
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Brings reception into the foreground
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Restores our understanding of mise-en-scene
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Space = animate
Isn't just props and setting
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Animated with all sorts of experiences
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Movement and shifts with the camera
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Resonating textures
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Lecture 8: Mise-en-Scene
Wednesday, April 25, 2018
1:57 PM
