Mise-en-scene of The Shining

The Shining was made in 1980 it is a psychological horror and was directed by Stanley kurbrick. The film starred Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance and Shelley Duvall as Wendy Torrance. There is a lot of mise-en-scene throughout the scene, I am analysing part of one of the most memorable scenes in the film.

The first shot in the clip is of the outside of a hotel, it shows a dark and isolated area which sets the scene and denotes that it is night time which makes the whole clip more sinister. When the male character first appears he is lit from above, which emphasises the psychotic expression on his face. The lighting is hard with a lot of dark shadows which connotes that something bad is going to happen. The male character is wearing red which connotes death, blood and horror. This indicates to the audience straight away that he is the perpatrator in the film. The first speech that is spoken in the scene is the male character reciting the nursery rhyme “three little pigs” this is very strange and makes the character appear mentally disturbed and frightening.

The female character is locked in the bathroom trying to escape from the male character; she is in a room which is all white which connotes her innocence and purity. She is also wearing light colours which further emphasises this. The light in the bathroom is very bright which is in contrast to the darkness of the hall way where the male character is. The female character picks up a knife and as she does this the camera tracks her movement, this adds to the fear in the scene because she is frantic and scared it also involves the audience in the scene and makes them feel like they are there living it, which makes the scene more realistic to the viewer. The performance of the female actress is very good, her facial expression are full or anguish and terror which add to the suspense and horror of the scene. She is also crying and screaming throughout the clip which only escalates further the sheer terror the character is going through. Her screaming is shrill and loud which denotes the fear she is feeling, it is her good acting in this part of the clip that makes it all the more believable as if it could actually be happening.

When the male character uses the axe to start smashing through the door to get to the female character, there is realisation for her and audience that he is going to get to her and attack her. The extra digetic sound in the clip is a high pitched whistling noise that impacts the viewer because it is like a continuation of the females characters screams so it makes the scene all the more scary. The women is clearly terrified and she pleads with him to stop, she has the knife in her hand and she tries to protect herself by covering up her face and turning away from what is happening, this makes her acting all the more believable as if she was actually about to be attacked.

The main camera angle used throughout the clip is a mid-shot, this is used because it shows what the characters are doing but also shows their facial expressions clearly. When the male character has made a hole in the door and the camera shows him smashing through it from inside the bathroom it shows the darkness breaking through to the light which connotes the evil reaching the good.

Then the male character sticks his head through the gap in the door at first the camera angle is an over the shoulder but then it goes to a close up of his face which reveals his evil expression. He then says “here’s Johnny!” which causes the female character to become even more frightened and scream more. The male character then reaches inside the door to open it, but the female character slashes his hand with the knife. There is a good use of fake blood at this moment in the clip; the male character then screams which denotes the pain he is feeling from the wound, then the clip ends. The props in the clips are used really well, as they make the clip seem more real and they also give the audience a clear sense of what is occuring in the film.