ABSTRACT
In the theater, the director positions actors on a carefully designed set, organizing the on-stage
space. This staging of the action was dubbed, in French, mise-en-scene. The mise-en-scene
of a play, then, is all the physical objects on the stage (props, furniture, walls, actors)
and the arrangement of those objects to present effectively the play’s narrative and
themes. “Mise-en-scene,” the phrase, was adapted by film studies in the 1960s and broadly
used and sometimes misused. For some film critics the term carried almost mystical
connotations, while for others it vaguely described any component of visual style. For
our purposes, we will adopt a much narrower understanding of the term. Mise-en-scene
will here refer to the staging of the action for the camera. Mise-en-scene thus includes
all the objects in front of the camera and their arrangement by directors and their minions.
