Research: Mise en scene: costume, body language and facial expression

Costume, body language and facial expressions play a big part in mise-en-scene within any film genre especially in Thriller. These conventions are important because they help tell a story within the film and help the audience understand who the characters are from their costume, body language and facial expressions. The costume in a thriller movie plays a big role because costume represents the protagonist and antagonist to the target audience.

Costumes and characters within the Thriller genre are usually stereotyped more than any other film genre. Within thriller films, protagonists and antagonists are stereotyped because of the genre and the nature of the film. A stereotypical victim or protagonist would be a child out on the streets alone, a blonde girl alone in a busy city at night etc. The victim/protagonist would be wearing everyday clothing or it could be some sort of casual dress.

A good example of a protagonist and an antagonist in this situation would be in ‘Black Swan’.

We see Nina (Natalie Portman) as an innocent ballet dancer who still lives with her mum. Throughout the film, we see her playing the part as the innocent and fragile White Swan for the production of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake ballet, which she is a perfect fit for. Nina feels herself pressured and intimidated by Lily (Mila Kunis), who has got herself the role of the dark and sensual Black Swan. Nina finds herself competing for the part for the black swan that causes her to become too involved and lose her grip with reality and enter a living nightmare. She does not deal with the rejection of not getting the part for Black Swan easily.

Within Black Swan, Nina (Natalie Portman), is both the protagonist and antagonist. Before losing all of her involvement with reality, she is an innocent ballet dancer, but later on in the film, she loses touch with her reality, enters a fantasy/nightmare world where she becomes her own enemy.

Nina’s costume from the Swan Lake performance near the end of the film showed the audience her innocence. We see her in white nearly all the time throughout the film. Her costume for the Swan Lake production as White Swan was a white dress, which showed the audience her purity and innocence. This costume gives the impression of her as the girl who has never done anything bad in her life before.

Seeing Nina in the Black Swan costume near the ending scene of the film allows the audience see the less innocent side of her and shows her evil and persistent side of her. Her costume for the Swan Lake production as Black Swan was a Black version of the white dress, which now shows how much she has lost herself while trying to get this role. The colour black shows the nightmare she is living in, not being able to get back to reality from how much she is involved. This costume no longer shows her innocence and purity, but the evil inside her when she turns into a monster/bird
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Body Language:

Another part of mise en scene that is important in a thriller movie is body language. Body language used by a certain character within a movie will give the audience an idea of what and who the characters are (a protagonist or an antagonist).

This is a scene from Scream where the victim finds out about how serious the antagonist is. At first she was very slow pasted and looked relaxed at the beginning of the phone call, however when she found out her boyfriend was dead she bends forward and puts her shoulders high up like she’s tensed really bad into a ball. This is conventional to most thrillers.

Facial expressions:

Joker (Heath Ledger) from The Dark Knight

 The antagonists facial expressions are conventional to thrillers as when he gives a serious face he looks drunk and crazy like he’s unaware of what he’s doing and therefore the victims get scared, also when he laughs it looks extremely creepy like he’s out of control and could do anything at any moment, for example in the 3^rd image where he’s holding the card in that scene although he’s smiling and has a card in his hand he does a pencil trick and kills someone.