Fargo, (1996) Joel coen, USA

(Source: http://www.imdb.com/)
Fargo is based on true events that occurred in Minnesota in 1987 with the names changed to protect the victims. Jerry works in his father-in-law's car dealership and has gotten himself in financial problems. He tries various schemes to come up with money needed for a reason that is never really explained. It has to be assumed that his huge embezzlement of money from the dealership is about to be discovered by father-in-law. When all else falls through, plans he set in motion earlier for two men to kidnap his wife for ransom to be paid by her wealthy father (who doesn't seem to have the time of day for son-in-law). From the moment of the kidnapping, things go wrong and what was supposed to be a non-violent affair turns bloody with more blood added by the minute. Jerry is upset at the blood shed, which turns loose a pregnant sheriff from MN who is tenacious in attempting to solve the three murders in her jurisdiction.

MISE EN SCENE:

Flat empty snowy landscape resembles lonliness to characters and that they are knowhere.
(Such as north by northwest)

The director repeats a lot of scenes in terms of environment, we are taken from blue snowy plains to a household or building scene frequently, helping us learn the location of the film.
Many props are used this film, guns, cars, food and many a time does a telephone produce the diagetic sound in the scene. Through the use of a giant woodchopper statue from benath camera angle in the dark. We can guess that the next setting/scenes will produce alot of bad things for the story. I liked the general filmaking which had us guessing. Tension built up mystery because policeman takes ages to get out of car and you dont see his face for ages. (remembering that they have Jerrie's wife in back car and 1 criminal is panicking). The music here is non-diagetic music whihc builds up the suspense. Wondering whats going to happen.
Next scene with psycho criminal with dark eerie figure, music builds, he shoots teenagers in dark, blackout after gun. (Red light from his car shows us blood or danger). Lots of characters with red on them are in danger.

Contrast of tranquille music in snowy forest with criminals.

YAA? YAA! - showing their accent and they seemed to be not the brightest.

PERSONAL NOTE: I did not like the film as much for its storyline and it flowed rather poorly. Just seemed boring even with the action scenes of killing. However, as a piece of filmaking it scores highly because the actors put in a strong performance, the characters are developed well and the use of mise en scéne is very good. Also there are a few twists and it produced some good suspense. 6/10

Equilibrium essay

(a) An analysis of a film extract – 1500 words (Mise en scene for opening scene)

Equilibrium, Kurt Wimmer, 2002, US.

I am going to review the Mise en Scene used in the opening 10 minutes of the film “Equilibrium”. The film is set in a futuristic world where a strict regime has eliminated wars by suppressing emotions. Feeling different emotions is a crime punished by death. The film stars Christian Bale as the main character called Preston, who is a top agent that is responsible for those who do not follow the rules. However, when he misses a dose of Prozium, the mind-altering drug that hides and suppresses emotion, Preston, who has been trained to enforce the strict laws of this new regime, suddenly becomes the only agent/man capable of overpowering it with his unique skill.

The film begins with a black screen that slowly fades into past videos of real life events relating to war and corruption with short titles summarising what is being said. A mans voice is narrating and summarising what these videos are relevant towards. He then explains that a new law has been installed which is set up to stop mankind from creating another war by taking away thoughtful emotions.

The video is now of what looks like a soldier training like a ninja and then lots of soldiers attacking a building. As the opening description slowly unveils the basic plot, an image of a painting is used which then turns out to be the start of an actual scene from the film.

So far we can learn that the setting of the film is in the future and by the dialogue/voice of the narrator can guess it may be set in future America. After the intro we may believe this to build up to be a serious film throughout which suggests violence and murder of some sort since speaking about a past war where everyone is now “controlled”.

An actor then appears and gives orders to a group of men who pick up artwork and grab guns; they then begin an assault on the law soldiers from a building with lots of windows and a massive gunfight breaks out. The scene follows where many men are shot and windows are smashed. Christian Bale is off camera not to be seen. When the soldiers advance in the building a car pulls up. Which the viewer can only see the very top of due to the camera positioning. This is done so we do not know who may exit the vehicle, creating suspense. To our surprise Christian Bale exits the car with another high profile actor, Sean Bean, wearing long black robes (Matrix style) and enters the building walking down a dark corridor with lots of bullet holes through the wall creating lots of shining light through effects.

From this next scene we can depict that the opening scene contains lots of props such as guns, cars, broken glass, costume of armour, black robes, black jackets and paintings followed by a large gun fight where many people get shot fighting on either side, which help to once again suggest what type of film this may be.

