Lottie Archer

UAL Unit 12
How has mise en scene in conflict films developed through the years?

A great example of effective mise-en-scene in a war film from the early 1900s
is “All Quiet on the Western Front”. The film was one of the first of its kind,
delivering an anti-war message, as well as risking backlash by showing the
devastation through the eyes of the German soldiers. This was especially
unforeseen as unknown to Lewis Milestone and his team; Hitler was already
beginning his reign of terror. It was particularly gruesome for the time and the
special effects were advanced for their time as well as the locations used for
filming working effectively to add to the horrors. The story follows a group of
young boys who are still only school age as they enlist to fight in what would
ultimately be known as the Great War. Lew Ayre, who played our protagonist
Paul was but 20 years old when filming took place, however we can tell that they
are meant to be younger in the film due to their costumes at the beginning of
the film. The costumes are meant to be school uniforms which could range them
up to 18 years old, but the way that each of the boys wears them combined with
their overly chipper attitudes makes them seem childlike and naïve. They boys
initially jump at the chance to join the war but after seeing the horrors first
hand their spirit begins to break. The image below shows the boys initial
emotions towards joining the war.

Despite winning an Oscar for the best picture in 1930, the film was not well
received globally. People from the US and the UK thought that displaying the
German soldiers as innocent and seeing their struggle was inappropriate after
the first world war and the devastation that entailed. Despite the film showing
them in a good light the film was hated in Germany as well, the Germans felt
that the film made them seem weak and soft and mocked their loss. At the
same time Hitler was preparing for a second war so a film showing the true
nature of the war and delivering an anti-war message discouraged the German
people when Hitler needed them to be enthusiastic about combat.
We can see how dramatically films subjecting war change in not even 50 years
from 1930 to 1979 by next looking at the film “Apocalypse Now”, directed by
Francis Ford Coppola. It is based around the Vietnam War which had concluded
only 4 years prior to the film being made. The Vietnam War was often described
as the first war to be shot in colour and I think we can see this quite clearly in
what could be considered Coppola’s riskiest film. He made this film outside of
the studio system under the banner of his independent production company,
American Zoetrope and $31 million out of his own pocket despite the approved
budget being only $12 million. Not only was the film considered controversial
due to American citizens still being sore after the loss of loved ones for a less
than favourable outcome, but the film also pushed a lot of boundaries in the
cinematographic community with its experimental approach to the art. The
opening sequence begins with a seemingly tranquil forest with no sound behind it
bar the fluttering of a helicopter. after a long introduction the forest then
erupts into a large blaze of fire after what we can only assume was a napalm
bomb being released into the picture, the fire takes over our screen as
helicopters begin to fly in front of the trees. The image fades revealing our
protagonists face upside down wearing a distant expression and soon after a
ceiling fan which suggests to us that it was all our protagonist reminiscing on
the horrors of war he has seen. the colour in the scene is powerful, the trees
initially held a pastel vibe making them seem calm until the burst of hot orange
that was the fire tinged the scene with the colour reminiscent of hell. we can
see throughout the film that moments of destruction and outrage a more
brightly lit and hold a more vivid colour then moments of peace. this is to bring
attention to these moments and the monstrosities not only in the film, but in
the war itself.

