Think about the three films we've watched so far in this unit--Let the Right One In, Ringu, and The Shining, and choose 2 to use in your essay. Choose one of these two prompts:
- Examine all aspects of mise-en-scene (lighting, composition, set, properties, etc.). This would include colors as well. Discuss the concept of "monster" through the mise-en-scene in each film. This exercise will help to prepare you for your Independent Study and your Oral Presentation. Examine CLOSELY and offer me many details and examples. Think about what the director is trying to say IMPLICITLY. Tie both films in with each other. Discuss similarities and differences in the mise-en-scene in both films. Please do this in 4 well-developed paragraphs.
OR
- Choose a five minute scene in both films and examine the role of women and how they are portrayed in your selected scenes and in the films as a whole. Be sure to discuss this topic CINEMATICALLY. How does the director show us? Do this in 4 well-developed paragraphs.
DUE: Friday, October 19
The films I will be discussing are The Shining and Ringu.
ReplyDeleteColors are used distinctively in The Shining. Red is very prominent in many scenes, particularly in the scene in the bathroom where Grady and Jack talk. The walls and other parts of the room are all either red or white. As well, red is very noticeable in brief moments where blood is shown coming out of the elevator, near the beginning and end of the film. In both scenes, red is used to create a disturbing and frightening atmosphere. While the connotations that the color has with blood are explicit in the elevator shots, the idea is used implicitly throughout the film to add to its frightening atmosphere.
Visual imagery is also important in Ringu's creation of atmosphere. The film's dark lighting, as well as its use of the colors black and blue, create a bleak and unsettling mood. As well, the grainy look of the videotape footage adds a strange sense of realism to these shots, and the film as a whole.
Both films make use of cramped and dark settings to create a claustrophobic feeling. In The Shining, the hedge maze is used to this effect. Its seemingly endless pathways add a great deal of tension in the chase scene between Jack and Danny. In Ringu, the scene that takes place in the well near the end of the film gives a similarly claustrophobic feeling.
Both films use mise-en-scene to depict the qualities of the "monsters" they are about. In both films, shots are composed in a way so as to make Jack and Sadako look menacing and terrifying. Both are frequently shown at low angles, with dark lighting, to create this feeling. In The Shining, these visual clues foreshadow that Jack is a monster even before this is explicitly revealed.
Stanley Kubrick's The Shining and Hideo Nakata's Ringu are horror films that depict women in stressful, supernatural situations. Though the two female protagonists - the former's Wendy Terrence and the latter's Reiko Asakawa - are depicted in incredibly different ways at first (with Wendy as meek and Reiko as bold), both films' females ultimately grow to be strong, independent women willing to fight for their loved ones' lives.
ReplyDeleteThroughout most of their respective films, Wendy and Reiko are depicted quite differently. The difference is that while Reiko is depicted as independent, ambitious, and confident, Wendy is depicted as weak, submissive, and mostly powerless against her mentally deteriorating husband Jack. Reiko, early on in the film, boldly decides to risk her life and view the cursed videotape that has been claiming the lives of those who view it. She is seen in a close-up throughout the scene at a normal angle. This shows that, though she is dealing with forces outside of her control, she is willing to face them "head-on" and deal with the possible repercussions. She is strong and willing to risk her life to solve the mystery. Her costuming also contributes to her independent look; dressed purely in bland colors, she is depicted as a professional, appearing mature and ready for the workforce. This contrasts with other women depicted in the film in bright colors, accentuating the dichotomy between Reiko and other women.
Wendy, however, is seen as much less brave and independent. At the beginning of the film, when discussing problems at home with a child psychologist, Wendy accidentally touches on the subject of Jack's alcoholism. The psychologist asks how Danny dislocated his shoulder, and Wendy immediately gets nervous and defensive. "Just one of those things, you know... purely an accident," Wendy says. She is clearly afraid of Jack, but instead decides to lay blame upon her son Danny. Several aspects of the scene touch upon her inherent weaknesses - her outfit, composed of bright, simple colors, make her appear to be a child; the cigarette she smokes in the scene is clearly a symbol of her alternate ways of dealing with discomfort and unrest in the home (instead of standing up to Jack, she merely calms her nerves through nicotine); and the set design of the kitchen, bright and retro (more indicative of the '50's than the '80's), implies an evil lurking underneath the too-clean sheen of her surroundings. Wendy is depicted as powerless to a sinister world and husband.
