Balance in Mise-en-scene

Balance in Mise-en-scene

Introduction

                Balance – Noun - A state of equilibrium or equipoise; equal distribution of weight, amount, etc.; something used to produce equilibrium; counterpoise; mental steadiness or emotional stability; habit of calm behavior, judgment, etc.

                The word ‘balance’ is one that is found frequently in Eastern Asian philosophy and religion, and the general idea has been westernized and capitalized upon through the mass proliferation of images such as the Yin-Yang symbol. However, using these symbols allows for a certain visual understanding of balance that cannot be easily explained with words. This visual balance can be used to communicate messages of non-visual balance, like one of mental, emotional, or spiritual balance or stability. Balance invokes a sense of seriousness when being faced by a person, and achieving a sense of visual balance can be used with much effect by an artist. The films Ikiru and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… And Spring (which from now on will be referred to as SSFWAS) use cinematographic balance as a tool to convey underlying feelings and perhaps even meaning. This blossay will attempt to explain my conception of visual balance and explore how the mise-en-scene of each film utilizes visual balance in different ways by looking at how each film’s storyline is organized, and then discussing the use of visual balance of each film and its specific parts.

Visual Balance

                The easiest way to understand visual balance is of course through images. However, due to my general inability with computers, I was stuck with making a rough grid in MS Paint and drawing circles on it. So, use your imagination and pretend that the grid is overlaying the movie screen and that the circles are actually onscreen objects. Also, use your imagination to pretend that the grid and circles are actually perfect and not drawn on MS Paint by someone with absolutely no experience with MS Paint.

                The most basic form of balance (it should be noted that I could very well be talking about something that is named something else in films studies that I am unaware of) is simple symmetry. A head on shot of a character’s face is perhaps the most basic example of a balanced shot. Additionally, two different objects can also have visual balance as long as they are placed in a symmetrical fashion. For instance, a shot from the side of two people facing each other and talking or a straight on shot of two people sitting side by side, has a very simple symmetry, and is thus balanced in an obvious and straightforward way.

Fig. 1

If the symmetry demonstrated by fig. 1 is simply rotated by 45 degrees, a slightly less obvious form of balance is shown. This is a shot that isn’t used frequently, but an example of an aerial shot of two martial arts masters poised to fight comes to mind (for whatever reason).

Fig. 2

If you continue to rotate the circles from Fig. 2 by another 45 degrees you get another rare shot. A wonderful example of this is the shot from Yellow Earth of Gu Qing with the sun directly above him.

Fig.3

It should be noted that symmetry doesn’t need to be found in multiple directions, one is often enough. For instance, a ground level shot of two martial arts masters poised to fight can be a balanced shot regardless of how much sky is shown.

Fig. 4

Of course, symmetry is based on the perspective of the viewer, or in the case of film, the perspective that the camera takes on. This leads to situations where the symmetry in a shot seems to not be there, but nonetheless there is a definite balance in the shot. Imagining on screen objects as circles helps make this balance more apparent and allows for symmetry to be more easily seen. An over the shoulder shot of another character (usually during dialogue) is a common shot of this kind of visual balance.

Fig. 5

Another way to visualize perspective visual balance is to imagine the Yin-Yang symbol. Then, turn the white and black dots into floating orbs. If these two orbs retain the same spatial relationship with each other, they will be balanced no matter what angle you look at them. This would of course be super easy to understand if a 3D model was made that you could rotate yourself, but hopefully the following slight alteration of Fig. 5 will help make this idea more clear.

Fig. 6

If the circles from Fig. 5 switch positions, a visual balance that is frequently found in landscape shots becomes apparent. If this is difficult to imagine, try picturing a small house at the bottom of a mountain.

Fig.7

Now, things get more complicated when more objects get added to the screen, but for the sake of space, I am hoping that you have enough of a grasp of what I am trying to say to understand the rest of this blossay. Just remember that symmetry is the easiest way to know that there is some form of visual balance at play.

