Caroline Downer
14 November 2012
ENG 281 – Group Three
Analytical Movie Review
Group Four’s Film, titled “Oh God…No” was able to mislead
the audience. This group was able to use
mise-en-scene and cinematography to develop suspense and intrigue within the
viewers. Since this was a silent film, how
the elements of cinematography were used must have been carefully considered and
used in order to help tell the story, without words.
The group’s use of mis-en-scene allowed the viewer to be
able to relate to the characters and the familiar situation. The setting was a very realistic setting as
just an apartment in a town; a very average interior. The opening scene presents very bland, white
walls which suggests nothing out of the ordinary and makes it seem as though
this apartment will be just like all the others. The interior has decorations in it like most
apartments do that suggest a very warm and inviting environment, not grounds
for a murder. The costumes as part of the mise-en-scene in this film also seem
like clothes the ordinary person would wear.
The girls are dressed as average college students not hinting to the
audience that anything strange will soon happen. The lighting throughout this film is very
prominent and they exploit the use of natural light towards the beginning,
representing a bright average day with seemingly nothing to fear. The cat seems like an innocent animal at the
start of the film because it is the first character seen in the first few scenes,
so the audience knows where it is and what it is doing at the beginning of each
scene, leaving no room for suspicion. For
example when The Cat Sitter is about to water the plants, the cat is just
sitting on the coffee table minding its own business when that scene opens,
which makes the audience think that the cat is innocent. However, as the scenes move on, the lighting
is not as bright and the cat is not always the first thing seen on the screen,
so that the audience does not know what the cat is doing and where it is. In the use of mise-en-scene, this cat for
example, was a key addition to the film because it is different from other
films and creates another sense of suspense since humans cannot easily relate
to cats and do not know what they’re thinking.
Since the cat is a darker cat, when the scenes begin to get darker, as
when The Cat Sitter is sleeping, the cat seems to slowly appear out of the
darkness, now creating an ominous feeling and therefore a sense of suspense. The use of mise-en-scene develops the story
as an ordinary day, but then slowly changes to something more foreboding.
Some elements of cinematography are used in this film to create
suspense and intrigue to cause the audience to be anxious and unaware of what
will happen next. The most prominent
example of the shot creating suspense for the viewers is in the scene when The
Cat Sitter is sleeping and she wakes up to find the cat sitting very close and
staring at her. It is dark and she is
sleeping. The shot only includes The Cat
Sitter in the frame which does not allow the audience to see what is beyond the
camera or “behind the camera.” The camera
angle is above her, as if someone is watching her. The combination of these elements instills a
sense of the unknown. This is used just
as the scene in Psycho when Detective Arbogast is walking up the stairs inside
the house before he is murdered. The
audience is looking at him, unaware of what’s in front of him/“behind the
camera” or offscreen space. This Psycho
scene referred to is evident in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvPqSRLO5Ms.
In the scene where the door becomes
locked after The Cat Sitter is gardening, the camera focuses on the cat with a
close-up, allowing the audience to be suspicious of the cat and the locked
door. This creates another element of
suspense, in wondering when the cat will strike again. The very end of the movie uses a long shot on
the characters of The Cat Sitter’s “friend” and the cat. This long shot is able to incorporate the
surrounding elements of the scene which are very normal. This contrast between the normal setting and
the suspicious characters creates more of a sense of intrigue in the audience
wondering if those characters really did conspire against The Cat Sitter.
The combination of mise-en-scene and cinematography used
in this film allows the audience to at first relate with the realistic scene of
an average, happy day, and then to gradually feel anxious and in suspense. The mise-en-scene worked more to create the
familiar setting of a normal apartment at the beginning, while the use of
things such as lighting, camera angle, and camera distance began to change and
caused the feeling of suspense and intrigue to set in.
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