Explain why mise en scène is more complicated in film than it is in live theater

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: The ideal answer should include:
1. Originally a French theatrical term meaning “placing on stage,” the phrase refers to the arrangement of all the visual elements of a theatrical production within a given playing area—the stage.
2. No matter what the confines of the stage may be, its mise en scène is always in three dimensions. Objects and people are arranged in actual space, which has depth as well as height and width. This space is also a continuation of the same space that the audience occupies, no matter how much a theater director tries to suggest a separate “world” on the stage.
3. Mise en scène in film is a blend of the visual conventions of the live theater with those of painting.
4. Like the stage director, the filmmaker arranges objects and people within a given three-dimensional space. But once this arrangement is photographed, it’s converted into a two-dimensional image of the real thing.
5. The space in the “world” of the movie is not the same as that occupied by the audience. Only the image exists in the same physical area, like a picture in an art gallery.
6. Mise en scène in the movies resembles the art of painting in that an image of formal patterns and shapes is presented on a flat surface and is enclosed within a frame. But cinematic mise en scène is also a fluid choreographing of visual elements that are constantly in flux.