Mise-en-scene in 'Igby Goes Down'

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How Do Mise-en-scene and Performance Create Meaning and Generate Response in the Opening Scene of Igby Goes Down?

 Igby Goes Down is a film made in 2002, directed by Burr Steers and starring Kieran Culkin in the lead role. This movie’s cynical and oppressed attitude is expressed to the audience using a variety of mise-en-scene techniques, to wordlessly explain the true intentions of the characters, who are usually caught up in a carefully maintained façade. Due to this, the actors portraying these characters have utilised many performance techniques to subtly convey true meaning and to generate emotional and intellectual response in the audience.

The establishing scene of the film is the chronological end of the events within it, and so it offers a great deal about the story through mise-en-scene and performance. The shot opens on a grand, polished mahogany door, with gold gilding and a golden doorknob. This immediately shows the audience that the setting of this scene is one of luxury and grandeur, and that its inhabitants are most likely very wealthy – from this it is possible to easily infer aspects of the plot and characters, as it is common in films to have such upper-class individuals display obvious signs of self-repression and addictions to prescribed drugs, a ‘socially acceptable addiction’. The shot pans from the door, into the room it belongs to, where we see Susan Sarandon lying on a large, antique-looking bed. It is now obvious that the inhabitants of this particular household are wealthy, so much so that they afford to have extravagant tissue dispensers, adorned with the family’s crest. The image of a rich, American family is built up in the audiences mind, which allows them to gain certain expectations of what the story will be about, and what the characters will be like by relying on previous movies they have seen.

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Either side of the bed the audience can see two, distinctly different lamps, and due to the size of the bed and the age of Susan Sarandon it is easy to assume she lies in a marital bed. These two lamps symbolise the differences between Susan Sarandon’s character and her husband, so much so that they are unable to even choose a uniform lamp to have in their room. This hints towards deep-seated marital problems that audiences have come to expect from similar characters in both film and literature. The audience at this point are being made to ponder on ...

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