However, by the end of the films both Reiko and Wendy become strong, independent, and free to save their children without their dead lovers. The end of Ringu finds Reiko unlocking the secret of the videotape after finding her ex-husband Ryuji dead in his apartment. When she realizes she can save her son from the curse, Reiko is depicted in powerful low-angle shots, having overcome the death of her companion in her quest to save her son. She is shown as being truly independent at this point. Similarly, when Wendy takes Dick Halloran's truck to escort her and Danny off the Overlook grounds, she is seen running in a wide shot. This symbolizes that Jack can no longer touch her - he is trapped in the maze and she has Danny. Notably, in her final scene she is wearing much more blandly colored clothing; by the end, Wendy has overcome her powerlessness at the hands of Jack, and she is depicted as having matured through it. In the Shining and Ringu, the female protagonists come into their independence through death and protection of their children.
The concept of ‘monster’ in both Let the Right one in and The Shining is similar and different in both films. Let the Right one in has it’s concept of ‘monster’ focused around an uncontrollable lust and desire, while The Shining’s concept of ‘monster’ focuses around a loss of sanity and judgment. Both films discuss this concept through their mise-en-scene like their lighting, costumes and properties, and their sets.
ReplyDeleteThe concept of ‘monster’ in Let the Right one in is that the ‘monster’ comes out due to an uncontrollable lust and desire. This is evident throughout the film’s mise-en-scene. To start off with, the lighting is very dark throughout the majority of the film and there is a lack of natural sunlight as well. This represents the ‘monster’s’ (Ellie’s) dark and evil desire, which is to suck the blood from human beings in order to stay alive. Also, bad creatures such as vampires and werewolves and ghosts and demons stay in the dark, as well as Ellie. The lack of natural sunlight may also be used to symbolize spiritual matters. The Sun is associated with God and Jesus and things that are Holy and Ellie cannot be exposed to that or she will die. The evil and lustful desires cannot survive when exposed to Holy and Godly things. The costumes and properties used represent Ellie’s innocence. She is very pale and is also very young. As a result, she looks vulnerable. When she kills someone she is covered in blood, but still looks like the vulnerable and innocent little girl she was before. This represents how a ‘monster’ is only a ‘monster’ due to their uncontrollable lust and desire, which is this case is Ellie’s uncontrollable lust for blood. Ellie is not a bad person, but her urges (when she gives into them) can make her a ‘monster’. Similar to M, when the killer explains that he cannot help himself. He seemed like a normal and liable person, but when he gave into that evil desire, he became a ‘monster’ in the public’s eyes and his own. The sets where Ellie kills people are isolated places. For example, the bathroom is where she killed the man who broke into her house in order to seek revenge on Ellie. The bathroom is an isolated room where a person is left alone. This represents how evil and lustful desires take over when a person is isolated and left alone. A person is more likely to go back to bad habits when they are left alone. Ellie kills when she is left alone.
The concept of ‘monster’ in The Shining is that the ‘monster’ comes out due to isolation which leads to madness and a distortion of reality. This is evident through the film’s mise-en-scene. As the film goes on, the mise-en-scene represents his descent to madness as the lighting becomes gradually darker, the costumes (Jack stops shaving and wears similar clothes for an extended period of time) and properties (Alcohol, typewriter, bat, axe, his novel) change in appearance and their symbolism and the set becomes more menacing (from sunny and bright to a snowstorm). At the beginning of the film, Jack is being interviewed. The lighting is bright and clear, he is wearing nice and new-looking formal clothing and his face is cleanly shaved, and the weather outside is beautiful and sunny. All of this gives a very welcoming feeling to the viewer and represents Jack’s sanity. All of this changes though during the scene when Jack’s descent into madness becomes evident (when he tells Wendy to leave him alone). The lighting is much darker and his face is partial shadowed, which gives him a menacing look. His face looks more tired and his face is not as cleanly shaved as before, and the snowstorm is approaching as well. This foreshadows how things will get much worse; the ‘monster’ is growing and developing. During the party scene Jack is drinking (he started drinking earlier in the movie) which represents a reverb back to bad habits. Jack has spent so long working on his novel that it is driving him crazy, because that is all he has been working on for the past few months. It is clear that his madness has worsened when Wendy reads what he had been working all this time, and it reads: ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’ Jack has officially lost it. This is further backed up by the distorted lighting (the lighting behind Jack – through the window – is very bright, but then Jack walks in front of it and become very dark) when he asks Wendy what she thought and Wendy’s possession of a baseball bat. The distorted light represents Jack’s distorted mindset and the baseball bat represents Wendy’s feeling of insecurity around Jack due to his madness. At the end of the movie when Jack is chasing Danny through the maze is the representation of Jack’s completion into madness. The lighting is extremely dark, Jack has a crazy look in his eye and is chasing his family with an axe and the snowstorm is raging and reduced visibility dramatically. The maze and lack of visibility represents how Jack is no longer looking at things clearly. He thinks obligating his task to look after the hotel means killing his family. He just wanted to write a book, but due to his isolation and not taking a break away from writing, all work and no play makes Jack a psychopath. This represents how isolation leads to madness and distortion of reality, which creates the ‘monster’ in Jack.
