Mise-en-scène

 Learning something new never disappoints, something yours truly discoverd when reading about the concept of Mise-en-scène and how it applies, in this case, to the art of film. :)

Mise-en-scène is every element that’s in the shot — visual and auditory

Mise-en-scène includes framing, lighting, set design, blocking and sound

The sum of your mise-en-scène amounts to your artistic style as a filmmaker

Possibly the vaguest definition of anything ever comes from Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in his opinion on the case of “Jacobellis v Ohio.” He was unable to define what would make a movie obscene and thus not protected under the First Amendment. He wrote: “I know it when I see it.” This shoulder-shrugging definition has kept lawyers and artists pushing the limits. Nobody has known the exact dimensions of obscenity for nearly 50 years. 

Mise-en-scène is similarly undefined. Only a few years later, film studies professor Brian Henderson said in his essay, “The Long Take,” that mise-en-scène is “cinema’s grand undefined term.” He begins by listing directors who are masters at it. He included masters like Murnau and Orson Welles. However, he went on to write “one does not lightly venture a definition of mise-en-scène… of which each person, when examined, reveals a different sense and meaning…”

The distinctive mise-en-scène of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

(Germany, 1920) features jagged architecture.

To yours truly, Kubrick, Wells and Lean come to mind when thinking on how mise-en-scène applies in the making of truly great cinema.