Before you read this, be forewarned, this is an analysis of film in communication theory, it uses film analysis, and might lead to a greater appreciation of this film, but it is first and foremost an academic piece.
Since the early 20th century, film began to develop in many forms from shorts to documentaries to full length feature presentations. Today the most prevalent type of film is full length feature narrative fiction, which can commonly be seen at the local cinema or movie rental store. Because of the accessibility of film to a large audience it is possibly one of the most influential mediums on our attempts to share meaning and form relationships. The narrative film’s use of production components such as setting, lighting, shots, and sound conveys meaning in order to involve the audience in the film and ultimately influence their cognition of concepts such as grief, fear, and love.
While the use of one film might seem to limit my support, I believe that there is enough material in this film, which is similar to so many others, to sufficiently support my analysis. The film that I will use is both an excellent example of mise-en-scene and cinematography. The Village; written, produced, and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, was wide released in 2004. It was marketed mainly to an audience composed of fans from Shyamalan’s last several films such as The Sixth Sense, Signs, and Unbreakable. The basic story line involves a village of people, who live in a time and place to which we are given very few clues. The main conflict of the story is the tension between “those we do not speak of” who dwell in the woods surrounding the village and the supposed agreement that is maintained between the people and the creatures. When the one of the main characters, Lucius, is injured, the heroine of the film, Ivy, embarks on a mission to travel through the forbidden woods to the “wicked” towns to fetch medicine.
In order to analyze film as a medium it would be helpful to first define how the technology works with the physiology of the human body to create this form of communication known as film. First, vision itself is basically the process of reflected or projected light hitting the retina of the eye and creating an image. The medium of photography imitates vision in the way it imprints images on to film, but is not continuous. Thus where photography is limited to a single frame, moving image connects the single frames into a continuous series to create an even more convincing imitation of actual vision (Chesebro 76). This imitation creates the illusion of realism and leads to suspended disbelief, allowing the audience to become emotionally involved with the narrative.
The ability of film technology to create a world that moves before your eyes as you remain stationary in a seat is an amazing idea that we take for granted in our technology driven culture. Furthermore, it is this ability to create convincing worlds for viewers that holds the power to influence the thoughts and emotions of the viewer as if they are actually in the world where the story is happening. Whether we know it or not we become part of the story and are deeply impacted by the thoughts and ideas that are conveyed within.
There are two major components of production in film that help to convey meaning to the viewer: mise-en-scene and cinematography. Mise-en-scene is “those elements of a movie scene that are put in position before the filming actually begins and are employed in certain ways once the filming does begin” (Chesebro 42). Mise-en-scene includes, but is not limited to props, acting, blocking, costume, make-up, and lighting. Cinematography is “motion picture photography, literally ‘writing in movement’” (Chesebro 77). The core of cinematography is found in the shot. There are several different types of shots that can be used to influence or convey meaning to the audience.
In the film The Village, one aspect of Mise-en-scene is the setting. The village itself is a replica of an actual working village from the colonial era complete with stonewall buildings, barns, a meeting hall, and other structures common to a more communal way of life. The characters are dressed in costume that would be appropriate to the time period and even speak in the rhetoric that we would assume would have been used during that time. The smallest details from the production of food and chores to the social norms and traditions of the assumed era are reproduced in the world that is created by the production designer. Essentially, they achieve as authentic an environment as possible which engages the viewer as an active participant in the way of life that the characters are portraying.
Another component of Mise-en-scene that influences the emotions of the scenes is lighting. It follows from the setting that there is no electricity in the village; therefore all of the lighting is from fire light. The characters are often lit from the front with low fill lighting and barely any rim/back light. This creates an atmosphere of secrecy and unknown that seems to haunt the entire village. This is also symbolized in the black boxes that each of the elders keeps in their home and the arbitrary language of the monsters in the woods, i.e. “Those we do not speak of.” As the viewer you are pulled into the mystery and the general discomfort of not knowing the whole story.
