3. Mise En Scene
Now, we get into pretentious territory; mise en scene literally means "placing on stage" and it encapsulates all the visual elements of what makes a good film. While no one has a clear cut definition of what mise en scene means, there are key aspects such as actors, costume, cinematography, lighting, set design, and even editing that directors use
intentionally to convey a certain mood or tone throughout the film. In Punch-Drunk Love, Paul Thomas Anderson uses the colors blue and red as characteristics of Barry and Lena. Barry wears a blue suit throughout the whole movie and is a rather passive aggressive character, who is shy and avoids any confrontation. Lena wears red throughout the film and is bolder than Barry; in fact, she takes the initiative to ask out Barry when he is too shy to ask her out and it's Lena who calls him as he's about to leave her apartment and tells him how she wanted to kiss him good night. Cool blue and hot red, coincidence? I think not. In There Will Be Blood, there are three scenes where Daniel Plainview is looking over maps and layouts for drilling oil. In the first scene, you can see Plainview without his trademark hat or coat, he's in a humble home that is poorly lit and rather dirty. In the second scene, Plainview is doing the same thing, but he is wearing his jacket and is in a well lit office buying land. In the final scene, Plainview is wearing his hat and jacket sitting at a bench with his oil drill in full operation in the background, and he is buying a chunk of land in California. These symmetrical scenes aren't by accident; they show Plainview's rise to power and his transformation into a cold, sinister man. In The Master, there are several mentions of Freddie Quell being like an "animal." In the first scene of the film, we see Freddie on the beach pretending to have sex with a woman figure made of sand before he masturbates into the ocean. He even has a distorted face marked by a grimace and his primary motivations are for drinks and sex. These primal desires seem to be the only things that really concern him besides his relationship with Doris. When Freddie is being processed, he lets out a fart and laughs, to which Lancaster Dodd says, "Silly animal." Lancaster tries to break him much like a horse throughout the film and tries to control him as if he can train him to be a normal human, which proves impossible for Freddie. Lancaster's ideology revolves around the belief that "man is not an animal," but Freddie seems to be exactly that. Everything PTA does is intentional and The Master is no exception; every shot counts and everything in the frame is there for a reason. The Master was a film that was truly made in the editing room as the final cut differs quite a bit from the script. Certain scenes in the script weren't in the film and certain scenes in the film were not scripted, and I'm tempted to think PTA may have winged this one and got away with it, but I seriously doubt it.