Mise En Scene In A Voyage To The Moon

Kishan Patel

Art 2901

Exam 1

Essay 1 (100 points) Early films by Edison and Lumiere involved very simple cinematography, little to no editing and simple realist mise en scene. However, Georges Melies, a theater proprietor and an amateur magician, laid foundation for the new generation films. In A Voyage to the Moon, he becomes first person to introduce a sci-fi film. In this paper I hypothesize that A Voyage to the Moon was most innovative in cinematography and editing. Although mise en-scene was the main focus of the film, I hypothesize that mise en scene wasn’t as innovative as the other two. As mentioned earlier, mise en scene made A Voyage to the Moon easy to understand and follow along. In the first scene of the film, this power

In this film, Kuleshov effect is the centerpiece of editing, which Eisenstein employs. The classic example of this is the “Odessa Steps scene” in the movie. The scene starts of with women and children waving at the sailors leaving, to illustrate the idea that these were the people that would have been least affected. Suddenly, the Czar’s soldiers march towards the people and start shooting. As Fabe suggests that, “Eisenstein specifically focuses on the people who would have the most difficulty escaping from danger on stairs. Thus the first person we see fleeing is a man without legs… soon after, a one-legged man on crutches appear…interspersed with long shots of the crowds of people fleeing” (Fabe 25). This scene is aimed at creating a sense of horror in spectator’s mind due to this extremely horrible event and it is aimed at criticising the Czar’s cruel government, which is what makes it modern. The realist aspect of this scene is that all of this is a possibility especially during 20th