Mise en scene

When applied to the cinema, mise-en-scène refers to everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement—composition, sets, props, actors, costumes, and lighting.[2] The “mise-en-scène”, along with the cinematography and editing of a film, influence the verisimilitude of a film in the eyes of its viewers.[3] The various elements of design help express a film’s vision by generating a sense of time and space, as well as setting a mood, and sometimes suggesting a character’s state of mind.[4] “Mise-en-scène” also includes the composition, which consists of the positioning and movement of actors, as well as objects, in the shot.[4] These are all the areas overseen by the director. One of the most important people that collaborates with the director is the production designer.[4] These two work closely to perfect all of the aspects of the “mise-en-scène” a considerable amount of time before the actual photography even begins.[5] The production designer is generally responsible for the general look of the movie, leading various departments that are in charge of individual sets, locations, props, and costumes, among other things.[4] Andre Bazin, a well-known French film critic and film theorist, describes the mise-en-scene aesthetic as emphasizing choreographed movement within the scene rather than through editing.[5]

This narrow definition of mise-en-scène is not shared by all critics. For some, it refers to all elements of visual style—that is, both elements on the set and aspects of the camera.[6] For others, such as U.S. film critic Andrew Sarris, it takes on mystical meanings related to the emotional tone of a film: "Dare I come out and say what I think it to be is an 'elan of the soul'?... as it is all I can do is point at the specific beauties of interior meaning on the screen and later catalogue the moments of recognition."[7]

The term is sometimes used to represent a style of conveying the information of a scene primarily through a single