Down to personal opinion on how to look at a film, we can suggest that the film has to be fairly decent because two really good actors are together on screen at once. Playing what may be the main characters. They are also wearing interesting black robe suits and have stern faces like they are from a cult or organisation.

The lighting comes to effect because most of the filming is in a room and outside the building for this opening scene. Which normally you would expect natural lighting except maybe for the painting room scene. However, the director has once again given that eerie feeling to the film and pointed out that it may be serious by having some scenes very low tones of colour. For example, when the police pull up and get out of their cars is maybe to show significance?

The film in general has also quite dark lighting. Another film that I noticed that seemed to do this was “Superman returns” maybe trying to portray a new serious Superman film? For this next scene however the camera tracks the two main actors walking through the dark corridor with bright bullet hole lights shining through. This is a different type of lighting used in film that we do not see too often.

The camera then spins around the two actors and the 3rd actor speaking.
The camera then continues as if it were the eye view of the actors moving towards this door at the end of the corridor. A close up is followed on Christian Bale who, with a determined look begins running fast towards the door with 2 handguns in each hand. He then running kicks the door down and the camera follows this by going straight through the wall. Bullets are fired and the scene goes black accept with gunfire blazing across from left to right. Silence then occurs and after a few seconds the screen goes grey with a quiet whisper in the background. Gunfire then restarts but it is Christian Bale who begins firing. Killing lots of enemies whilst the camera has a 1st person view of Bales perspective and shows the end of a gun killing these men in the dark, the men then fall back in pain.

The use of editing here is useful and well done because it shows lots of killings going on in seconds with this 1st person view to get the feeling that Christian Bale is wiping out a lot of people easily. The lighting is once again a part to play as the room stays dark but the use of effects coming from the guns lights the room to allow seeing the characters in this fast motion track, quick changing action sequence (through lots of editing). Once black the scene then slowly lights up with two small bright lights at each side of the camera. These turn out to be the light from the hotness of Bales guns. Which slowly illuminates this figure of him in a stance then slowly fades back to black. Bright white lights in the forms of torches are then shunned. Creepy chanting music can then be heard in the background. Lots of lighting and diagetic sounds follow. The scene then shows Bale and Bean standing there with the camera constantly slowly moving to the right and fading to black like a slide to show the gap from one room to the next.

More props then come as more paintings are uncovered, this one showing the famous ‘Mona Lisa’ and other electronic devices are used. The camera is on this special effects for 2 seconds. A zooming in of Christian Bale’s bold look and the Mona Lisa’s face take turn. We are wondering what the purpose of all the past fighting scenes were for. Where the seemingly bad guys trying to rob some paintings? Or do the organisation has there own plans for them? All of a sudden Bale reveals that the painting should be burned! The camera then zooms out and 2 men in fire protection suits use a fire extinguisher to burn the paintings, another prop. Significance is shown as a quick zooming in on the burning rare painting and then Christian Bale’s facial expression with the fire in front of the camera. He walks off and Bean looks worriedly at the burning fire whereas Bale did not. What is Bean thinking?

We are treated to a completely new scene of a ruined city and a car driving away.
The ruined city shows that the stories 3rd world war clearly had some effect on this place helping to get an understanding of the environment. Bean reveals a book he kept (another prop) after Bale mentioning why he kept it and not gave it to others.
Another diagetic narrative takes place as the camera gives us a huge panning of the city whilst tracking the car. The lighting is still dim as they are now outside and the sky is rather pale blue. Another panning view of the city is used and shows timed stopping of all the actors used in the city using another prop and choreographed actors doing martial arts.

This is the detailed analysis of the 1st 10 minutes of the film ‘Equilibrium’ using the ideas of props, setting, lighting and characters to portray when and where they are and what might happen.

Thelma and Louise (1991) Ridley Scott

What we can depict in the opening scene.



We can observe the setting in this film quite easily. It is set in a town in the deep south, USA. I came to this conclusion due to the accents , props, the folk song in the beginning, classic american cars and the rural background. It is set in the 1960's and the car is a '66 Thunderbird.



During this opening scene there are alot of diagetic and non-diagetic sounds.

know characters personnas, housewife and busy worker are bored and want to escape from boring life in the form of a road trip.

Thelma is messy housewife, she packs so untidy.
Louise seems single and tidy and dresses smart. They are quite opposite character contrasts.

Thelma is controlled housewife (stereotype) trys to sweet-talk husband with offer but he ignores her. So she makes decision final and leaves.

(Also the background music is related to the characters upbeat nature and the adventure ahead.)

Basically we learn a heck of a lot from the 1st few scenes about the setting, characters and what may happen later on.

Fin.