Formatting

Although obvious in SSFWAS, both films utilize a fairly straightforward play structure. Each film has within itself fairly obvious acts, and in each act there are numerous scenes. For SSFWAS, again, how this is done is obvious. There is an act for each season, and then a final act that is also set in spring. Ikiru, however, is a little more subtle in that it didn’t announce each act. But, there are still four definitive sections to the film that can be called acts. The first act is the introduction where we learn who Watanabe is and about his life. The second act is the party scenes right after Watanabe meets the writer. The third act is the scenes of Watanabe and Toyo, and the fourth act is comprised mostly Watanabe’s funeral.

The act structure of these films is important because each film utilizes visual balance alongside these acts in unique ways. Ikiru uses balance in a very binary fashion; each act is composed mostly of balanced or unbalanced shots. SSFWAS is more subtle and inconsistent, but relies on a general trend that follows the acts while the movie progresses. I will get in more detail below, but will avoid delving too much into meaning until later in the paper.

Ikiru

Introductory Scenes

                This act starts off balanced, and remains balanced for the most part. Certain scenes that are extremely serious, namely the scene of Watanabe and the Dr. talking about how he does/doesn’t have stomach cancer, or when Watanabe describes his current condition to the writer.  Interestingly enough, the only scene that is obviously unbalanced during this act is the first car scene of the film. The shots of this scene are unbalanced and chaotic, a startling change given its juxtaposition with the rest of the act. It is also worth noting that the final scene of this act, when the writer kicks away the dog while leaving the bar, is unbalanced.

Party Scenes

                The party scenes, as one would imagine they should be, are chaotic and unbalanced. This is especially true during the scene in which Watanabe sings “Gondola no Uta”. The swaying of the beads and the disjointed slow motion scattering of the couples moving away from Watanabe is chilling. It is a profoundly uncomfortable scene that is multiplied by its lack of visual balance. However, the end of this scene is a balanced, head on shot of Watanabe, which really brings home the sincerity, seriousness, and the importance of the scene. This act also has the second car scene of the film, which is similar to the first in its lack of balance and its chaotic-ness. The act ends with an unbalanced shot of Watanabe, the writer, and two girls in a taxi. The girls are singing slightly off pitch, ending the act as uncomfortably as it started.

Toyo Scenes

                When Watanabe meets up with Toyo, the young woman he knew from his job, the shots return to the balanced feel of the first act. Toyo acts as a balancing agent to Watanabe, and as the he gets calmer in the storyline, the mise-en-scene mirrors that feeling. For instance, there is a scene that Toyo runs into a street and almost gets hit by two busses. Unlike the first two car scenes, this scene is very balanced. The ending scene is interesting in that it is both balanced and unbalanced at the same time. As Watanabe and Toyo are talking in the booth of what seems to be a café, there is a birthday party going on behind them. On the surface, there are the calming effects of Toyo, but underneath of that calm, there is still a lack of balance, represented by the birthday party. After Watanabe decides he is going to get something done at city hall, the birthday party becomes organized as they line up to sing happy birthday. Toyo, however, is left alone, creating an unbalanced shot in front of a balanced one.

Funeral Scenes

                The funeral scenes start off very balanced, with the attendees of the funeral lined on both sides of the room. However, as points of confusion, conflict, and debate are brought up, the room becomes progressively less and less balanced until the room is a piled of drunken, crying bureaucrats. The flashbacks of Watanabe, on the other hand, are balanced. There are two flashbacks, specifically the scenes with the Deputy Mayor and the thugs, that start off very unbalanced but become balanced when Watanabe refuses to be intimidated.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… And Spring

Spring

                SSFWAS is different from Ikiru in that it is not as consistent in its use of balance, so the claims I make about SSFWAS are far more general. In Spring, the scenery is balanced, but the characters are not always balanced with the scenery or with the other characters.  While the child monk is torturing the animals by tying rocks to them, the struggling of the animals are shot in a visually unbalanced way. The child monk varies between balanced and unbalanced shots, but there are some shots that would be unbalanced if it were not for the looming figure of the Master behind the child. When the boy has a rock tied on his back, the shots are slightly unbalanced. Oddly enough though, the images of the dead fish and snake are all very balanced.

