Use of Mise en Scene in Secrets and Lies by Mike Leigh
As the narrative unfolds in Mike Leigh’s ‘Secrets And Lies’ we reach
the
dramatic climax of the film, the barbeque scene. This has significance
to the title of the film, ‘Secrets and Lies’ as all the hidden
secrets, such as Monica’s inability to
have children, and Cynthia’s secret daughter, Hortense are revealed to
their families.
In the opening sequence the first view of Monica is one of her
hovering and stencilling with aggression, connoting to the audience
her obsessive nature and how she wrongly prioritises materialistic
things to disguise the fact she is incapable to conceive.
The opening shot of the barbeque scene is of Monica preparing the
table, which heightens the view that she is overly concerned with
appearance. Typically of Monica it is
perfectly laid out however it is telling that the chairs are
mismatching which connotes she is not used
to having family gatherings or certainly not Maurices family. The mise
en scene of Monica’s trophy house conveys Monica’s misplaced values,
the living room is all shades of subtle greens with pretty
matching floral patterns on the lampshade, sofa and wallpaper
which are obviously Monica’s creations. However although the house is
spotless there is no homeliness or warmth to it which suggests her
unhappiness and
emptiness is being disguised by a Laura Ashley inspired façade,
Monica’s energy has been soley directed at the house to fill the
vacuum in her life resulting from her inability to have children.
When Cynthia arrives at Monica’s and Maurice’s house her body language
looks up at the hou...
... middle of paper ...
...s shift bringing the family
closer together and
leading to Monica crying in Cynthia’s arms, Leigh delivers the message
to the
audience that honesty is an important element of a strong relationship
and without it
the relationship will fall apart, ‘why can’t you tell them… im sorry
but its almost
destroying our relationship’. Leigh’s message is portrayed thought
Maurice’s speech
‘Why can’t we share our pain’.
One of the central theme to the film is family relationships and
honesty
however could initially be thought to be a film on racial issues when
Hortense is
mistaken to be a Jehovah’s witness by Monica, The ending scene is
gloomy and the
atmosphere is ominous, however it is strangely inspiring and we are
left with a feeling
of hope and a sense of optimism for the family.
From looking at the two gangs, both the Greasers and the Socs. The book The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton is able to show that the Greasers were the true disgrace and a menace to society. The Greasers were able to show this from their looks, their behavior, and the choices that they make.
The movie, The Outsiders, starts with the Curtis parents on their weekly, Saturday evening drive to the baking store to buy some ingredients for their boys’ favorite Sunday morning, breakfast treat: chocolate cake. The Curtis boys love their chocolate cake for Sunday breakfast not only because they love it, but also because they appreciate how hard their parents have to work to save the monies necessary for the morsels that put smiles on their faces!
For the second movie we had to watch, I chose The Good Lie. The Good Lie is the story of the thousands of Sudanese children who were left orphaned and displaced by a civil war in the 1980s. The Good Lie tells a story of six of these kids that made it to America who suffered atrocities, watching as rebel soldiers ravage and burn down their village and seeing their parents get murdered. In addition to these awful events, they survived extreme physical hardships, walking barefoot, escaping from gun fire for about 800 miles to safety in the Kenyan refugee camps. The movie opens with the grueling journey undertaken by these five boys and girl. They fend off dangerous wild animals, dehydration and soldiers during their trek, and one boy passes away and another is taken off by soldiers. When the remaining quartet reaches safety, they band together ever closer.
Flannery O’Connor was an American writer who wrote several short stories. O’Connor was known for shocking her readers with violence. O’ Connor had strong Christian beliefs that were reflected in her writings. O’ Connor once said:
...ns. The audience is surprised to find out that God forgives and lets her go to Heaven with her family. The readers are passing judgment along with the Misfit and believe that because she cannot justify her sins; she should go to Hell. By using this plot twist the author shows how society has sinned similar to the Grandmother, yet how they can still be saved.
Often regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, Citizen Kane written and directed by Orson Welles is a classic film that defied the conventional styles of the Hollywood Cinema. Welles was committed to the Mise-En-Scene of his movies by using his characters, props, settings, and even the camera to tell the story of his characters. The Lighting, the camera shots, and the character 's actions to depict the life of Charles Foster Kane. The Mise-En-Scene of this narrative creates a film that is ahead of it’s time and a genius innovation to the cinema.