Another way of inviting the audience into the story is through the cinematography. The use of camera shots and sound appeal to our pathos and we experience the same emotions that the characters express from joy to sadness to anger to fear. The paradigm for communicating emotion in The Village is done through the perception of the created world through the main character, Ivy Walker, who is blind. This is a very important element of the film and seems to be the element around which most of the film is built. All are modeled after the heightened senses of a person who is blind. This is an effective method of inspiring fear in an audience since most people fear what they cannot see or understand. Often the focus is placed on sound from Ivy’s point of view or on her hands as they experience the world around her. The shots from her shoulder that look straight at the things that she cannot see encourage a reaction from the viewer to communicate with her as and involved character who knows something she does not. This is especially true when she looks in the direction of exaggerated sound, as the audience is conditioned to respond to this over the course of the film. This creates a sense of tension and the illusion of the ability to influence the conflict.
As effectively as the Mise-en-scene and cinematography communicate certain types of information, they also effectively exclude certain information. The time period, geography, and history of the village are largely a mystery that is slowly revealed by moderated bits of information that are gradually fed to the audience over the course of the film. The use of arbitrary language does not necessarily convince the audience of the time period as much as it leaves room for uncertainty. As the stories of the characters are revealed there are small clues here and there to allow a story to begin to emerge. Even as the viewer is on the verge of putting the pieces together, the film is edited to show scenes out of order as to prevent the necessary information from being revealed. This, overall, adds to the secrecy, mystery, and general fear of the unknown that we feel. The intentional application of these concepts communicates ideas about the fear, mistrust, and ignorance that can be faced in the real world.
Different people would be prone to interpret these messages differently. A person who knows someone who is blind might be twice as sensitive to the authenticity, struggle of the character, and the themes presented. Their understanding of the world of a blind person gives them a perspective that someone who has no concept of blindness would miss. Also, people who have dealt with significant loss of tragedy might relate differently to the themes of preservation and protection from the outside world in varied ways. The medium can communicate its intended ideas, however there will always be the variable of the stories that the audience bring to the viewing and the prejudices that they might have of the movie even before they have seen it. For example, most people thought they would be seeing a horror film when they went to see The Village and were mostly disappointed to find that it was more about content and theme then simple, mindless fear games.
Sociologically, The Village attempts to question the systems of fear that are used to control and manipulate society for the common good. The elders of the village sought to preserve innocence, yet found that evil can still come from within. Similarly, it could be said that our American society has attempted to do the same things to justify censorship and more recently to justify war. Good films reach beyond the world that they have created to speak to the one in which the audience exists.
Assuming that a person is engaged and influenced by the film and its implications, it could potentially impact the way they understand and thus respond to different aspects of life. The Village hits on a lot of basic ideas of what it means to be human in a broken world and points toward both hope and darkness at its conclusion; it is never simply one or the other, there is always a mixture of both. There is an intentional element to the dialogue and certain shots at the end of the film that contribute to these themes or ideas about the world. Hope, love, and innocence, are contrasted by darkness, secrecy and fear. These elements are conveyed in several ways such as Ivy’s blindness (Darkness), the character Lucius’ name (luce= light), all the shots of light on people’s faces in the midst of shadows, and the countless verbal references to hope, love and innocence. Through the use of mise-en-scene and cinematography the audience becomes involved in the story in order to influence their cognition of contrasting themes. It is from this contrast that we can understand the beauty of living in the balance and can appreciate the one because of the existence of the other.
Bibliography:
Chesebro, James W., and Dale A. Bertelsen. Analyzing Media: Communiation Technologies As Symbolic and Cognitive Systems. Vol. 1. New York: The Guilford Press, 1996. 1 vols.
Corrigan, Timothy, and Patricia White. The Film Experience: An Introduction. Vol. 1. 1th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004. 1 vols.
The Village. Dir. M N. Shyamalan. 2004. DVD. Touchstone Home Entertainment, 2005.