American Beauty: Mise-en-Scene

Mise-en-scene literally means "setting up a scene." There are six elements that make up mise-en-scene: acting, costume and make-up, setting, lighting, composition or space and lastly, but not least, time. The film that I chose for this particular topic was American Beauty. American Beauty is like mise-en-scene candy. Each theme from repression to denial and fantasy to reality is clearly portrayed through the art of mise-en-scene. We often say that a good performance is "realistic." To me a good performance by an actor is making it seem as if they are not really "acting" per se; m…