In the beginning of Bamboozled, it seems that Pierre Delacroix, writer of Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show, is a sell-out to his own people and he knows it. As the movie progressed on, it looks as if he is portrayed all wrong, but towards the end of the movie, I started to think he was a sell-out all over again. He became a product of his creation. Pierre Delacroix, real name Peerless Dothan, wanted to be white, but he failed to realize that he would never be because of his skin color. He changed his own name so he would be more appealing to white people. Delacroix didn’t know his own culture enough, but yet he proceeds to exploit the stereotypes made about Black people. He thought that he could create a show that was racist and wrong
At the end of the day, we all see the same sunset. The novel, The Outsiders, by S. E. Hinton, the story is staged in Tulsa Oklahoma, where there are two opposing gangs, the greasers and the Socs. The groups are perceived to the public and to themselves and hoods or juvenile delinquents, and the protagonist of the story is challenged with what “should be done or thought.” The narrator of the story is Ponyboy Curtis, a greaser, who works hard in school, lives with his older brothers, Darry and Soda, and is best friends with Johnny, the gang’s pet. The Socs are their rivalry gang, made of rich, white, privileged hoods, living on the other side of town. Over the course of the story, Ponyboy realizes his world of the greasers and Socs is different than what is stereotypically thought, and he sees they are really the same, just living
One of the more prevalent themes of this movie is racism, and how prejudicial mindsets ultimately lead to one’s own demise. The movie outlines how racism, among other things, can adversely affect someone’s judgment. After the father died, we see how the family gradually deteriorates financially as well as emotionally after Derek (the older brother played by Edward Norton) turns to a neo Nazi gang for an outlet, which eventually influences his younger brother Danny (played by Edward Furlong) to follow down ...
This movie is a wonderful production starting from 1960 and ending in 1969 covering all the different things that occurred during this unbelievable decade. The movie takes place in many different areas starring two main families; a very suburban, white family who were excepting of blacks, and a very positive black family trying to push black rights in Mississippi. The movie portrayed many historical events while also including the families and how the two were intertwined. These families were very different, yet so much alike, they both portrayed what to me the whole ‘message’ of the movie was. Although everyone was so different they all faced such drastic decisions and issues that affected everyone in so many different ways. It wasn’t like one person’s pain was easier to handle than another is that’s like saying Vietnam was harder on those men than on the men that stood for black rights or vice versa, everyone faced these equally hard issues. So it seemed everyone was very emotionally involved. In fact our whole country was very involved in president elections and campaigns against the war, it seemed everyone really cared.
Edward Scissorhands, written by Tim Burton, tells the tale of a young man who is lovable, childlike and sensitive, bewildered by the humanity around him, yet is terrifying- someone who has scissors, the deadly weaponry, for hands. Many viewers may read this film as a “Tim Burton” type of fairytale which includes both an alternative aspect and romance. However, through the presentation of mise-en-scene in this film, Burton drives in a much more serious subject of social criticism by establishing two different understandings of life in the movie.
Mise en scene is a French term, which refers to the visual and design elements of a film. Literally, it is what we actually see on the screen – locations, sets, background details, costumes, even the use of colour and lighting. Mise en scene is used to describe every scene, including framing, composition, costuming, setting, objects, lighting, sound and camera angles. Everything is done purposely and intentionally.
Although there were many concepts that were present within the movie, I choose to focus on two that I thought to be most important. The first is the realistic conflict theory. Our textbook defines this as, “the view that prejudice...
The Outsiders is about the life of a 14-year-old boy. The book tells the story of Ponyboy “Curtis” and his struggles with right and wrong in a society in which he believes that he is an outsider. Ponyboy and his two brothers, Darrel (Darry), who is 20, and Sodapop, who is 16, have recently lost their parents in an automobile accident. Pony and Soda are allowed to stay under Darry's guardianship as long as they all behave themselves. The boys are greasers, a class term that refers to the young men on the East Side, the poor side of town. The greasers' rivals are the Socs, short for Socials, who are the "West-side rich kids."
“Look down and see the beggars at your feet. Look down and show some mercy if you can.