Elements of Mise-en-Scene in Kill Bill, Legally Blonde and Suicide Squad

The use of mise-en-scene elements helps in the telling of many films. An example of a film where mise-en-scene elements help with the narrative of a story and the relationship between characters is Kill Bill Vol 1, particularly in the very opening scene. The scene starts off with a very close up camera angle of Uma Thurman laying on the floor, it appears that she is wearing a veil, which would suggest that she was getting married. Her hair is soaked, and as there is no water in the immediate shot, we can assume that this is due to sweat. Her face is covered in various sized cuts and blood which makes us question what has happened to this woman? She also has a look of sheer terror on her face and is moaning in pain. This question is even further emphasised by the fact that this has happened on this woman’s wedding day, which makes us wonder who she is and what she's done to deserve this, as we are forced to believe that our wedding day is one of the happiest days of our life, and this also leaves the audience to wonder why this woman is alone, where is her husband? Where are the guests? This shows just how impactful on the story this small piece of view in the shot is. This is then followed by a shot of someone walking across the floor. We only see their feet, but they are wearing boots, not high-heeled

women’s boots, but slightly heeled men’s shoes. The sound that this makes on the floor also creates more tension in the scene. This man starts to talk to the woman on the floor, but in a foreign language, which sounds like French. He then wipes her face with a handkerchief with ‘Bill’ inscribed on it, making the connection between this man and the title of the film. The way the woman looks at this man isn't in shock, which is an indicator that she knows him, but she also doesn't look please to see him, which creates more intrigue about the relationship between these two characters. We hear the man open a case, and the woman’s eyes widen and she looks completely horrified and begins to breathe deeply and shake with fear. She responds to the man, once again in French, but she gets shot straight in the head. This raises, even more, questions about the relationship between these two.

Legally Blonde is a film that heavily focuses on stereotypes and breaking them. In the film, the lead, Elle Woods, has bright blonde hair, is obsessed with clothes, hair, and makeup and always looks perfect. She also always wears the colour pink, which makes her heavily stand out in most scenes. Even her boyfriend says to her “I need to marry a Jackie, not a Marilyn.” A scene where the uses of mise-en-scene really show the stereotyping faced by Elle is when she's in court, every single person in the room is wearing black and white, and Elle is wearing bright pink, and every person in the room undermines her and laughs about what she is saying, but in five minutes manages to clear her client's name. 

Mise-en-scene is also used with iconography in a film, a good example of this being the car chase between Batman and The Joker with Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad. This scene shows all the stereotypical iconography aspects of an action film with the use of mise-en-scene. They drive through a dimly lit city, with the main focus of the scene being the supercars driven by the two men. To make this the attention, the cars are nothing like we see in everyday life, especially The Joker’s, which is clearly meant to be the main focus over Batman as the bottom of the car is illuminated and the car itself is purple chrome, a colour that we immediately associate with The Joker. Not only does this scene have cars, a protagonist and an antagonist, which shows the reference to Propp's narrative theory about character types, but also a beautiful female sidekick in the form of Harley Quinn, who is covered in jewellery with perfect hair and makeup, a way we aren't used to seeing her in the film, which is obviously used to appeal to the male audience, which shows us the Male Gaze Theory, as even though Harley Quinn may be shown as an evil protagonist and sidekick, she realistically is part of the film to satisfy the male audience member, who this film would be aimed at, and be objectified. As well as this, Harley’s prop of a gun to shoot through the roof of the car is also the use of mise-en-scene to conform to the iconography of an action/superhero film. The tattoos covering both The Joker and Harley is also another way of clearly distinguishing who is the villain and who is the hero in this situation. Also, by ending the scene by showing Harley’s facial expressions of her being clearly very annoyed shows that even though she is a pretty face, she's just as bad as the boys.