Mise-en-Scène: Impact on German Expressionist Cinema

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A style of film making that developed as part of the German expressionism movement during the 1920’s, which produced numerous movies now considered to be classics could be seen to have done so only through the stylings of mise-en-scène. Such films as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari could be seen to convey the benefits in this style of film making; as described by (Phaidon, p.483, 1999) There is no conventional scenery: the sets are painted on canvas, creating an eerie world of distorted perspectives entirely fitting a film who's title character rules over a lunatic asylum.’ This style of film making is still used to this day. One film in particular that features strong aspects of mise-en-scène is The Others, a 2001 feature written and directed …show more content…

The mother, Grace Stewart, demanding that the door’s throughout the house always be shut due to her children's aliment at one point becomes infuriated for a door being left slightly ajar. So as well as both doors and curtains being shut for a large segment of the film the lighting also draws from aspects of this film style. Artificial lighting such as oil lamps are seen doubling as props throughout the film which allow the charters themselves to have complete control over the illumination of the shots. As Lathrop and Sutton state “Lighting like the other aspects of mise-en-scene, is a tool used by the director to convey special meaning about a character or the narrative to the viewer. Lighting can help define the setting of a scene or accentuate the behaviour of the figures in the film”(Lathrop G. Sutton D. 2014). Thus the usage of the lantern gave the actors the ability to portray one of the key ideologies of this style of film making. As stated by Wael Khairy “Most of the film takes place within dark rooms and dim hallways with flames of candles in lanterns as the only source of light. The audience is kept in the dark throughout the movie and it is not until we reach the explanatory twist that sunlight symbolising knowledge pours into the house and our mind.”(Khairy W.

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