A Connection Between Mise en Scène and Imagery

Mise en Scène directly translates in French to "putting of the scene". It is essentially the framing, decor, staging of the action, and lighting of most often a single frame of a film, although it is also used to refer to how these aspects have appeared in general throughout a whole film. When analyzing a single frame of a film, the aspects of mise en scène can be used to infer to what is happening in the scene. In some films, this is easier to see than in others. For example, Kar Wai Wong's film In the Mood for Love can be paused at almost any frame and be analyzed by observing the aspects of mise en scène to get a sense of the mood of the moment in the film and at least make an assumption of what is happening. Here is one frame from the film.

 

By using this frame as an example, we can look at the body language of the characters (staging of the action) to assume what may be happening between them in the situation. Even if a person hasn't seen the movie before, he or she can guess that the woman is distressed and that the man seems to be in deep thought. By looking at the framing, we see that the man is much smaller in relation to the frame than the woman is. We are actually only seeing his reflection, and the mirror may even he seen as resembling a thought bubble, which may give the idea that the woman is "reflecting" on the man's actions and his relation to her. Because she is in front of us and taking up nearly half of the frame, she dominates the whole image and the viewer is more drawn to her, so they might even side with her in the situation, whereas the man may not even be noticed in the mirror and we only see half of his face. To analyze lighting we can also see that she seems to be under a spotlight, because she is placed directly below the hanging lamp. Then we can continue to do this sort of analysis with the other visual aspects of the shot.
Although the phrase mise en scene is typically used when talking about cinema, perspective can be thought of as the equivalent for literature of the framing of shots of films. The book that I chose to read independently outside of class was Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. In Kafka on the Shore, perspective is essential in characterization as well as which character the reader will be more drawn to. As soon as the character Nakata is introduced, each chapter of the novel alternates from revolving around him to revolving around Kafka. Each chapter in the novel in which Nakata is the main character is told in third person by an outside narrator, and each chapter in which Kafka Temura is the main character is told in first person, so Kafka is seen as the main character, where all of the events that play out in the novel are related to his situation, but Nakata is equally sympathized with because the chapters he is in revolve around him and Kafka is not even present, although they are told in third person.
In one situation in one of Nakata's chapters "a huge, black dog suddenly appeared from out of the thicket, silently lumbering forward. From where Nakata sat, the beast looked more like a calf than a dog... Nakata didn't know much about breeds of dogs, but one glance told him this was the vicious variety, or at least one that could turn mean if it had to." In the first sentence in this paragraph, we have a description of what is happening, from the second and third, it switches to Nakata's reaction, and the third sentence actually matches the way Nakata refers to himself when he is speaking because he refers to himself in third person. Although Nakata's chapters are told in third person, there are moments in which the reader can almost see into Nakata's thoughts, although not directly because he is not describing them for himself. Just like framing was used to better establish the characters' roles in the situation shown in the frame from In the Mood for Love above, perspective is used to establish characters' roles in Kafka on the Shore.