In this essay I will discuss the use of mise-en-scène to convey narrative in a sequence of the film Titanic, directed by James Cameron. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay“A narrative is a story that you write or tell to someone, usually in great detail. A narrative can be a work of poetry or prose, or even song, drama or dance. props, costumes and scenography. The term mise-en-scène itself is a French word meaning "the arrangement of the scene". Another part of staging is considering how a film sequence is shot, so things like structure and camera angles are part of this too. David AC writes in his book A History of Narrative film that mise-en-scène is the things that are actually "within the frame itself as opposed to the effects created by the cut", so essentially he is trying to say here that everything you film, and that is physically there in front of the camera, then that is staged. The scene I will look at in this essay is from the movie Titanic and is one of the last sequences where Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater sinks into the ocean and Rose DeWitt Bukater climbs a door, which fails to hold them both. When we talk about setting we normally look at things like costumes, make-up, lighting and staging. The setting creates a sense of the atmosphere of the scene and gives it an atmosphere, it can also give us a sense of the characters' emotions. Settings when shooting a film are an important part of the mise-en-scène. The setting can be either fictional or non-fictional. The sets used in a film all help show realism and atmosphere. The term realism is what people who watch the film sequence say when the film sequence creates a truthful image of a society, or a character, or any aspect of real life that the film is trying to portray. When viewers talk about realism which can refer to the psychological or emotional accuracy of characters, viewers want to see recognizable or logical actions and developments in a plot, basically they want to see something convincing and relatable. If we look at the setting of In the scene above, we can see that there is dark lighting and that Rose DeWitt Bukater and Jack Dawson's costumes have been covered in ice to show us that they are freezing to death. Rose DeWitt Bukater is lying on top of the door out of the water and Jack Dawson is almost completely submerged in the water. This shows us how chivalrous Jack Dawson is by giving Rose DeWitt Bukater the opportunity to climb the door in place of himself. Both Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater were shot together in the same shot, so we get to see both the characters and their situations. The way this scene is portrayed really falls under the aspect of realism, even though the scene itself was shot in a studio, the way it was portrayed and acted, it felt real. With studio lighting, Rose DeWitt Bukater and Jack Dawson covered in white frost and blue lips to give the impression they were actually freezing to death. This really helped the plot develop and was convincing, with all the staging that went on in front of the camera whilst being shot in the studio, it led to a really convincing performance on screen. Viewers actually got to see what could have been a reality, with the dead bodies frozen around them in the ocean, it seemed like a convincing act. Lighting is one of the most important things when shooting a film to show theemotions within the film. The director of a film must make sure that the lighting matches the atmosphere he is trying to portray. When shooting a film a director uses two types of lighting approaches, low-key lighting and high-key lighting. High level lighting is mostly seen in films such as comedies, romantic films and musicals. With high key lighting, the director tries to avoid any dark areas in the frame, the director wants to make sure everything looks bright, doing his best to make sure there are no shadows. Bright lighting has an effect all its own. Low-key lighting is usually used in films such as thrillers and horror films. The lighting scheme used with this type of lighting features both light and dark areas in the frame. This adds to the eerie atmosphere these films are trying to create. During this Titanic scene, we can clearly see that in most of the scene we can see the use of soft lighting to portray death and really show what happened when the Titanic sank. The film's director used both high-key and low-key lighting during filming to show the contrast of everything as the Titanic began to sink. We can see it clearly as the ship should be in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and this should be late at night, so the lighting is very dark around the Titanic. The lighting used when filming the Titanic scenes really shows us the contrast throughout the film which draws viewers in when we physically see the difference in the scenes with the contrast of the low-key lighting and the high-key lighting. The costume is really an important part of the scene because it is what the characters in the frame are wearing. Makeup is another important part of the costume as it adds realism to what is being depicted. Costumes also give the viewer an idea of a character's personality or status in society. Actors may wear costumes ranging from fashionable suits and dresses (which would represent upper class characters) to wearing more normal dull colored clothes or clothes that are a little torn in places (this would represent lower class characters). is another important thing when it comes to costumes, the way makeup is applied to an actor's face and body and the way they can sometimes alter a person's face to look disfigured really contributes to how it might be the character and what the story could be. In the scene in Titanic where Rose DeWitt Bukater and Jack Dawson are drowning we can clearly see that they both went through a struggle. Rose DeWitt Bukater is wearing a Jack Dawson et that was put on her by Caledon Hockley. Jack wore his usual dull colored shirt and pants with his iconic suspenders. In this scene it wasn't just the clothes that enriched the scene, it was also the makeup. Rose's lips were colored blue and so were Jack's, they were both covered in frost that made it look like they were slowly freezing to death. This really gave viewers a realistic approach, so they could really see in the frame how much they were both suffering, along with the soft lighting. The staging used in this sequence of the film to portray the narrative to the viewers was indeed sufficient to deliver a convincing performance. One of the main aspects of staging is an actor's performance itself, the way the actor interprets the scene. the performances on screen can tie the whole film together. When a shot is shot, it is the actor's duty to bring that detail to life)..
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