Heathers Film Analysis

In the film Heathers, mise-en-scene, or visualization, contributes to not only the film as a whole but to describe the characters and shape the audience’s feelings. In the opening scene of the film, there is a girl putting her poofy, blonde hair up into a pony tail with a scrunchie. This initially lets the audience know that it is an older film and was probably made in the 1980’s or early 1990’s. The camera then pans out and it is three girls all with the same look in skirts and blazers playing croquet. This indicates that the girls probably come from a wealthy family. We later see them aiming the croquet ball at a girl’s head, Veronica. From this view point, Veronica is assumed to probably be picked on or bullied in the group, although the

Later at Heather’s funeral, the church is portraying more low key lighting, but when the camera switches over to view the casket of Heather, the lighting is high key giving an angelic feel to it. This happens again at the next Heather’s funeral. But this time Veronica stands in the back where the lighting is red and dark representing hell. While on the other side, Heather is portrayed as a more heavenly figure when the white light shines down on her casket. But the lighting gets much darker when Veronica is usually with J.D. Their murders need a darker lighting or else the feeling of danger would not be present in the scene. To add onto the mise-en-scene, the camera angles utilized space very well in the film, especially during the scene that took place in the woods. The camera was panned out so the audience could view the woods at its entirety and proving that the landscape is real, and now just a built set. Overall the visualization of this film helped the audience recognize the characters for who they truly were and created different feelings and moods based off of the