Discover Top Posts Tagged with #mis en scene

Nightcrawler (2014) dir. Dan Gilroy

“I'm focusing on framing. A proper frame not only draws the eye into a picture, but keeps it there longer, dissolving the barrier between the subject and the outside of the frame.”

#nightcrawler 2014 #jake gyllenhaal #lou bloom #cinematography #mis en scene #my screenshots #this film brought out my repressed film nerd lmao oops

What Dreams May Come

At first when I watched this film, I didn’t quite understand it, it took about 4 times to watch it to completely get it. I was very confused as to why it was named “What Dreams May Come”. I would always think, “Why is it named dreams if they’re already dead?” and then finally when Cuba Goodings Jr. said in the film, “Thought is real, physical is the illusion”. I sort of got it, but it did take a few more times to watch to get it completely. Chris was wondering why the place he was in was a painting. He was happy at first, but none of the things in the world he created was solid. Objects were always breaking and he can’t hold onto objects because they would turn to paint. What Chris didn’t get was, as long as he believes that the whole place was a dream and it wasn’t real, it wasn’t going to be real and solid unless he believes that it is real, that all the things are real. It was named, What Dreams May Come because, Chris doesn’t realize how powerful dreams can be in heaven. It is what you use to create your own little world. Dreams are not just what you see when you’re asleep but they’re the main source of power in the afterlife. Thanks to the dreams, imaginations and real life happenings in the film. There were different color palettes. So you can see the difference between those who are still alive on earth, the different versions of heaven of each and every people and lastly the flashbacks. Those scenes had different colors and moods so it can take out the emotions and feelings of the audience who are watching it.

Chris and Annie bumping boats

This was the first time Chris and Annie met in Switzerland in their own boats, the scene had a yellow orange tone to it based from their skin tone. This scene instantly gave the happy vibe not just because of the background music but because of how warm the colors were in the scene and the audience can tell by just watching without analyzing the whole scene that the two characters are going to be love interests. Other than yellow orange being a tone in the scene I believe that this scene has a triad color palette: green, red and yellow orange. Green being the lake water, red being the sail and blanket of Annie and yellow orange being the boats and skin tones they had. The color green is a soothing color on the eyes, it’s a color that just by nature makes you relax. In this scene I believe that color green symbolizes peace and also by the way Chris was sleeping on his canoe/ boat, as an audience I can tell that it is peaceful. The color red enters the scene and becomes part of the palette when Annie’s boat and her enters and bumps into the canoe of Chris. The color red was shown in the movie multiple times but with different symbolisms. In this scene, red is a color of love, it’s like in this scene, love entered Chris’ life and Annie is the love of his life and also his soulmate.

Any scene with blue Jacaranda leaves

I noticed that every time a scene where there is blue Jacaranda leaves it was always a sad and depressing scene. The blue Jacaranda leaves symbolizes their mourning of the family in the following scenes. For example, in the first image, Chris was saying goodbye to his kids when they were off to school, and then shortly after their children died and that was the last time Chris saw his children. You can see that there were blue leaves in the whole street where Chris was standing waving goodbye and I’ve also observed that the car was also color blue.

On the second image, when Annie visited Chris’ tombstone. Chris is already a soul in this scene and he wants to make Annie believe that he is still there with her, but Annie thinks that she is going crazy and hallucinating, and yet again there was a field of blue flowers in the scene and Annie was also wearing a blue ascot. Annie was mourning over Chris’ death but Chris mourning over the fact that he had left Annie and he can’t do anything to help Annie go through her depression over his death.

Lastly, the scene where Annie painted a new part of the series of her paintings for Chris. She painted the blue Jacaranda tree (although it looks really purple in the gif) it appeared in the heaven where Chris is and he was so happy that they were still connected through the paintings. However Annie believed that Chris couldn’t see the tree she just painted so she poured water all over the blue paint, and because of this the leaves of the tree in Chris’ heaven began to fly away making the tree bald and left with no leaves. This particular gif shows Annie crying while the blue paint began to drip off of the branches, it’s like the painting of the tree is crying with Annie. Most of the time the scenes of Annie she and the setting of the house would be so gray and dull but the color blue would always be vibrant.

Based on these scenes, I think that everytime Chris would have a memory or think about his wife and kids, blue leaves would appear in the scene. The blue Jacaranda leaves symbolizes Chris’ mourning for his family.

Children’s funeral

Although this scene is sad as it is a funeral, the elements of the scene is quite smart. The choir is wearing red and for me it symbolizes anger. Chris and Annie’s anger that their children were taken from them at such a young age. Next color in order of the seats are the ones wearing black, of course without going into so much detail black is obviously the color of death and people wear black to a funeral as a symbol for mourning. And right at the center are the coffins of Chris and Annie’s children, and if you look closely the flowers on top of the coffin are the blue Jacaranda leave/flowers. As discussed above the blue flowers are symbolized as mourning of Chris and Annie for their family. The set up of this scene is like the layers of Chris and Annie’s emotions. Deep down they feel angry because their children died and they couldn’t do anything to stop it, that is why it’s the at back of the seats, then there’s black, the symbol of mourning, this is instantly what you see outside of a person when they’re mourning, you can just see it based on their face and how they look.

#what dreams may come #robin williams #mis en scene