You were never really here - cinematography essay

The first shot is an extreme close up shot of the main characters eyes through the reflection of a rear view mirror, the mise-en-scene of the eyes are to show an intense stare. This relates to the context of why the character is in the car an where he is going, the audience know that the main character has murderous intentions and that he is on a dangerous mission, this stare (directly into the camera) reflects the high stakes of the situation, almost confirming what he is going to do, to the audience.

This scene then cuts to a point of view tracking shot and  extreme long shot of a car, in the centre of the shot, from behind driving up a road. The mise-en-scene of the shot shows fields, trees, flora and nature in the background with natural lighting creating a scenic/calming picture. This creates a false sense of security for the audience, as they already know the context of what’s about to happen, but they are left feeling confused as the shot doesn’t correlate with the suspense that has been created.

The scene then cuts to several tracking extreme long shots that show the same car, still centre of the shot, driving up various roads with scenic backgrounds. These shots go from one to another quite quickly, creating a fast pace, which contrasts the car, in the mise-en-scene the car is moving quite slowly along with the shot itself. This could create more suspense for the audience as the contrast in speed, confuses the audience, but are still anxious as they know somethings about to happen.

These scenes then cuts to a long shot of a house, in the mise-en-scene the house has perfect compositional balance along with the trees and the shrubbery that lines the shot, framing the house. A theme is presented in the next few shots as they, show almost the exact same image of a long shot of different houses equally as symmetrical as the last shot. You could argue that this pulls the audience into further confusion, or the idea of perfect symmetry with no faults can create an eerie atmosphere, putting the audience on edge.

The scene then cuts to a long shot of the same house, in the mise-en-scene the scene its almost exactly the same as the first shot of that house, but we catch a glimpse of our main character on the very bottom left of the shot walking towards the house but walking at an angle where he leaves the scene. This catches the audience off guard as what has seemed to be perfectly symmetrical scenes with natural lighting, has been obstructed by our main character which has now reminded the audience of his intentions and the context of the storyline.

This scene then cuts to an extreme long shot of the same house with joe (the main character) dead centre, in the mise-en-scene he now fits in with the perfect compositional balance of the scene, in which we can now see his full body (from the back) where he is seen holding a hammer, this is the first time we see any potential weapon in all the scenes I’ve described so far. This creates a further contrast, as the the perfect symmetry which creates security and calm, is companied with a hammer, which in context to the rest of the film, we know has been used to cause damage.

 The fact that joe is in the centre of the shot shows importance, power and intensity. Also the natural lighting change (now turning to evening) could suggest in a change of pace, or a breaking point in the calmness of the previous scenes. 

This is proved by the next scene where it cuts to a long shot of the entrance to the house, the lighting has suddenly changed to very dark, where a man (presumably a guard) is lying on the very bottom left of the screen where we can see he has been beaten in the head with the hammer. This is a extreme shock to the audience, as the previous scenes which have been building up suspense slowly, have changed drastically. In the mise-en-scene, the front of the house is still in perfect compositional balance along with joe walking towards the door of the house (dead centre.) although the scene dynamic has changed, the house and joe are still in the centre, showing priority and power. This could metaphorically be seen as a standoff between the two, as they have constantly been sharing the centre of the screen.     

Thanks for reading :)