Falanga, Beowulf Mise En Scene

One particular scene in “Beowulf” which deserves some editing attentions is about an hour into the movie when Beowulf confronts Grendel’s mother for the first time; The dominant is on the golden horn when it should be on the faces of either character, the object is too bright and detracts attention from the important dialogue and confrontation going on. The lighting is very low all around the two characters while the horn creates much of the light on the bottom right of the screen which illuminates much of the two characters on screen. The character proxemics is intimate as we only see from the chest up on both the characters and their heads fill up most of the screen. The camera is about three feet away from the action going on in the scene. The angle of the camera is somewhat tilted up toward the characters’ faces, as if we are looking up to them as they are both legends in their own worlds, giving good symbolic reference to who these characters are. The color is gold for the most part as it fills the characters’ faces giving them a magical quality; while the rest on screen in the background is pitch black. There was no lens/stock/filter change in this shot as everything is very clear and not distorted in any way. The subsidiary contrast is that of Beowulf’s face because it is closest to the bright gold horn, then the mother of Grendel which is at the other end of the screen and not so lit up is the next subsidiary. The fact that neither character is as brightly lit up as the horn makes them subsidiary contrasts. The scene is not very dense because we only have two characters in close proxemics to each other while everything is in darkness. They both fill the screen making it somewhat dense but there is nothing in the background making it easy to see what is going on what to look at. The composition is interesting; the only objects we can see on screen are the two characters, whilst everything else is in darkness making it impossible not to focus in on the conversation and confrontation. The framing is very tight, Beowulf and the mother are close together in a dark cave with only one light source being the horn, and the characters seem to have nowhere to go making a good representation of how critical this plot turn is as it is made necessary through the way it is shot. There is not much depth in this scene because we are allowed only to focus on three things (Beowulf, Mother, and horn) which are all in close proxemics of each other. As far as the character placement, Beowulf is on the right holding the gold horn near the bottom right of the screen, while Grendel’s mother is on the left. The characters don’t look into the camera and only look at each other, the camera goes around the dialogue at hand but they never change positions in the stage position. The problem with the scene is that the horn should not illuminate the screen as much as it does. It draws attention away from the confrontation. The animation and people look awful in this film, mainly because the character’s faces can’t move and express that much as a normal actor could.