Far from Heavenuses mise-en-scène to reinforce
characters and themes The surface perfection of Cathy
Whitaker (Julianne Moore, center) is reflected in her annual
New Year’s Eve party: the house is tastefully decorated, the
guests are well dressed, and Cathy is a lovely hostess. But
the party is all hers, because her husband, Frank (Dennis
Quaid, sitting), is already drunk.
(^2) Qtd. in Léon Barsacq, Caligari’s Cabinet and Other Grand Illu-
sions: A History of Film Design, rev. and ed. Elliott Stein, trans.
Michael Bullock (Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1976),
p. vii.
(^3) For a superb analysis of the mise-en-scène and a fascinating
account of the set’s design and construction, see James
Sanders, Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies(New York:
Knopf, 2001), pp. 228–241.
small two-story house. An alley next to the house
leads to the street beyond. It’s located in the middle
of New York City and, except for the alley, is iso-
lated from the hubbub of street traffic. Within the
first minutes, we have learned that this enclosed
space embodies a world of differences: different
structures, different tenants, and different lives.
The tenants perceive that they live in a world of
privacy, acting as if no one were watching; but
(through Jefferies’s eyes) we see them engaged in
such private activities as shaving, getting out of
bed, and dressing. Jefferies sees that in this
enclosed space there are hidden, subtle clues that
help him to solve the murder mystery at the heart
of Hitchcock’s narrative.^3
Italian director Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard
(1963; production designer: Mario Garbuglia) is an
example of a film whose mise-en-scène perfectly
complements its narrative and themes. The movie
explores the gradual submergence and transforma-
tion of the aristocracy in Sicily after the unification
of Italy, in 1861. More than anyone else in his family,
Prince Don Fabrizio Salina (Burt Lancaster) makes
sincere efforts to adjust to the emerging middle
class, but at the same time he continues to enjoy
the rituals he has always loved—masses in the
family chapel, lavish banquets, travel to his other
houses, and fancy balls. The 45-minute ball
sequence (out of 185 minutes total), in fact, is the
movie’s set piece. Its length makes it more or less
extraneous to the overall sequence of events in the
movie, but its gorgeous surface beautifully reveals
the social change beneath.
Visconti immerses us in the atmosphere of the
ball: the grand rooms in the candlelit palazzo; the
formalities of arrival and welcome; the ladies in ele-
gant gowns and gentlemen in white-tie or military
attire; the champagne and the food; the music; the
room with a dozen chamber pots; the excitement of
the young and the boredom of some of their elders;
the endless gossiping and flirting; and the dancing
movie’s narrative and themes, we may not con-
sciously notice it; it simply feels natural. French
director René Clair said that the highest level of
artistic achievement in movie design is reached
when “the style relates so closely to that of the
work itself that the audience pays no special atten-
tion to it.”^2 That description fits the memorable
Greenwich Village setting of Alfred Hitchcock’s
Rear Window(1954; art directors: Joseph MacMil-
lan Johnson and Hal Pereira). As the title credits
roll, three bamboo shades rise, as if they were a
curtain to reveal the stage beyond—an almost
completely enclosed backyard space. The mise-en-
scène is tightly controlled, and everything is pho-
tographed from the stationary point of view of L. B.
Jefferies (James Stewart), a photographer who is
sidelined with a broken leg in a wheelchair. As the
camera next pans across the backyard in the early
morning, we see the backs of the various struc-
tures that surround the open space: a glass-walled
studio, a couple of brick apartment houses, and a
174 CHAPTER 5MISE-EN-SCÈNE