Mise en jeu and Mise en geste (Kino-Agora)

“We can clearly see how easily and imperceptibly one may slip from an essentially realistic composition towards one extreme, naturalistic, or the other, conventional and ‘formalist.’ It’s just like declaiming verse. A little too much emphasis on the period of the rhythm, and the recitation turns into a lifeless mechanical drone. A touch too slack on rhythmic delivery, and the distinct cadence of verse disintegrates into the baffling formlessness of semi-prose. A little too much emphasis on the circle [formed by the characters], and the mise en scène starts to lean towards ballet and conventional theatre. A bit too careless with the geometric figure, and the clear, distinct, meaningful mise en scène is sucked into the swamp of formless naturalism.” —Sergei Eisenstein

Mise en jeu and Mise en geste was composed in January 1948, a few months before Sergei Eisenstein’s death. Here he subordinates all aspects of mise en scène to some unifying idea inherent in the subject matter, transforming it from an incoherent jumble into a “legible text.” There the subtext of a given scene—its hidden meaning—may be writ large. Unlike his previous writings on mise en scène, this essay treats separately mise en jeu (transposing the “interplay of motives” into a sequence of actions); mise en geste (transposing character into gesture); and mise en cadre (recreating the effects of a poetic passage through shot composition).

Published by caboose books, Montreal. Distributed worldwide, excluding Canada, by Rutgers University Press.