Use of Mise en Scene in the Film Yellow Earth
The film “Yellow Earth” is the sad tale of a girl being forced to follow her “fate.” She sees an opportunity to escape in a foreigner, a soldier from the south. In this film, director Chen Kaige and cinematographer Zhang Yimou create windows into their characters. Several scenes are made more significant because of the use of mise en scene. This technique allows the viewer to see everything that happens during the course of the scene.
The most impactful scene is perhaps when the soldier Gu is first brought into their home. Although the camera will show different shots, time is still continuous. It is not an interruption and is only moving to provide the audience with a better view. The continuousness of time is important because the audience knows everything that is occurring between the characters. The viewer hears their conversations and their silences. This use if mise en scene allows the viewer to get a sense of the tension between Gu and the family (as he is a newcomer), and between Cuiqiao and the others.
There are two main angles that Yimou uses in this scene. One is centered on Gu and the other is centered on Cuiqiao, from slightly to the right of Gu’s perspective. Whenever the shot is facing Gu, it is at his level. Everything is level with his camera angle and straight with his life. Cuiqiao’s angle, however, is looking down on her. This is reflective of her current emotional state. She is sorrowful and repressed.
Whenever a character performs an important action, the camera shows them. The first time that Cuiqiao and Han Han are spoken to, they become visible. Also, we see Cuiqiao’s reactions when they are important to her characterization. Gu speaks somewhat about the South and how free and wonderful it is. Cuiqiao’s curiosity is expressed on her face. The audience also sees Cuiqiao forgetting about what she is doing with the bellows.
In conclusion, the mise-en-scene and its elements are very important decisions that are needed to make a good film. If a film was lacking figure expression and movement actors would be nothing more than stick people with blank expressions and very limited movement. The sets and props used in films would be boring or generic if no decisions were made regarding it and the same goes for costumes and makeup. Without these elements, without mise-en-scene, Chaplin’s film Modern Times, and every other film would be complete and total dud and little to none of the emotions the film would try to evoke would come
Elements of mise-en-scene in Wendy and Lucy help to convey aspects of the story that are never explicitly expressed in the narrative of the film. Wendy and Lucy does not present a large amount of background story information, for instance, the scene where Wendy calls her brother may cause some viewers to wonder about their strained relationship and his role in Wendy’s current financial situation. Moreover, Wendy’s financial situation is never truly discussed in the film, only implied, yet the viewer is still aware of it. Facets of mise-en-scene helps to convey the information that fills the gaps left in the story. Kolker defines the concept of mise-en-scene as a way to “explain how images, through composition, camera movement, lighting, focus and colour, generate narrative event and guide our perception through a film” (Kolker 1998, p.17). An essential element of mise-en-scene is setting and sets. Wendy and Lucy is presented in an entirely naturalistic setting. The small town Wendy is passing through gives the fi...
use of the camera the sound and the mise en scene. I will analyze the
The mise en scenes in this film are unique because it gave viewers the ability to have a sense of how the characters are feeling. For example, low lighting was used throughout the film to express a sense of the unknown and/or fear. Another great example of how mise en scene was used is how human shadows for night shooting were used to increase the feeling of mystery and a threating atmosphere (Awjingyi). And one of the most important examples of mise en scene used in this film is in the last scene where mirrors were used (aka the “funhouse”) to
The Film Yellow Earth uses its own unique style of editing within the frame to portray its aesthetic qualities, which is known as mise en scene. The scene where father is plowing the land with Gu by his side is the best example of mise en scene. This scene is important because of its possession of a unique camera angle, loose framing, and deeper hidden meaning, which contribute to the overall effect of the movie.
