Mise-en-scene Analysis Essay; Vertigo PDF

Preview

Summary

Mandatory Essay Assignment ...

Description

Jacob DuBien Professor Ryan Engley ENG 304: Film Genres March 23, 2019

 nalysis Essay; Vertigo Mise-en-scene A

The following frame in Vertigo i s a prominent example of formalism, and in unison, german expressionism, due to the distortion of reality that it entails, and the even greater reality that then takes place within the context of the film. It, therefore, strongly represents what the film tries to do as a whole. We can see Hitchcock throughout the entirety of film using mirrors to capture the emotions displayed by many of its most prominent characters. He does this in order to invoke an alternate reality, one that alters the basis of any perception we may have of the world that surrounds us, a crucial noir e lement that we have seen in many of the past films thus far. In the film, many of the characters take on multiple personas, all of which embark upon the unconscious and conscious mind frames. The main female character, Madelyn, takes on the role of herself, Carlita, and Judy from the start to the end of the film. During which she is portrayed bouncing from consciousness, which is where Hitchcock’s mirror images begin to play their most crucial of roles. In a psychological sense, mirrors symbolize the threshold between the conscious and unconscious mind. By looking into a mirror, one may look toward the depths of their unconsciousness. The image the mirror produces, is therefore symbolic and can be made sense of in both conscious and subconscious thought processes. During the span of the film, every instance that Hitchcock uses a mirror in a shot, it is to portray an uncertainty that lurks within that character’s sense of self, another very common noir  element. The image posted above is the first instance in which Madlyn is introduced in the film. In the scene, Hitchcock does not show the face of Madlyn from a camera perspective, but only from the perspective of the mirror. This was done in order to communicate to viewers that Madlyn’s sense of identity is skewed, and as the film plays out, this is more than justified by the events that take place. Hitchcock continues with this same theme of mirror angle shots as the main character, Jon, carries out his

Jacob DuBien Professor Ryan Engley ENG 304: Film Genres March 23, 2019

job to observe her every move, dictated by her worrisome husband. Not only do these shots bring about this sense distortion of reality, but this is also a prime example of german expressionism , defined as making external a characters internal state. We come to find out that Madlyn is clearly going through an identity crisis, but this is only later proven in the context of the movie. The shots Hitchcock uses to capture Madlyn prior to her official introduction to the film (jumping in to the San Francisco bay), are only done in an mirror perspective. Allowing for Madlyn’s diminishing state of self be communicated through these angles, instead of through dialogue or narrative. Hugo Munsterberg, author of The Photoplay ( 1916), believed that narrative was not important, and that film shows the mind. Each belief of Munsterberg parallels with the themes and shots done by Hitchcock throughout the span of Vertigo, d ue to the lack of narrative that is used in the span of these beginning scenes, and the mindframe of Madlyn that is communicated through the shots of her in the mirror. Further proving that this frame carries crucial evidence of ideals of formalism and german expressionism, in which the distorted reality that Madlyn is facing internally is made external by the mirror shots done by Hitchcock from the beginning to the end of the film....