This week we looked at the importance of Mise-en-Scène, and how powerful just the staging of a scene can be in conveying a lot of information to the viewer. I myself love dissecting cinema to what may seem its unimportant features, so this lecture was very enjoyable to me and gave me new language to use when analysing such content. I also was reminded of a few breakdowns of recent cinema and tv series that were met with negative reviews, and how a common question when breaking down specific scenes and aspects was “Why is this even there?”. While I’m sure it isn’t a new thing by any means, it is interesting that, even to many on a subconscious level, the lack of thought put into the Mise-en-Scène can convey a messy and empty narrative.
One of the series I’m considering researching, Andor (2022) is often compared with its close predecessor in the Disney+ Star Wars series collection, Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022). While many different people have compared the two in many different ways, the key theme everyone seems to land on is that Andor goes above and beyond with its Mise-en-Scène. Every element of every shot feels deliberate and immaculately crafted to convey the vast complexities of the story without needing to hand feed the viewer the information on a metaphorical platter. Obi-Wan Kenobi on the other hand is heavily criticised both for its hand feeding narrative style, and the senseless elements to most if not all of the scenes, both pulling the viewer from any potential immersion in the story.
A wonderful, and quite simple in how specific it is, example of this I found was in a YouTube video I watched a while ago by ‘Master Samwise’, who does commentary on many different series and movies. In his video titled ‘Andor vs Obi-Wan Kenobi – A Scene Comparison (Part 1: Action)’, he breaks down the reasons why the two fighting scenes from both series feel so different. From Andor, he focuses on a scene from episode 6. He breaks down how every small movement during the fight from all characters, whether the main character or background characters we’ve never met, makes perfect sense for how these characters would act in such a perilous situation. There was a specific moment that, when rewatching the video after this weeks lecture, struck me as astounding Mise-en-Scène. In a shot that doesn’t hold a huge weight in such a hectic scene, one of the characters draws back into cover, there’s a short pause, and then a blaster shot hit where he was out of cover previously. This attention to detail is what subconsciously mounts in the viewer’s mind, growing into anticipation and suspense, because we see all of these small details that tell us this is a real fight with real consequences. We see a character realistically, with his background, reacting to a threat as if it is such. I don’t believe the creator of the video mentions it at any point, but I can almost envision the creators of Andor literally mapping this scene out for every single character we see on screen, and planning their movements according to how a fight like the one we’re shown would realistically go down. They had some characters with a backstory and personalities, and each acted within those confines, for some leading to their deaths.
While I don’t think it would be fair to say Obi-Wan Kenobi didn’t have such planning, it either wasn’t done equally to all characters shown on screen (leaving a feeling of “untouchable main character”), or it wasn’t done effectively. I can also see the potential that the lack of attention to the background characters was purposeful in an attempt to make the main characters look cool and make the viewer feel excited, an attempt at, as the video creator perfectly labels it, sceptical. Yet by not giving those enemy character’s actions weight, as Andor does so well in this scene and across the series, it doesn’t give the payoff they might have been hoping for in Obi-Wan Kenobi for many members of it’s audience.
