How to Analyze Movies Like a Boss: Mise-en-Scène & Editing

In the last part of How to Analyze a Movie Like a Boss, we discussed signs, codes and conventions. In this episode we’re moving on to the scene and editing, and what that means in film language. 

Mise-en-Scène

Everything you see in a movie or TV episode is constructed to fit in the screen. The creators think about every element that is shown in that scene, nothing is accidental (generally, of course, I’m leaving mistakes out of the equation).  By controlling what is shown in the boundaries of that screen, the creator controls the understanding of the audience. All that the director puts into the scene and films is called the “mise-en-scène”. To help you analyze as well as understand a scene, you have to ask who and what is in the scene and consider their relative position – also think of make-up, expressions, costume, scenery, appearance, props, sounds and lighting.

Bane in The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Questions you have to ask yourself:

• What effects are created in a mise-en-scène?
• What meaning do they have (connotation and denotation – link)?
• How were they created?
• Why were they created in that way -what is the director’s purpose? (e.g. to develop a character, set the mood, increase realism, to explore the deeper meanings of the plot and theme)

You could try this out with the image of Bane, above.

Editing

Editing is a way to compress time and space into one coherent, natural-looking sequence of shots. It’s usually seamless. It consists out of cutting and joining pieces (shots) of recorded film together, while still maintaining a sense of continuity and connectedness. Usually, shots are edited to suggest a realistic flow of what’s happening.

A montage is a series of edited shots that works as a cohesive unit, which has greater meaning than the individual mise-en-scènes.

There are different kinds of editing techniques:

• Continuity editing: with this technique, the editor tries to keep the sense of realistic flow of events and to create a coherent sequence of shots. It is the most common editing technique.
• Jump-cut: this is a dramatic cut in the flow of events, which breaks the time/space continuum (which is why it’s considered a violation of continuity editing), yet it still feels natural. Quick jumps between camera positions that differ only very little is an example. It can also give the sense of jumping forward in time. This technique is used in creating music videos (to increase dynamischheid), and it was also used famously in Guy Ritchie’s Snatch. (Video example)
• Cross-cut: in this editing technique, two action scenes quickly succeed each other to create a sense of two scenes happening at the same moment in time, but in a different place. The complete sequence of these kinds of scenes is called parallel action. Christoper Nolan is famous for using this technique a lot, it’s used extensively in The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, as well as Inception. (video example)
• Follow-cut: in a follow-cut, the action is followed to its consequence. An example is when you see a character look out over a certain view, and the next shot shows the actual view.

Here you’re shown the perspective of Mr Bennet: his wife and daughters (Pride & Prejudice, 2005)

• Fades and dissolves: this type of editing promotes the sense of scenes (and time) moving forward. It’s usually a gradual transition from one image to another. Fades fade to or from a blank image and can fade-in, fade-out, or fade to black. Dissolves are a transition between two shots.
• Sound-bridge: this entails the carrying of sound between two shots

Understanding the different kinds of shots also leads to a deepened understanding of the purpose of the director and the meaning he or she is trying to present.