Mise en scene analysis of George miller movies George miller is an Australian movie director who is well recognized for his Mad Max films, Fury Road and The Road Warrior. Both these films have been voted as two of the greatest action films of all time and have been notarized for their outstanding revenue of 534 million worldwide. Happy Feet is another great film by George Millers that was designed for a younger audience but share some key features with the Mad max films. George Miller’s uses of props give his films a greater sense of meaning to the scene and helps develop the story the movie progresses.
Miller’s use of blocking helps to identify the point of focus as well as creating emotional suspense for the viewer. The films use of space an also assist in the development of mood and creating relationships between two different elements in the film. The costumes are an especially important part in the Mad Max film for the purpose of developing the characters and inspiring responses in the audience. The setting of the each film is also important for the characters physical, social, psychological, emotional significance in film.
In this paper I will attempt o analysis the mise en scene aspect of George Miller’s films Happy Feet, Fury Road and the Road Warrior and how they compare to each other. I will begin with a short biography of the George Miller then the analysis of to one scene in each movie that has the most significant mise en scene aspects. George Miller was born as one out of a set of twins in 1945, Queensland, Australia. He grew up in the tiny Australian town of Chinchilla but then moved to Sydney where he and his twin attended high school and then medical school together at the University of New South Wales.
During his time at college George would often skip class to watch movies while his brother went to class and took notes for both of them. In 1971, John, his twin brother and George won a course at the Melbourne Film Workshop after entering a one-minute film completion and winning. That same year John and George graduated medical school while john remained in medicine, George chose to attend the film course. After attending the course he became close friends with a fellow student by the name Byron Kennedy. They would later collaborate on making screenplays and experimental short films.
In 1972, Byron and George created their first film called Violence In The Cinema – Part One from only 1,500 dollars they managed to raise. The film was shown in Sydney and Moscow film Festival and won two Australian Film Institute Awards. After that George and Byron formed the Kennedy Miller production company with the hope of making more feature films. It wasn’t until seven years later that the company managed to raise $350,000 to make the first Mad Max film. This investment paid off very well for the company as Mad Max gained global recognition and many awards.
The success spurred the Mad Max series and in 1981 Mad Max 2 was created. In 1983, after, Kennedy’s terrible death in a helicopter accident, Miller began directing the film The Witches of Eastwick in 1987 for an American studio and although his involvement in the movie was disappointing he still managed to learn a lot from this experience. Miller then turned to producing two John Duigan films, The Year My Voice Broke and Flirting but later returned to directing Lorenzo’s Oil in 1992. The movie earned Miller and co-writer Nick Enright an Academy Award nomination for the screenplay.
Along with the comedy drama Babe in 1998 Miller later created the epic musical life penguins in Antarctica. The film Happy Feet became a huge office box success and won in the category of Best Animated Film for 2006. The sequel Happy Feet 2 was released in 2011 but was unfortunately a failure. In 2015 Miller’s latest film Mad Max: Fury Road and the fourth instalment in the series, became Millers greatest success grossing $374 million dollar worldwide. George Millers plans to embark on another Mad Max film in the near future called Mad Max: Wasteland which will be a sequel to Fury Road.
George Miller’s career has had many ups and downs but he still continues to make great movies. The movie Happy feet is about the life of a penguin names Mumble who is unable to sing because of a birth defect, singing is a crucial aspect for finding a mate. Although Mumble cannot sing he can tap dance to compensate. His inability to sing makes him an outcast in his herd of penguins and one scene he is seen isolated after being ridiculed by a group of elders on an iceberg. The scene beings with Mumble atop an iceberg searching for Gloria a female penguin he has become enchanted by.
The setting is in Antarctica on a small iceberg in the middle of a large body of dark murky water surrounded by moderate fog. The film creates this setting for the viewer in order to create a mood of isolation and loneliness but also a sense that danger is approaching. While the setting personifies what Mumble is feeling at that this point in the movie, the camera helps develop the danger aspect by zooming out to a long shot then to a shot looking from underneath the water were a leopard seal swims by.
Mumble is in the middle of the frame the whole time this is occurring so the viewer can see what is about to happen but also to see that mumble has no clue on what is going to happen next. This short process of editing creates suspense for the viewer and because our human instinct is to warn someone of a danger that is approaching, it cause anxiety of what is going to unfold next. The camera then switches from underneath the water to a wide point of view shot from behind Mumble and slowly zooming in to view what is at the edge of the iceberg.
This progression is puts the viewer into what Mumble place but with the knowledge that the leopard seal is going to attack him creating uneasiness in the audience. The dark water was chosen for the purpose of this purpose of hiding the leopard seal form Mumble view until he attacks. The attack happens right as he is about to look over the edge of the iceberg and the leopard seal jumps out of the water mouth open with several sharp teeth trying to clamp down on the penguin. This all happens in less than one second.
The setting then changes from on top of the iceberg to underneath the water were the chase begins. We frame that develop next show Mumble and the leopard seal sharing screen space, first Mumble is on the right of the screen sharing equal space with the seal on the left. The frame switches and we see the both characters switch sides still sharing the same space in the frame. The film incorporates this blocking to show who Mumble is trying to run away and how the leopard seal fills up the entire right side of his screen even though he is several feet behind the penguin. The illusion that that