ReplyDeleteBoth films implicate that the ‘monster’ comes out due to isolation, but they are different because Let the Right one in primarily focuses on the ‘monster’ coming out due to uncontrollable lust and desires and isolation just makes those desires more tempting. Ellie does not like giving in to her ‘monstrous’ side, while Jack is willing to do so, but only after going insane and not having a valid view on reality. The mise-en-scene in both films is used to represent the concept of ‘monster’. The darker lighting is used to represent evil desires and intentions. The sets are used slightly different when compared to each other, because in Let the Right one in, the sets are used to represent isolation, while in The Shining the sets represent Jack’s isolation, but the weather represents the clarity of his mind (how sane he is). The costumes and properties represent different things in each film. In Let the Right one in the costumes and properties represent how Ellie is only a ‘monster’ when she gives in to her desire to suck blood, while in The Shining it represents Jack’s slow descent into madness as he is isolated while trying to write his novel and brings it upon himself in a way, because he does not drop it. Like when someone does not know how to drop something and obsessives over it and only thinks of that thing and, as a result, forgets about everything else and gets angry when someone tries to bring them back to reality. Except Jack takes it to an extreme.
ReplyDeleteThe Shining: 1:45:00
ReplyDeleteThe natural lighting makes Wendy’s face looked especially blanched and pathetic and adds to the naturalism of the scene. This element is important because King’s original intention, which Kubrick retained in a slightly different form, was to create a story about a man who is a threat to his family because of his destructive nature. Wendy and Danny are not actually threatened by the house and its curse but by Jack’s insanity. The film’s naturalism creates something sinister in the ordinary. Thus much of the film is built on anticipation of something terrible happening rather than a series of terrible events. Wendy searching through Jack’s completed pages and the significance of them is one of the film’s best examples of turning something that would be completely ordinary out of context into something every bit as horrifying as the recurring image of a hotel floor drowned in blood. The way they are written also makes the nature of Jack’s insanity all the more mystifying: although he has simply repeated the same sentence for every page of the manuscript, he has made each page stylistically different, sometimes offsetting the sentences as if they were lines of dialogue, writing in a triangle, etc. The most horrifying aspect of his insanity is that he would be lucid enough to do something like that.
Jack first appears in the scene as a giant shadow on the right of the screen dwarfing Wendy. The white walls that reflect the ambient light add to the coldness of the scene. As Wendy backs up the stairs she approaches a warm, well-lit area that contrasts the cold, naturally-lit room behind Jack. She appears to be crowned by a small chandelier behind her while Jack is crowned by an unlit steel chandelier behind him. Not only does this underscore the goodness or badness of each character, it portends their respective fates: Wendy will survive and escape the hotel with Danny while Jack will die in the snow. Also, they are the king and queen of this castle-like hotel. The bat Wendy swings represents the phallic power she must take on if she is to defeat Jack.
Let the Right one in: 1:43:00
The pool represents something of an oasis for Oskar because there he is under the protection of an adult. The pool is well-lit while the outside is pitch-black. However, in another demonstration of how ineffectual adults are in this film, the bullies are able to penetrate Oskar’s bastion and distract the gym teacher. Oskar’s bullies wear expensive clothes that suggest a class difference as one of the reasons for their bullying; Oskar, as we’ve seen, lives in a small cramped apartment. Their leather jackets and sweaters contrast Oskar’s small bathing suit, emphasizing his exposure to their cruelty. As the bully walks in along the side of the pool, the shot is such that the stands on his right create a horizontality that contrasts the verticality of the windows on his right, suggesting the two opposing sides in this scene.
The image of Oskar underwater, by the water’s dark-blue shade and empty space, evokes an impression of immense loneliness. Just as Eli pulls him from the water she has saved him from his misery. In this film the monster is not someone who is evil for the sake of being evil; rather her actions are moralized because they save Oskar. Eli brings happiness to Oskar’s world which was as devoid of happiness as it was of color.