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Anne Marie Duff's Use Of Mise-En-Scene In The Virgin Queen

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Dramas as one of the major film genres, are usually serious, portray realistic characters, as well as, realistic life situations, settings, “and stories involving intense character development and interaction” (Dirks). Normally, drama movies and TV shows are not concentrated on action, comedy, or special-effects. They consist of many subgenres, which include, melodramas, historical dramas, but also romantic drama and form one of the largest film genres (Dirks). Being a 2005 BBC production, The Virgin Queen is a four-part miniseries, which is based on the life of Queen Elizabeth I. Anne Marie Duff embodies Queen Elizabeth I, one of Great Britain’s most popular monarchs, who portrays the real queen’s way from being “the young princess to the …show more content…

The most known technique of cinema and film is mise-en-scene. Even though we may not be able to remember certain camera movements, or cuttings, it is outstanding costumes, or very bright and dark lightings that keep stuck in our minds after seeing a movie. So basically most of our memories about films turn out to focus on mise-en-scene. Originating from French, mise en scène means “’putting into the scene” (Bordwell and Thompson 112) and it was first used in directing plays. When talking about film direction, it is utilized to depict the director’s control over what is shown in the movie frame. Mise-en-scene consists of the same aspects that are used in theatre: “setting, lighting, costume, and the behaviour of the figures. In controlling the mise-en-scene, the director stages the event for the camera” (112). Mise-en-scene can roughly be divided into four main areas: “setting, costumes and makeup, lighting, and staging” (115). The setting can be portrayed as overwhelming, or the opposite, almost reduced to nothing. So the design of a setting is able to change how we grasp the story’s action (115,117). Similar to setting, costume can bring certain functions to the movie, and the possibilities are almost countless. Costumes might be unobtrusive, but can also be very stylised and literally call for attention (119) and play crucial casual and motivic roles (122). Makeup was used to because the actors’ faces “would not register well on early film stocks” (122). Until today it has been utilized in many ways to change the appearances of the actors (122). In today’s film, makeup normally tries to be made inconspicuous, but can also highlight qualities of an actor’s face (124). Lighting is another important factor that can change the impact of an image. Having lighter and darker areas “within the frame help create the overall composition of each shot and thus guide our

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