Comparing Two Great Directors: Roman Polanski and Pedro Almodovar

Comparing two great directors

I. Introduction

What is mise en scene?

When speaking of movies today, mise en scene is a well-used term. If you want to translate it, I think the best translation would be “put in the scene”.

Mise en scene generally means everything within the shot, everything that the camera is showing. Mise-en-scene is all about the film staging, all that is visible in front of the camera and all its design included; trim, music, clothing, environment, camera movements, makeup etc. Every director in the world uses their own different kind of techniques when making movies, and it is very common that a director becomes famous and well-known just because of that; their own style of making movies. As directors worldwide are working in different ways, and using their own, special style, they also use ”mise-en-scene” in different ways.

Purpose with the paper

The purpose with this paper is to study and compare two different directors, and to compare and contrast the two different works. How are they working with their movies and how do they use mise-en-scene? By studying two different directors that uses different techniques when making movies, we are going to find out how important mise en scene really is, and how it affects the movie.

II. Roman Polanski

Characteristics of Polanski’s mise en scene

It is very important how you put things up on the screen. It tells the viewer what the movie is about. Every single frame in a movie tells the fate of the characters.

The director Roman Polanski likes to make a lot of scenes in his movies through doorways and windows, and the reason of that is simply because in that way, he creates a bigger sympathy with the audience, they get to see the films from the main characters o...

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... Polanski and Almodovar?

To begin with, these two directors uses mise en scene in different ways. Polanski uses point-of-view shooting, and likes his characters to be isolated or trapped. He shoots a lot of scenes through windows and doorways to give the audience a feeling of just that; isolation. He wants the viewer to have the same emotions as the characters in the movie, to create sympathy with the viewer.

Almodovar however, expresses emotions with the colors red and blue. He often has got beautiful women in his movies, and has got a thing for beautiful costumes.

When speaking of themes, Polanski’s main theme in the movie is human isolation, and most of his movies are quite sad and about lonely people. Almodovar’s themes are more about human chemistry, relationships between different people and families. Sexuality and desire is important for Almodovar’s movies.