Mise en Scne and Film Style From Classical Hollywood to New Media

Art

1.
2.
3.
4.

deja claro que no hay concenso respect al termino

quiere establecer una geneologia critica en su proyecto
doble historia: historia de la critica e historia del cine
different components of cinema

Prologue: at the ballet Ruse

-A word for such artworks is dispositif se refiere a apparatus
que explico abajo: an apparatus, arrangement or set-up of
interrelated pieces or elements. Xiii
++apparatus the way that mes has evolved.
Hubo una escuela en los 70 llamada apparatus baudry , Metz
Cahier du cinema linked with lacanian psicoanalisis and Louis
Althusser theory of subjectivity -> la idea de la interpretacion. Este
hombre dice que hay dos tipos de interpretacion:
1) Repressive state apparatus: police army etc
2) Ideological state apparatus Marxism influence. Sabes que eres
de un pais porque lo dice en tu pasaporte.
The cinematic apelativo es fisico and a play on words.
-Describes Passion as a new mise en scene beyond the sum of
operations we have conventionally regarded under the rubric of this
term. Mise en scene is, in my opinion an experience, still a productive
way to approach the exploration of STYLE, or aesthetic form in cinema.
Xiii
-What we thing of as mise en scene, in its primary sense and effect,
show us something, it is a means of display? Xv
-There is an emotional aspect; a symbolic level; a transitional or linking
function; and a matter of orchestration
no tengo claro que idea quiere seguir extendiendo --MATERIALITY OF CINEMA -Of course, as critics or students of cinema,
we are not obliged to stop that immediate, surface level the gestures,
the moves, the rhythms, the colours- of what constitute any filmic mise

en scene. But we should not forget. part of the argumentation of

this book is a plea to always attend closely and full-bloodedly to this
type of materiality in cinema a materiality that works on the double
register of TEXTUALITY formal composition (concrete properties of
the constructed, composed work) and the SPECTATORS EMOTIONS (the
affects that films create in us, the experiences we have of them) xvii
the relationship also brings together the idea of cinephilia
1. A TERM THAT MEANS EVERYTHING AND NOTHING VERY
SPECIFIC
Style matters:
-Mise en scene first mentions in the global literature film the 50s.
-In Europe in the 50s, and in the English speaking world in the early
60s, the idea of mise en scene was a critical spearhead desingned to
fight entrenched, impoverished, casual notions about cinema inherited
from other artistic fields, such as theatre and literature.
-Andr Bazil (1918-58) at the head of the Cahiers team in France
-Andrew Sarris (1928-2012) in Film Culture
-Jos Luis Guarner (1937-1993) at Film Ideal in Spain
all found themselves faced with the idea that a film is essentially its
SCREENPLAY: the prejudice that this is, where its theme, structure and
meaning reside and that the work of style in cinema is basically mere
technique, simple decoration, information delivery or at best an
efficient illustration of pre-set artistry p.4
the battle TODAY: over the directors possessory credit as author of a
film
-According to Sam Rohdies retrospective account in 2006 of the rise of
stylistic criticism in the 50s:
In general, mise en scene denotes a new attitude to the cinema
opposed to the literary cinema of the 30s that turned scripts into
images mise en scene, as used by the NOUVELLE VAGUE critics,
referred to a specifically cinematic and natural, realistic rendering of
emotion and expression conveyed less by dialogue and the scripts,
than by dcor, perfonmance, expression linked to the actor, to his
movements abd gestures, also to setting and the use of the camara
lighting. 5
Style matters: it is, in fact, crucial and decisive, as well as determining
over our experiences as film viewers and listeners. The challenge
today is not to get caught in the old, received traps and biases

