Make your own sentences using these words as both verbs and nouns

4) Staging: Movement and Acting.

The director may also control the behavior of various figures in the mise-en-scene. The figure may represent a person but could also be an animal (Lassie, Donald Duck), a robot (R2D2 and C3PO in the Star Wars series), an object (as in Ballet mecanique’s choreography of bottles, straw hats, and kitchen utensils). Mise-en-scene allows such figures to express feelings and thoughts.

In cinema, facial expression and movement are not restricted to human figures. Animation can end on drawings or three-dimensional objects with highly dynamic movement. For example, in science-fiction and fantasy films, monsters and robots may be given expressions and gestures through the technique of stop-action (also called “stop-motion”). Typically a small-scale model is made with articulated parts. In

filming, it is posed as desired, and a frame or two is shot. Then the figure is adjusted slightly and another frame or two is exposed, and so on. The result on screen is a continuous, if sometimes jerky, movement.

The filmmaker can stage action without three-dimensional figures or objects. Cel animation presents us with drawings of Aladdin or Daffy Duck. Filmmakers may also blend photographed action with animated mise-en-scene. Highly detailed computer-generated animation made it possible for James Cameron to create the outrageous metamorphoses of the cyborg in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Like other aspects of mise-en-scene, the performance is created in order to be filmed. An actor’s performance consists of visual elements (appearance, gestures, facial expressions) and sound (voice, effects)

Acting is often approached as a question of realism. It is not always fruitful to judge an actor’s performance by what would be likely behavior in the world outside the movie, theatre, and this is for several reasons.

For one thing, concepts of realistic acting have changed over film history. Today we may think that performances of Russel Crowel and Al Pacino in The Insider are reasonably close to people’s real-life behavior. Already major naturalistic performances of the 1970s, such as Robert De Niro’s protagonist in Taxi Driver, are coming to seem quite stylized. Who can say what the acting in The Insider and other recent films will look like in a few decades?

But not all films try to achieve realism. Instead of assuming that acting must be realistic, we should try to understand what kind of acting style the film is aiming at. If the functions of acting in the film are best served by a nonrealistic performance, that is the kind that the skillful actor will strive to present. If we want to evaluate the actor’s performances, we might set forth this criterion: If the actor looks and behaves in a manner appropriate to his or her character’s function in the context of the film, the actor has given a performance – whether or not he or she looks or behaves as a real person would.

We can consider performance styles along two dimensions. The performance will be more or less individualized, and it will be more or less stylized. It will create a unique character, and it will not seem too exaggerated or too underplayed. Yet less individualized and more stylized performance may also be appropriate to the context of the particular film’s mise-en-scene.

Although we often think of good acting as creating highly individualized roles, many filmmaking traditions emphasize the creation of broader, more anonymous types. In the Soviet cinema of the 1920s, several directors used a similar principle called typage. Here the actor was expected to portray a typical representative of a social class or historical movement.

Whether more or less “typed”, the performance can also be located on a continuum of stylization. A long tradition of film acting strives for a resemblance to what is thought of a realistic behavior. Ivan the Terrible is a film that heightens every element – music, costume, setting – to create a larger-than-life portrait of its hero. Nikolai Cherkasov’s broad, abrupt gestures fit in perfectly with all of these other elements to create an overall unity of composition.

c) Are the following sentences true or false?

1. Any person, animal or object can express feelings in mise-en-scene.

2. The “stop-action” technique uses animated objects.

3. The filmmakers use only three-dimensional figures and objects.

4. Actor’s performance must be realistic.

5. The performance must be both individualized and stylized.

6. Typage portrays a typical representative of a social class.

7. The “typed” performance can’t use stylization.

1. Grammar