While it’s obvious that the film is, at its root, a war film, it definitely has
aspects which show us as an audience that it also falls into many other genres,
most notably a neo-western. This point is backed by the character Kilgore,
played by Robert Duval. He could be seen to represent a classic cowboy with his
iconic hat that we see him sport right the way through the film, the costume is
a big factor in the film as the uniform of the soldiers changes ever so slightly
at each monumental event, each soldiers uniform becomes slightly more
dishevelled as they work their way through. Also, the war itself seems quite
western as we have the common trope of the white American on foreign ground
attacking the natives with heavy equipment, and we see, at points, the natives
fighting back with only spears and homemade arrows, which was typically the
weapon of the Native Americans in typical western films. This use of props is
most likely one of Coppola’s ways of showing his disdain for the war, it shows
how American troops came into Vietnam all guns blazing despite it not even
being their war to begin with. The story also follows a man on a journey which is
a common trope of spaghetti westerns. We know that ‘Apocalypse Now’ was
based on a novella written in 1899 by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad,
called Heart of darkness. The writers of the screen play for the film; John
Milius, Michael Herr and Francis Ford Coppola, paid homage to this by keeping
the name Kurtz for the antagonist and having Marlon Brando deliver the line
“The Horror, The Horror”; this line was taken directly from the character Kurtz
in ‘Heart of Darkness’. ‘Heart of Darkness’ gave the idea of the journey but
didn’t actually contain anything about a war, Coppola just chose to use the story
amidst the Vietnam war as it made for a compelling film at the time. It’s a
possibility that he did this to show what a huge proportion of the country were
thinking, maybe he did it to show how futile the war was and how it caused more
pain and suffering than it did to fix anything however he never openly admitted
what the film was intended for. Especially with the end and how it didn’t have a
conclusive ending, Willard completed his task, but he went away more broken
than when he started with nothing, it could even be argued that Willard, whilst
he is a physical character, that he is represented by the boat, he lost parts
along the way being more and more broken down every time a member of the
boat crew was killed, and as he left Kurtz’s compound, he grabbed that final
piece of him represented by Lance.
Moving to the early 2000s, specifically 2006, it would be good to look at the
Spanish-Mexican film Pans Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro. It is based on a
young girl living in 1944 during the Spanish Civil War. There are many aspects
that make ‘Pans Labyrinth’ an effective piece of film but particularly the mis-
en-scene that is used. It would likely be argued that the most creative and
meaningful use of mis-en-scene in the film would be the lighting as Del Toro
uses a very diverse array of colours to represent different places, times and
emotions. The main aspect of the lighting is the colour used. The main three
colours we see used are: red; this is used to show fantasy sequences and scenes
in which Ophelia is happy and the scenes which are based in the fantasy world
hence why she is seen wearing a bright, ornate red and gold dress in the final
scene, blue; which is used to show scenes in which Vidal is in charge (especially
as his costumes are all grey and blue), scenes based in her “real life”, green;
finally green is used in natural circumstances such as when Ophelia is in the
woods at the beginning it is also the colour worn by the rebels and Mercedes
which shows how they are the so called “natural side of the war”, the correct
side in Del Toros eyes. This works well to build on the effects of the mise-en-
scene on the audience as when one of these colours appear we know exactly
what the scene is about and know how to feel for the characters involved in the
scene. There are a few times where we see this rule broken however,
specifically at the beginning of the film where Ophelia meets Pan, the colour
scheme is blue despite it being a fantasy scene. It could be argued that this is
because Ophelia is unaware of the role she is supposed to fill and therefor it is
less of a fantasy and more linked to real life. It could definitely be said that
the lighting creates the most meaning in the film as it is ones of the most
obvious key elements. The lighting is a great conveyor of emotion and the
costumes, props and sets all create an amazing environment but in order to
understand how far they create meaning we have to consider other parts of the
film that also create meaning. We could also look at would be the use of
costumes and props in certain scenes, particularly the scene after Ophelia had
encountered the giant frog, she stands outside the tree she had just exited,
book in hand in a dress both of which could have very definitely been inspired by
‘Alice in wonderland’, this hints towards the childlike naivety that is prevalent in
both ‘Pans Labyrinth’ and ‘Alice in Wonderland’. This makes sense considering
Del Toro describes the film as a parable influenced by fairy tales. For films
based significantly earlier than they were made costume and location are so
important to make sure that the audience can put the pieces together to know
when the film is based. The previous films we have discussed were made not too
long after the event they are based on occurred and therefore this hasn’t been
so key as the acting, locations and atmosphere would all have been pretty
accurate to the time. The film was made 62 years after the war it was based
upon and therefor filmmaking has progressed far enough to be able to capture
the essence of the time, recreating an event like this needs to be done with a
sense of discretion as it could be seen to belittle the event if it is done
incorrectly.

Ultimately, we can see that as the gap between the films release date and when
the event happened gets bigger, the level of mise-en-scene used in the film
increases significantly. But also as the film industry grew and we acquired the
ability to add special effects and advanced lighting techniques the films became
more and more accurate to the time and continued to build our suspension of
disbelief. Mis-en-scene, like cinematography is an aspect of film that can only
ever improve as we continue to develop our techniques. These three films were
only made over a span of 75 years, which in the grand scheme of things is not a
huge amount of time but the technical advances between “All Quiet on the
Western Front” and “Pan’s Labyrinth” are astronomical.

This paper has been beneficial to my FMP research as I was looking to do a film
with a conflict, however my idea for my film isn’t a physical war-based conflict.
It is instead meant to be an emotional conflict, a conflict of the heart. I felt
that learning about the mis en scene used in obvious conflict films will help me
to get this across. If I am able to use the same techniques in my film to create
tension I will hopefully be able to make the emotional conflict feel real.