expand our sense of what constitutes style or form in cinema

including its action upon as spectators. 5
-

Cinematic Signifier: Legrand 10

Legrand is concerned to establish a workable approach to analyzing

STYLE in cinema he does not proceed, via counting or breakdown of
shots and angles rather he attemps to seize the simultaneous
interplay of 3 decisive levels: these are:
1) The multiple rhythms of a film (multiple because they are formed
from the simultaneous interaction of shot furation, the rhythm of
the dramatic action, and the more or less discontinuous rhythm
of exchanges of looks, gestures, realtions of the actor w the
objects around him)
2) The pictorial fragmings and their content
3) The surface elements that include, for him, the actors
performances and their photogenic quality, the visual aspects of
the cinematography, and the films range of colors 11
para L Mise en scene es un an activity which is RECEIVABLE by the
spectator and blessed with diverse powers network of mechanisms
and unities of visual sonorous reception L, 1979, 12. STYLE AS
SPECTACLE, STYLE AS DISPLAY. P.15
The time-space continuum
-Doniol-Valcroce define como the organization of time and pace 16
-The precise placement of actors and objects before the camara in
various spatial, pictorial and rhythmic combination visual rhetoric
In the mood
-El libro se adapta a las teorias de Ruiz
-M en S as potentially transformative but transformative in ways that
refer to the entire materiality of cinema, not solely the inspiration of
the director on set or the phenomenological subjectivity of encaptured
viewers.
-Style is not a supplement to content; it makes content 20
2. AESTHETIC ECONOMIES: THE EXPRESSIVE AND THE EXCESSIVE
-What is involved in film style? What are the elements that comprise
the stylistic ensemble of any given film, or film as a medium in
general?
-The basic inventory of STYLISTIC ELEMENTS in cinema:

1.
of
2.
3.
4.

properties of the image (M en S here including the pictorial elements

camera framing and production design)
properties of soundtrack
acting performance
editing.

Difficult task deciding on the aesthetic economy of these elements

in relation to each other, and to their narrative and thematic contexts,
as well as in relation to their intended or actual effect on the cinema
spectator
-AESTHETIC ECONOMY, A CONCEPT overlooked in much film studies, is
the central subject of this chapter 21
ES TODO LO QUE IMPORTA? EL EFECTO ENE L ESPECTADOR? Y QUE
PASA CON LA HISTORIA QUER SE CUENTA?
Which side are you on?
-The comparison between classical (expressive) and post structural
(excessive) approaches to fil style 38
A non intentional method
-A film is a system, not of meanings, but of signifiers 42
3. WHAT WAS MISE EN SCENE?
Those were the days, my friend.
M E S: a way of extending states of mind into movements of the body
Astruc 46
-Classical vision of MES
-Nostalgic vision, particular moment in cinema de los 20 a los 60
important conception nowadays
-From the heroic age of MES in the 50s throught its radica critique in
the 60 and its reformulaitons in subsequent decades: 72
4. The crises
-en los 60: classical m e s became something which could be
rejected wholse sale, but also referenced 78
-en los 70 el termino vuelve: but the classical elemnts are flattened
compressed distended exaggerated pop art, necoclassical
attitude 82

5. crises
important question:
what about so-called normal, average, conventional, mainstream
cinema? Has it changed in its basic, storytelling form since the era of
classical mise en scene circa 1960? And how? 95
Mise en scene is dead?
-The post classical thesis: conventional cinema has altered itself
radically, and in response to many different favtors:
1) the general media landscape
2) the digital age
3) influence of art cinema and some experimental work
4) the intensification of a time image (deleuze) responding to or
reflecting myrial social crisis
5) a return to a cinema of abstractions --effects driven spectacle. 96

6. A DETUR VIA REALITY: SOCIAL MISE EN SCENE

-Social mise en scene: passes under conscious attention or
reflection in daily life
-transmission that is particular to every culture and society: how to
behave etc etc 129

Jouney to Italy rosellini idea

La pelicula que hemos visto pdoemos considerarla social???
Neorealism?
-filmic representation of ---- we become aware of the lineaments of
a social code of arrangement an exsample of arts celebrated
capacity to make strange or defamiliarise something we had
previously taken for granted, to reveal was not so obvious in what
we took to be completely natural 129
como la naturalidad con la que se separan
Transision of the Italian reality

PAST AND DEAD:

+ reconciliation between them and rural Italy + moment of panic or
fear
-La idea de la vida y la muerte lado metafisicio de la pelicula
-Hay cierta calidad mitica en la pelicula depicts la miseria de una
pareja
-The past is mediated by antiquity and also by memory (material in
the museums and the memory of a poet)
-landscape + house + terrace
-claustrophobic of the marriage and the outside landscape world
Rossellini -> Italian neorealism
-Filming in natural circumstances with no professional actress actors
poetry sentimentalism preoccupation with popular culture.