Analysis Of The Film 'Rebel Without A Cause'

“I stress the moment to moment action of style in cinema because, just as a theme is not a mere station, style is not a mere coating and laid over the story. Style is what articulates, modulates and develops a thematic structure.”(Adrian Martin, mise en scene and film style,24.)

Mise en scene means to “put in the scene”. Mise en scene refers to the arrangement and placement of all visual characters in a film or stage production in the scene. Mise en scene is through activities which the film events are being staged and presented to the camera. mise en scene is a direction-related activity, and synonymous with the direction itself for some. There are four formal elements that make up the mise en scene that contains the settings, costume and make up, lighting and staging.

The film that I chose for analysis is called “Rebel without a cause”, which is the American drama film directed by Nicholas Ray. A film about a group of confused suburban middle-class teenagers. Ray uses variety elements

Placing characters in the auditorium gives an insight into where they are in the current social rankings. Plato is seated away from the rest of the group whereas Jim sits between both the group and Plato sort of in a state of transition. This is also seen in what kinds of costumes the characters are wearing in this scene. At the beginning of the film both Jim and Plato wore suits and ties, which allowed them to stand out from the crowd and it was easy to identify other characters wearing inconspicuous clothing that easily fit into them. However, in the planetarium only Plato kept a complete decoration in his suit and polished it with Jim without a tie, which made Plato even more prominent. This an attempted transition from social outcast to becoming socially acceptable. Jims isolation is also obvious due to he arrives to the planetarium late and alone this further indicated that he is not belong to any