Essay Plan

Essay plan

Q: a comparison of two films/programmes/games with respect to one the following: narrative structure, mise-en-scene, camera, editing, acting/stars, sound, interactivity.


Films: Gladiator (2000, director Ridley Scott) and The Last Samurai (2003, director Edward Zwick)

Mise-en-scene
Gladiator is set during the time of the Roman Empire whereas The Last Samurai is set during the 1780s in Japan.
The landscaping is vital to both films because they are set in specific periods in time so they have to appear accurate in what is involved in the scenes.
Gladiator does this using many computer-generated scenes of buildings such as the Colosseum, and the other grand architecture of the time.
Last Samurai produces landscaping of fields, traditional Japanese homes and authentic casting.
Costumes are vital in both films where the clothes really do make the man. Both films are based on war and set a lot on battlefields. Both films use iconography in the props and costumes with samurai warrior armour and Roman armour, the swords they use and how they use them are key to the films’ authenticity.
Remember, setting is always constructed.

Key words:
Cathartic pleasures, sadistic pleasures, binary opposition (good vs. evil, East vs. West etc), patriarchal society, phallic symbolism, theory of ‘the other’, iconography, traditional values, cinematography, conventional props.

Similar films to relate to: Braveheart (1995), Troy (2004), Startacus (1960), Jason and the Argonauts (1963), Kingdom of Heaven (2005).

References:
§ D. Bordwell: On the History of Film Style; Harvard University Press; 1998
§ Thompson and Bordwell: Film History: An Introduction, London: McGraw Hill, 1994 James Monaco, How to read a film (pp.315-325) 1977 (for mise-en-scene)

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/classics/heath/Aristotle%20on%20aesthetic%20pleasure.pdf cathatic pleasures

http://www.answers.com/catharsis

http://filmplus.org/mise.html mise-en-scene

http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/dl/free/0073535060/410534/Bordwell_Ch01.pdf