Staging: Movement and Performance”
The director may also control the behavior of various figures in the mise-en-scene. Here the word “figures” covers a wide range of possibilities, since the figure may represent a person but could also be an animal (Lassie, the donkey Balthasar, Donald Duck), robot (R2D2 and CP3O), an object (clicking balls in The Hudsucker Proxy), or even a pure shape (abstract film Parabola). Mise-en-scene allows such figures to express feelings and thoughts; it can also dynamize them to create various kinetic patterns.
In cinema, facial expression and movement are not restricted to human figures. For example, in science fiction and fantasy films, monsters and robots may be given expressions and gestures through the technique of “stop-action” (also called “stop motion”). Typically, a small-scale model is made with articulated parts. In filming, it is posed as desired, and a frame or two is shot. Then the figure is adjusted slightly and another frame or two is exposed, and so on. The result on screen is a continuous, if sometimes jerky, movement. The horrendous onslaught of ED-209, the crime-fighting robot in Robocop, was created by means of a 12-inch miniature filmed in stop-action. (A full scale but unmoving model was also built for long shots.) Stop-action can be also used for more abstract and unrealistic purposes, as in Jan Švankmajer’s Dimensions of Dialogue.
Although abstract shapes and animated figures can become important in the mise-en-scene, the most intuitively familiar cases of figure expression and movement are actors playing roles. Like other aspects of mise-en-scene, the performance is created in order to be filmed. An actor’s performance consists of visual elements (appearance, gestures, facial expressions) and sound (voice, effects). At times, of course, an actor may contribute only visual aspects, as in the silent era. Similarly, an actor’s performance may sometimes exist only on the sound track of the film; in A Letter to Three Wives, Celeste Holm’s character, Addie Ross, speaks a narration over the images but never appears on screen.
We can consider performance along two dimensions. A performance will be more or less “individualized”, and it will be more or less “stylized”. Often we have both in mind when we think of a realistic performance; it creates a unique character, and it does not seems too exaggerated or too underplayed. Marlon Brando’s portrayal of Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather is quite individualized. Brando gives the Godfather a complex psychology, a distinctive appearance and voice, and a string of facial expressions and gestures that make him significantly different from the standard image of a gang boss. As for stylization, Brando keeps Don Vito in the middle range. His performance is neither flat or flamboyant; he isn’t impassive, but he doesn’t chew the scenery either.
But this middle range, which we often identify with realistic performance, isn’t the only option. On the individuality scale, films may create broader, more anonymous “types”. Classical Hollywood narrative was built on ideologically stereotyped roles: the Irish cop on the boat, the black servant, the Jewish pawnbroker, the wisecracking waitress or showgirl. Through “typecasting”, actors were selected and directed to conform to type. Often, however, skillful performers gave these conventions a freshness and vividness. In the Soviet cinema of the 1920’s, several directors used a similar principle, called “typage”. Here the actor was expected to portray a typical representative of a social class or historical movement.
By examining how an actor’s performance functions in the context of the overall film, we can also notice how acting cooperates with other film techniques. For instance, the actor is always a graphic element in the film, but some films underline this fact. In The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Conrad Veidt’s dancelike portrayal of the somnambulist Cesare makes him blend in with the graphic elements of the setting. As we shall see in our examination of the history of film styles, the graphic design of this scene in Caligari typifies the systematic distortion characteristics of German Expressionism.