realized mise-en-scène plays a crucial role in creat-
ing the illusion of naturalness that encourages our
enjoyment of movies as spectators. But we must
consciously resist that illusion if we hope to graduate
from being spectators to being students of film,
people who look at movies rather than just watch
them. Looking at mise-en-scène critically does not
mean taking the fun away from movies. You may
still have as much fun as you like with (or is the
better word in?) The Matrix(1999) while realizing
that everything you see, hear, and feel in it was put
there for a purpose.
Let’s look closely at two movies in which mise-
en-scène produces a rich viewing experience: Tim
Burton’s Sleepy Hollow(1999) and Sam Mendes’s
American Beauty(1999).
Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow
Tim Burton is a director who has created imagina-
tive fantasies that reveal great visual ingenuity and
a wicked sense of humor. His movies are always a
treat to look at, and they offer abundant opportuni-
ties for analyzing their design and mise-en-scène,
even when these aspects do not always serve the
narrative well. Among his most successful movies
are Batman(1989), Edward Scissorhands(1990), Ed
Wood(1994), Sleepy Hollow(1999), Planet of the Apes
(2001), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005),
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
(2007), and Alice in Wonderland(2010).
The highly stylized reimagining of Washington
Irving’s tale “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
(1819–20) so totally transforms its source that, in
effect, it leaves the text behind; it emphasizes
instead the director’s stunning vision and his pro-
duction team’s meticulous realization of that vision.
The story concerns the efforts of Ichabod Crane
(Johnny Depp), a forensic scientist, to solve three
murders in the village of Sleepy Hollow where the
victims were beheaded. The ending is so muddled
that we don’t really know if he succeeds, but at least
he escapes with his head. The movie’s unified design
plan and mise-en-scène create the correct times,
places, and moods—according to Burton’s vision—
and go beyond the superficial to reveal characters,
provide the appropriate settings for the extraordi-
nary action of the film, and develop its themes.
Burton’s overall goal in production design seems to
have been to make this film as weird and scary as
possible. Verisimilitude has nothing to do with it.
Although Washington Irving’s story describes the
valley of Sleepy Hollow as a place filled with rippling
brooks, cheerful birdcalls, and unchanging tranquil-
ity, Burton’s version of Sleepy Hollow is dark and
foreboding from the start. The visual presentation
of the village is clearly inspired by the design vocab-
ularies of horror and gothic movies.
Such movies include James Whale’s Franken-
stein(1931), which ends with an angry mob trapping12Mise-en-scène creates Sleepy Hollow’s unified look
[1] Sleepy Hollow’s primary palette, tending toward slate-gray
and bluish-gray, and the overcast, forbidding look used in
most of the outdoor shots enhance our sense of the mystery
and danger lurking within the village. [2] Punctuating this
overall grayness are magnificent homages to classic horror
films, including a windmill straight out of James Whale’s
Frankenstein(1931).LOOKING AT MISE-EN-SCÈNE 211