Summer

                In the beginning of Summer, the shots are almost always just slightly off from being balanced. But, the interactions between the girl and the boy monk are always unbalanced, and as the act progresses this unbalance becomes more and more obvious. The master, on the other hand (and this is also evident in Spring), is almost always shot in a balanced manner. At the end of this act, the suffering, weeping, and departure of the teenage monk is very unbalanced. Not only is the scenery and his relationship to it unbalanced, but his posture is as well.

Fall

                Although this act is overall very unbalanced visually, Fall opens with the master and his cat, both being shot in an incredibly balanced manner. Although not entirely unique to Fall, scenes that start out unbalanced end balanced become more common in this act. When the child monk returns as an adult, he and his surroundings are balanced, but his posture isn’t. However, when the man and the Master are together, the Master visually balances the man out. The unbalanced-ness of this act culminates in the scene that the Master beats the man and the scene after when the man is tied up in the monastery. These scenes are the peak of the visual imbalance of the movie. Even the Master isn’t balanced while he beats his former student. While the man begins to carve the floor of the floating temple’s deck, things get slightly less unbalanced and this continues as he progresses in his task. Although there is a moment of visual balance when one of the detectives place a coat on the sleeping man, things become immediately unbalanced again right after.  Even the shots of the master are unbalanced, to a certain degree. The final shots of the Master and his suicide are very balanced. But, the characters that are written on the pieces of paper that get pasted to his eyes and mouth are not balanced in their composition. They are not symmetric and therefore make the scene feel unbalanced even when it technically isn’t.

Winter

                While still slightly unbalanced, the nature and scenery of Winter is more balanced than in Fall. After the man, now fully grown, finds the book of martial arts and begins to train, he begins to become more and more balanced. After the lady comes with her child, he begins to take on the role of his former master, often balancing the scene out. But, when the man ties the grinding stone to his waist and starts to drag it up the mountain, he is perpetually unbalanced throughout the entire sequence. Although the man is incredibly unbalanced, the scenery around him is relatively balanced. When the man reaches the summit, the first real and obvious visual balance for most of the movie occurs instantaneously. If the beating scene is the peak of this movies unbalance, this scene is the peak of SSFWAS’s balance.

…And Spring

                The last act of SSFWAS continues with the feeling of balance and calm that occurs at the end of Winter. At least this is the case until the new child monk begins to torture the animals. This generally fits the same feeling of the first act except that there is no Master to balance out the child as he stuffs rocks into the mouths of animals. The movie ends with a balanced shot of the Buddha statue looking over the valley.

Conclusions

                In both films, visual balance and unbalance play a definite role in how the film is interpreted by the audience. Balance is something that we pick up on even if we are not consciously aware of its influence on us. This unconscious awareness of balance is also why I am unsure if Kurosawa (director of Ikiru) or Kim Ki-duk (director of SSFWAS) were aware of their use of it in their films. Ikiru, as I have already mentioned, utilizes balance in an almost binary way. The deliberate feel of the film, as well as the well-known genius of Kurosawa, makes me think that there is a very specific meaning or purpose behind the balance of the film. SSFWAS, on the other hand, is less consistent in its shots but still maintains an overall arc in the frequency of different kinds of visual balanced shots that matches up with the overall arc of the storyline. This points to Kim Ki-duk’s awareness of balance, but it does not definitively prove anything. It could easily be accidental or a consequence of Kim Ki-duk attempting to achieve certain feelings in the film that manifest themselves in balanced and unbalanced shots.

                When it comes to the meaning of visual balance in the mise-en-scene in each film, it is hard for me to say without positively knowing if the balance was purposeful or without doing further research on each film. However, thinking about the balance in each film brings up questions to be asked of each film. As we ask these questions, we can meditate on the concept of balance ourselves, and perhaps bring some more balance into our own lives.