This scene is used to emphasise the danger that Dave and The Sapphires are in very real and very lethal danger, the mixture of sinister camera angles to emphasise the visual danger that the characters are in to the inhospitable sounds portrayed by the scene to highlight the explosive danger that the characters are in. The lighting used features the darkness and the difficulty to see due to the night sky. The mise en scene highlights the military background that the characters are in. All in all, this scene is a highly emotional scene highlighting the mortal danger that confronts Dave and The
Charlie Chaplin created amazing films with his career as a director, screenwriter, actor, producer and musician. City Lights is a story of the tramp who falls in love. He is blown away by the unexpected love affair with the flower girl. He does everything in his power to help her and along the way befriends the millionaire. The story shows the contrasts between the two very different worlds of the rich and the poor. The tramp befriends the damsel in distress millionaire and sparks a friendship where the tramp then sees the lives of both worlds. The mise en scene is a way that shows how different each scene is by the way each character lives their life. Not only in the contrast between the rich and the poor, but also a contrast to happiness verses the unhappy. The mise en scene shows symbols of props that represent how the characters are feeling and what we are suppose to be feeling as we watch what is going on onscreen. Mise en scene is used to tell the story and there are many aspects that come together. The composition, props,
...lie make decisions in her life. Nettie's letters embrace and strengthen Celie's own identity, by showing her the world outside of Georgia, and this opens many possibilities for Celie (Bracks 87). Although she has all of these characteristics, Nettie is very lonely, because she has no one to talk to while in Africa, and no sister to be around to listen to her stories. Nettie's letters show that the oppression of men on women is universal, even in Africa. The imperial, racial, and cultural conflict and oppression Nettie encounters in Africa parallel the smaller-scale abuses and hardships that Celie experiences in Georgia. With these many influences and characteristics to observe, it is easy to see how this one novel, The Color Purple, stirred up enough conflict and interest, to become one of the most famous novels depicting the struggles of a black women's lifestyle.
Four key film extracts will be discussed. The introduction of Mina, starting of with a medium long shot of her in the Westenra house, which allows the audience to pay more attention to what is happening in the background, the mise-en-scene being a large decorated room of the Victorian era, including plants, chairs. The setting of the whole room is surrounded by glass, which has the ability to allow natural light.
...this scene an enraged Alonzo yells at a group of locals in a neighborhood in which he was once well respected and had power over everyone there. To his surprise the crown of people betray him by refusing to comply with his orders. Every element of the mise-en-scene work in harmony and well meticulously placed. The dark lighting, Alonzo frantic movements, the fact that Alonzo was in the center of crowd, and even the scene being set in the middle of a worn down project complex all play their parts in the mise-en-scene and presenting the filmmakers vision.
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There are four crucial scenes of this film in which Hitchcock shows a change in perspective and identity through the mise-en-scène. Hitchcock’s signature motifs, style, and themes are conveyed through the mise-en-scène.
The Yellow Wallpaper is overflowed with symbolism. Symbols are images that have a meaning beyond them selves in a short story, a symbol is a detail, a character, or an incident that has a meaning beyond its literal role in the narrative. Gilman uses symbols to tell her story of a woman's mental state of being diminishes throughout the story. The following paragraphs tell just some of the symbols and how I interpreted them, they could be read in many different ways.
The Black woman struggles against oppression not only as a result of her race, but also because of her gender. Slavery created the perception of Black inferiority; sexism traces back to the beginning of Western tradition. White men have shaped nearly every aspect of culture, especially literature. Alice Walker infuses her experiences as a Black woman who grew up in Georgia during the Civil Rights era into the themes and characters of her contemporary novels. Walker’s novels communicate the psychology of a Black woman under the Western social order, touch on the “exoticism of Black women” and challenge stereotypes molded by the white men in power (Bobo par. 24). In The Color Purple Walker illustrates the life of a woman in an ordinary Black family in the rural South; in his article “Matriarchal Themes in Black Family Literature”, Rubin critiques that Walker emphasizes not only that the Black female is oppressed within society, but also that external oppression causes her to internalize her inferiority. Every theme in Walker’s writings is given through the eyes of a Black woman; by using her personal experiences to develop her short stories and novels, Walker gives the Black woman a voice in literature. Walker demonstrates through her writings that the oppression of Black women is both internal and external.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker is a story written in 1982 that is about the life struggles of a young African American woman named Celie. The novel takes the reader through several main topics including the poor treatment of African American women, domestic abuse, family relationships, and also religion. The story takes place mostly in rural Georgia in the early 1900’s and demonstrates the difficult life of sharecropper families. Specifically how life was endured from the perspective of an African American woman. The Color Purple is written in the form of letters that Celie narrates explaining the events that took place at certain points in her life. Celie endures physical and emotional abuse by some of the people around her including her own family. But in the end Celie finds a new and fulfilling life through relationships with her sister and good friends.