Film essay

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How does mise-en-scene, performance and cinematography create tension within Matilida’s family.

I will be discussing the cinematography, sound and performance which creating tension within Matilda’s family home, and the audience as they are left thinking ‘what’s going to happen next’?.

The Mise-en-scene creates tension in the family as it is set out in a typical home environment. The audience feels relaxed and comfortable with the mise-en-scene, but the juxtaposition is also lurking, this being that even though the mise-en-scene makes the audience feels like this is a warm loving home the parents of Matilda are not loving towards her at all. The setting of the scene you are seeing is of a nice home with a warm atmosphere and is not portraying the true personality’s of the characters- the nasty, uncaring and unloving mother and father of Matilda.

In addition to this the way that the family is sitting is showing tension within the family and leaves the audience thinking ‘Why is she sitting away from every one’. Also, the rest of the family are sitting eating dinner, whilst Matilda has no dinner. There are many moments of tension that are created from the mise-en-scene. Another is that the lighting shown on Matilda’s body shows her in a pure light, where as the rest of her family are in the dark, this could be showing the good and bad binary between opposites between the two charectors. Also when Matilda’s dad gets up from his seat to go over to Matilda, there is a large shadow behind him from the TV which makes him look bigger and more powerful as in fact he is only short. This creates tension for the audience as they don’t know what he is going to do. To a 5 year old girl this could be seen as intimidating and aggressive.

Also the chair in which she is sitting is a big arm chair and makes her look vulnerable but with her ‘magic powers’ the audience soon realises she can look after herself.

Performance also creates tension for the audience as they feel at ease at the beginning of the scene because Matilda’s mum is laughing at her dad about the hat getting mysteriously stuck to his head, but start to see that Harry Wormwood (Matilda’s father) is getting agitated. Firstly because of his hat getting stuck to his head and is in pain when his wife took it off. Secondly when he goes on to say about the family doing ‘ exactly what he says exactly when he says it’. Which is ironic due to the fact he doesn’t seem to care about Matilda who is meant to be a member of the family. Also when Harry Wormwood (played by Danny De-vito) gets up because Matilda didn’t turn the light off, there is a massive build up of tension as the audience are sure what he is going to do to her, the audience also feel that he is going to hit her and therefore the audience are left feeling apprehensiveness.

He is also portrayed as a protective father; when asking Matilda what she is reading, she replies with ‘Moby Dick’ which he replies ‘Moby what?’. This creates tension as he is getting more and more frustrated. The more he seems to be getting angry, the more the audience are thinking about what he is going to do. Furthermore, his performance continues to create tension as he starts ripping up the book and seems to have let his anger out. The audience ask them selves ‘what will happen next?’.

Matilda is shown as a very sweet girl who knows what she wants. She is quiet but has a cheeky air about her. This also includes a comical side of her as the audience are sympathetic towards her and if she plays little tricks on her family to teach them a lesson we feel glad that she is getting her own back and find it amusing. She does not say much throughout this scene the only things she murmurs when asked if she is a part of the family.

This creates tension for the audience as we know that with a response of any kind back to her father means a punishment. It doesn’t quite work when Matilda plays another trick on her family by blowing up the TV with her powers.

She does not express any emotions but does this with her eyes as she is concentrating more and more on the TV. You see a sense of anger on her face, which may be due to the fact her dad ripped up her beloved book and wanted to gain vengance by destroying something of equal value of her fathers.

The voiceover acts as if it is Matilda’s thoughts, because she is not allowed to express her feeling at home. It makes you think that the voiceover is explaining what she is thinking. This gives her a sense of opinion which she has not been allowed at home by her fellow family members.

More tension is created by the cinematography. It starts off with the camera on top of the TV as if we are watching the family, from the TVs point of view. We get an out look on what the family is like. The mood changes from a family meal to scenes of Matilda and her father switching glances. Camera movements back and forth between the two show tension they have between them, not only in this scene but in everyday life. The strong difference between the two characters is strongly established by camera movement. Jump cuts also shows the audience that the TV is a main focal point in Matilda’s family’s life as the camera shows the audience many scenes from the point of the Tv. This technique of jump cuts is common in building tension typically in 1960/70′s in spaghetti westerns and still works amazingly well in this 1990′s film. There are then selected shots of Matilda, a medium close up of her to make her look vulnerable. The shot is over Harry wormwood’s shoulder to create tension and make Matilda look unsafe. A medium close up of her dad’s face is shown to represent the anger he has for his daughter. This is then followed by the camera panning around the room and zooming in on all of Matilida’s family members this maybe a intended scene selection to create tension for the audience, as family are calm and watching TV.

When this tension has been built up by showing close ups of Matilida’s mum, brother and father laughing evilly it tracks in on her eyes and jump cuts back and forth from her eyes to the TV, this implies too the audience that her eyes are related to what is going to happen to the T.V. Before finally tracking in on her eyes and showing an extreme close of her big brown eyes before cutting back to the explosion of the TV.

The TV is a big part of Wormwood’s life, she is more interested in reading and finding out useful information. Matilida’s family are only interested watching TV they say you can get all you need to know from watching TV. This is shown using cinematography because the camera is focusing on the TV as the main focal point throughout this scene. In addition this shows that Matilda is an outcast in her family and that she is trying to make a stand for what she believes in by reading her book even after her dad as told her not to. She is doing the right thing by gaining an education and this is what the audience is relating to.

Sound also creates tension along with the cinematography They work alongside each other to create the maximum tension within this scene. Sound begins to create tension with cinematography because when her dad is forcing her to watch TV the digetic sound of the television starts to get louder as the jump cuts go back and forth to the TV and the non-digetic sound of the laughing also gets louder as each time a person is shown. The screeching noise over the top of all of this creating the most tension as it is the sort of noise you would expect to find in the ‘Psycho’- shower scene not in a children’s film In addition the non-digetic noise continues to get louder and louder until the loud explosion of the TV cuts all noises apart from the mother screaming and signals climax to the audience that tension has been building up in this scene.

All in all, the mise-en-scene, cinematography, and performance worked well in creating tension in this selected scene because with all these elements working together, they are an effective method in building tension. Mise-en-scene created tension through make the audience feel at one with the surroundings areas, but the home is not like that and is very opposite to what the audience are being shown. It is an unloving place to be as Matilda has witnessed herself. Performance by both Matilda and her dad show that there are no likenesses between them and how binary opposites they really are. Matilda being clever and innocent, while her dad is cheating people out of money. Cinematography creates the biggest tension because it has so much impact on the audience’s thought they don’t know what is going to happen with editing techniques such as jump cuts,back and forth to the TV, Matilda and her dad the audience is on the edge of there seats. Also zooms mainly medium and extreme close up cuase the most amount of tension followed by the camera panning around the Wormwood’s living room. The audience for this film is mainly aimed at young children so for them this could be scary and breaks convention of most children’s story to convey happiness. The dark lighting used in the living room the jump cuts and shadowing all create tension as to what is going to happen. In conclusion these elements work well in creating tension with in the family and with the audience.

Word count 1706 Amber Robinson