analyzation

PHASE 2 // mise en scene


okay. I'm working on screenwriting. a dismal task.. since that is not my skill set..
Watched several movies that really got me thinking.

The Ice Storm
Dead Ringers
Breaking the Waves

//Boys Don't Cry nearly killed me.

Now I realize I need to read scripts of the films that contain the mark I am trying to hit. So I downloaded Black Swan, Mulholland Drive.... Revolutionary Road...... yes, I know, majorly depressing.


BUT no. 2 on my docket is to work on my ideas with mise en scene and sequence breakdown.

Sights. Sounds. Imagery lists.

How do my favorite artist construct these worlds?

When I was in high school, I broke down a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean to see how the scene was constructed. The scene included action as well as dialogue, so it was really really awesome when I started seeing patterns. A lot things that I learn about blocking, I learned before coming to film school by some of those exercises... granted I didn't know how to practically apply them until I tried and failed many times.... but! now that I have the tools to know how to technical achieve scenes... studying films may actually contain some worth now! haha

One of the films that has always HAUNTED me was Agnieszka Holland's The Secret Garden. Recently I have really really wanted to be able to capture her ability to transfix an audience. There are some eerie and compelling nuances to her work.

So I am breaking down one of my favorite scene from the movie. Celtx has this AWESOME storyboarding section of the app that allows you to import photos and sketches and storyboards shots and notate them. So! I watched the scene through, doing screen grabs of each shot movement and/or change and then imported all the photos like a storyboard!

I've already noticed something!!! Holland uses the camera like a character. Camera movement is motivated throughout the scene by the scary and intimidating environment that Mary, the main character, finds herself in. A noise at her bedroom door! The camera whip pans to the door as Mary turns to hear the noise... The camera stands away from her, gliding across the room, leaving you to pick apart the frame, looking for the thing! the thing that made that scary noise. Its brilliant. I know a lot of directors use some of these techniques, yet Holland and Roger Deakins!! (who shot this film, so of course... amazing camera work) uses them in a much more intuitive and deep way. Nothing seems a device or calls attention to itself, but simply underlies the story. The reverses are seamless! She stitches the visual language together so neatly. The lenses and frames are chosen carefully. Very cinematic, showing the large, dark spaces off. The shots pay attention to putting you smack dab into this mystery and lonely world, exactly the fantasy world you want to explore and fill your darkest imagination with...

In addition, the sound design, which I noted while watching, is subtle but hangs in the air.. like that eerie feeling. The moans of the thing roaming the house leave you uneasy.

I have just complied the shots! so I will have to let you know what I find.. but every detail counts.

For example:

There was this one scene in The Ice Storm that stuck me so hard, because it was so subtle but it created so much feeling. It was a scene where the wife character was consoling her husband, who had gotten so drunk that he had been sitting on the bathroom floor, ready to spring for the toilet. It had been a terrible party they had gone to that night, and not what they bargained for at all. In fact, in addition and even before they had come to the party, they had been second guessing their marriage... but the hell they just gone through had bonded them closer to together.

She says, "I'll talk to you in the morning," as she leaves the room and pulls the door to....

almost....

closed.

End scene, right?

No.. her hand lingers there. Only her arm and hand can be seen in shot at this point, casually clasping the door knob. Her husband within has been mostly obscured by the door. Then she goes back... the door reopens slightly, her hand hesitating, and then finally, makes up her mind leaving the door midway between open and closed.

Why did Ang Lee do this? I puzzled and puzzled... I think he knew that we, the audience, wanted them to fall back in love. He wanted us to be rooting for that door to be reopened.. for her to have something more for her to say to him. In fact, that was what I was hoping for. I was compelled in that scene by the question of whether or not that would happen. Whether or not it was over, whether I would get to see the reconciliation which Lee, in the end, denied me.

Its questions like this... with depth of that caliber in the context of all the carefully construct moments before it, that keep you watching. The unpredictability and lack of formula.

Ang Lee, you are genius.