Mise-en-scene and The General

See handout on montage v. mise-en-scene

(with caveats as appropriate from Monaco's discussion)

Mise-en-scene

Space and time important to revealing meaning of shots -- how much of the scene is shown and how much time you have to see what's revealed in the shot.

Deep focus: objects/people in both the foreground and the background may be seen

Long shot: able to show object and surroundings. Medium and close-up shots exclude too much spatial context. Accentuates the notion that the space of the viewer and that of the subject are similar. Space is contiguous as time is continuous. Defines space, creates depth and authenticates realism.

Long take: as viewer needs time to realize the meaning of the context, to perceive and understand spatial relations, shots lasting at least several seconds are needed. If the shot is not long enough, it is harder for the audience to grasp shifting and changing relationships. Like the long shot, the long take accentuates realism. Screen time and running time are the same, creating a sense that the viewer is witnessing a real event. Resembles time, often, as it is experienced in the "real" world; time is taken up with little happening. Thus, like the long shot, the long take authenticates action in the frame. Ex. Rope. The possibilities of the long take also include creating temporal reality within an unreal space, such as the sets of musicals. Also, mood can be created (ex. Meet Me in St. Louis -- the camera stays on as the lights in the house go out one by one).

Editing tells us how to respond in many ways. If invisible or unobtrusive, it underscores the importance of plot, dialogue, lighting, and/or composition -- these are the main purveyors of meaning. When editing draws attention to itself, it's saying it has something important to announce.

Buster Keaton and The General

born Joseph Frank Keaton 1895

joined parents' vaudeville act as toddler and became the star attraction. Learned to take falls, produced The Great Stone Face. The audience laughed more when he looked serious during comic mayhem (why?) His background in vaudeville taught him to use his body as a comic instrument -- but also very well trained. Routines based on physical timing. Continued to build physical gags in film.

Act broke up when Buster was 21.

1917 -- encountered Fatty Arbuckle -- offered part in filming The Butcher Boy

Chaplin's challenge was to adapt his mimetic skills to film

Keaton -- while his pictures show his theatrical background, curiosity about the properties and possibilities of film took precedence.

Keaton united the physical with a passion for the authentic. This is shown through his use of mise-en-scene; he liked the authenticity of the long shot. Long shots guaranteed authenticity as stunts couldn't be faked if you showed the whole picture. The long shot also juxtaposes Keaton's compactness against the vastness of the physical world. The unreliable nature of the world can catch a person off guard, thwarting efforts and expectations; this is the premise of both tragedy and comedy. Keaton bows to the chaos of the physical world and then proceeds to make the unexpected work for him. Rides out pratfalls rather than fighting them. (Scene from The General -- clearing debris, topples onto cowcatcher with long, uses log to balance himself and then it is used to remove another log)

History is also part of Keaton's fondness for authenticity -- at least in The General. The story is based on William Pittenger's The Great Locomotive Chase, a reminiscence of a daring raid the author had taken part in in 1862 as a Northern soldier.

Comedy is united with drama, as the drama provides more authenticity. The story is never an excuse for comedy, gags are never just decoration. Although physical comedy involves precision, Keaton strives to efface the workmanship involved.

While love is the major subject of his work, the courtship is often mechanical. Attempts to understand and control the universe are constantly underlined by Keaton's very limitations. The physical rootedness is partly shown in the use of the machine in The General. Age of mechanical optimism in America. Machine songs proliferated and machines were often depicted as wonderful new toys. (European reaction -- fear of assembly lines, of machines in factories, where the worker is dehumanized. The American artistic response could be very different, also. See Meridel LeSueur's work, for instance) In The General, the machine -- the train -- is often humanized by the hero. The calling of engineer is heroic. Machine operates in harmony with hero (it also provides the melodramatic needs of conflict and danger -- races, chases, rescues, escapes, derailments ) Even when the operation of the machine is difficult, there's still a sense of interdependence.

In The General, the convention of the romantic triangle is altered to include the machine. Annabelle and the train -- as Johnnie's first loves -- are equated from the first. Girl and train equated in kidnaping and rescue and by hero's equally divided love. The hero and the train equated through alliance. End shot-- boy, girl, and locomotive.

Spatial line of railroad chase and retreat -- a narrative line in which ironic reversal function. Doubling of action S-->N-->S results in a re-evaluation of the hero

N

8. Burning box car left on wooden bridge

7. switch opened to dead end

6. Union troops scatter timbers on track

5. Union troops uncouple baggage car -- Johnnie shunts to another track

4. Union -- cut into baggage car to free men

3. Trains at water tower

2. Union troops remove section of track

1. Union troops cut telegraph wire

S

When the action is reversed, the hero is elevated by performance improvements. Start with maneuvering through the lines of Northern soldiers -- reminds us of the enlistment lines. Where they failed before, Johnnie's actions lead to success. Innocent and ignorant underdog becomes the crafty hero -- recreating former obstacles and doing so more effectively than the Northerners originally had. The audience also had been ahead of the underdog in the beginning, knowing the traps ahead. With the reversal, see Johnnie plotting actions we don't see the result of until the Northern soldiers do. His displays of expertise are contrasted with the bumbling of others: Annabelle and the Northern soldiers.

Story behind The General

20 men disguised as Southerners made their way from Tennessee to Atlanta and stole the train while passengers at breakfast. Object: N to Chatanooga, joining with Northern troops after destroying bridges and communications. With a few miles of their destination, however, they were overtaken by the crew of a train on a borrowed locomotive. "In The General I took that page of history and I stuck to it in all detail. I staged it exactly the way it happened," Keaton claimed.

He originally wanted the historical locations of 65 years earlier, but he had to use Oregon -- needed narrow-gauge railroad track for his 2 ancient steam engines. Even the clothes are authentic. The entire Oregon State Guard is in the movie, first playing Northern then Southern soldiers. The visual aspect of the war is caught in the scenes of the railway marshalling yard and ambush at Rock River. The locomotive is supposedly still there, immovable.

One major change, of course, from "that page of history" is Keaton changing perspective to that of the South -- he later said, "You can always make villains out of the Northerners but you cannot make a villain of the South." (?) The change in perspective allows the heroes to come out on top -- necessary for comedy.