(Apologies for the formatting in these essay posts. I really don't know what's happening here.)
Prompt: Watch your favorite movie with the sound off and write about its aesthetic attributes. How well are the story and character arcs conveyed visually?
Scream is
one of my favorite movies for several reasons. First, it is a witty, sharp,
satire of the slasher genre. Second, despite being a comedy, it manages to be a
terrifying movie in its own right. Third, the opening scene is one of the most
perfect pieces of horror cinema ever put to film. Fourth (and definitely not
final, but I don’t want this essay to turn into a laundry list), Wes Craven is
one of the few horror directors who knows exactly what he is doing. Craven’s
guiding hand is evident throughout, and his skill in directing is unparalleled
except in the most classic of horror films.
From the very first scene, he has
such control over mise-en-scène elements, it still manages to be scary even
with the sound off. This exercise was a treat for me, because I got a chance to
notice how much detail went into the visual storytelling of this film. The
iconic opening scene with Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) is mostly disconnected
from the plot proper, but it is a very good place to start the discussion of
Craven’s use of mise-en-scène.
Craven’s subtle use of costuming
permeates the film, and in this scene, every single piece of Becker’s outfit
foreshadows her imminent death. Her skin is made-up to be ultra pale, imitating
the pallor of death, and her flesh-colored sweater and blood red lipstick
foresee her fate. Another major element of the film is postmodern meta humor, with
the characters aware of the fact that they are actually in a film. This is also
subtly implied with a uniquely clever lighting technique. Casey has turned on
the VCR to pop in a movie, but never gets to watch it. The blue light of the TV
screen fills the room, implying to the audience that the movie is about to
begin.
As she begins to be stalked over the
phone by the Ghostface killer, crosscut shots of her forgotten Jiffy Pop on the
stove mark the passage of time and frequent shots of the house’s exterior
remind us that there is much more in the world outside Casey’s indoor suburban
sanctum. Scream’s editing continues
on a similar level for the rest of the film, with a particular penchant for the
use of smash cuts to crane shots to transition between scenes. This catapults
the audience along to the next beat of the story and keeps the pacing feeling
snappy despite the film’s two-hour runtime.
As evidenced by the earlier
examples, Scream has an idiosyncratic mise-en-scène style that gives it
freshness (and enough steam power to revitalize the entire slasher genre).
Another aspect of this style is the use of brightly lit, large suburban
setpieces. Wes Craven’s obsession with suburbia was previously explored along
the shady lane of Elm Street and continues in earnest here. In his films,
people are attacked where they feel most at home and comfortable, and the
sleepy homes of suburbia can feel just as intimidating and scary as a haunted
castle or a secluded hotel.
When the killer is in the house, a
once large suburban home can seem positively claustrophobic. This sense of
claustrophobia is intensified by the use of almost exclusively closed frames.
The film is so kinetic that the frames seem like they’re open, but this is an
illusion caused by quick cuts. It is very rare to see a character leave a
frame, and one begins to feel trapped without even realizing why.
I was surprised by how much of the
plot was still relatable, even when completely silent. What I have just
described is more of a broadstrokes vision of the film, but there is much subtlety
and nuance in the design, especially in the area of character arcs. For the
purposes of this essay, we will focus on three characters: Sidney Prescott (the
heroine), and Gale Weathers (the tough-as-nails news reporter).
Gale is a self-obsessed, muckraking
reporter with little care for the impact her yellow journalism has on the lives
of those she reports on. Her character is introduced very kinetically – she is
running after Sidney’s ambulance in a canary yellow pantsuit. The yellow exudes
energy and focus, as do her actions. However, as the film progresses, she gets
more involved in the murder investigations for reasons of saving Sidney, not
merely getting a scoop, and falls in love with a handsome David Arquette along
the way. In her final climactic scene, she is dressed in a brown leather jacket
and a red blouse. The red reflects her newfound love and passion for her work
and the brown represents the clouding of her focus on her career.
Sidney Prescott’s clothing is
equally symbolic. In her introductory scene, she is portrayed as a pure,
virginal, young woman, dressed in white floral pajamas. The white represents
purity and the florals represent her youth and innocence. When her friends
begin dying one by one and she begins to lose her grip on the world of her
innocence (losing her virginity in the process), she can be seen in darker
tones, and in her final scene she is covered in blood, which represents the
loss of her virginity and the destruction of her innocence.
Through these details, the tension
and overall tone of the movie can be maintained purely through the cinematography,
the production design, and the editing. While Craven has weaved a truly
spectacular tapestry of mise-en-scène elements, Scream has one major weakness. This movie was very clearly produced
in the 90’s and the costume and design pieces have some of that ineradicable
kitschiness that was inescapable in that decade, somewhat distracting modern
viewers.
Word Count: 1118
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