In these weeks, we have been studying "Mise en Scene" which pretty much means the way that a movie is set up. The movie Moonrise Kingdom is very calming. It's dry, but still entertaining. I think that the cast's acting was a big role, although not in the way you would expect. I mean, the parts were fairly simple, almost too simple, but the choice of actors was really important. It was like the director put these big actors in the movie to draw people in, and when they got there it was nothing like you expected. Bruce Willis didn't blow anybody's brains out. In fact he was scared to even do his job as a cop, the Khaki Scouts did it for him. Bill Murray was a lame lawyer who didn't even sleep in the same bed as his wife--didn't bust up one ghost, might I add. These actors did their job perfectly, just the right amount of blandness in their character, without the character seeming empty. If you wanted an empty actor to play an empty character he would have just cast Nicolas Cage.Think about it, if Wes Anderson had cast a group full of nobodies, would this movie have been as notable? Maybe, maybe not, but the acting and the character choices definitely helped to improve the film.
Another thing that Wes Anderson is famous for is his scene composition. Imagine how clean cut his storyboard drawings were. We discussed in class that generally straight lines give people a feeling of calmness. That feeling was intermingled throughout the entire movie, from the tone of voice the actors took, to the straight lines in the blankets, or the stairs, or any of that. He definitely played up the rule of thirds. The whole, "what draws your eye" kind of thing, like in the scenes where Suzy's sitting on the window seat while her brothers play beneath her:
The whole thing just puts you at ease; it's simple, like the rest of the film. All very surreal, I give it five out of five cups of tea.
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The other movie we watched was Beasts of The Southern Wild. The movie was pretty good with a lot of freaky metaphorical diegetic scenes. Maybe it's just because I'm a girl, but one of the first things I noticed about the movie's mise en scene was the costume's and props that the actors had. Instead of a boat, they used an old broken truck bed, tied to barrels to help it float, and I mean when you're living in the Louisiana bayou what else can you use? It really helped to put things in perspective. They couldn't afford a boat, and they had no where to try and build one. They made do with what they had, and that's the way they liked it. The other thing I noticed was how simplistic the costumes were. The leading actor--a little girl--wore almost the same exact thing in every scene, up until she is sent to the mainland for help. She always wears a white shirt, which is stained a very light brown, giving you the impression that she is obviously dirty. The lack a clothing change shows how poor of hygiene the poor girl has, and she never wears pants. At one point she wears just a shirt and underwear, but you can tell even the underwear are worn out. Not only that, but the other characters dressed so simply. It was as if I could have grabbed the clothes off of a rack in Wal-Mart, and we would be set for the entire movie, which is how it should be. These people are not well off, and their limited supply of outfits helps to show that. Even the hookers in the ladies bar wore slips as lingerie, because they couldn't afford anything else, and the men weren't complaining.
I think that the most amazing part of the film was the setting. Every single one of their settings was really from Louisiana. Like hello, that's America. And that's what some parts of America look like. While the rest of us are out worrying about how much cell phone service we have at our house, they're wondering if they can get any clean water. The houses that they created on the bayou were also intricately unique, again emphasizing the point that they work with what they have. Not only that, but the fact that these little girls have to swim to a boat in order to go anywhere, just shows how secluded these parts of America are. No one really notices them, unless they want to be noticed. And these people know that their life won't get any easier, but they choose to live this way. In a way, the bayou seems like a completely unfit place to raise a little girl, but by the end of the movie, you see how much she has grown as a character. She has to grow up a lot in a short amount of time, and you realize that all this time she's spent living this hard life will only help her when she gets older.
It's a great film, with a good lesson, and had I not watched Moonrise Kingdom right before, I probably would have liked it even more. Four out of five cups of tea.
