Mise-en-Scene

Mise-en-Scene in Marvel Studios' The Avengers

I chose to watch Marvel Studios’ The Avengers because I recently watched Black Widow and did not know many of the characters. I wanted to get in the loop since everyone has a favorite Avenger and I cannot even identify two of them. It is also a very exciting action film with a lot of movement and fun aspects of mise-en-scene.

The first scene of the movie has very low-key lighting. You can see a black figure and a blue light from a crystal that the figure is holding. This portrays the figure as the bad guy who is doing something bad or sneaky. They also use shallow space to show the blue crystal in detail, this signifies that it is special and of an unknown importance. The same man was seen using the blue crystal as a weapon. A few scenes later, we can see another shallow space of this blue glow, but this time it is not a solid ball. There is three-point lighting used during the scene where they show the circular set up that is holding the blue glow. This shifts most of the focus to this set up while everything in the background is darker.

There is a man at an airport where a helicopter lands. There are two people who are wearing all black that get out of the helicopter and greet the man. This wardrobe choice is important as the man is seemingly doing something suspicious since he is also wearing all black with black sunglasses in the dark. People wear sunglasses so they cannot be recognized. They then enter a lab where people are wearing white lab coats, signifying that they are doing something scientific. Which is accurate as they were experimenting with the blue crystal.

A few special effects are used during the film as well. One scene used rear projection when showing someone flying a helicopter. The man and the helicopter were shot separately, and he never flew the helicopter. This same mise-en-scene aspect was used when the building was about to blow up. Everyone was running to their vehicles and driving at a high speed to escape. They were also shooting at each other, but they were not really driving the cars or shooting at each other.

There was then a scene using offscreen space when a woman shown who appeared to be in a car garage and everything was shaking. You could also hear rumbling as if the ground was moving. You cannot see the source causing the area to shake, but you know there is something causing it.

The man using the blue crystal as a weapon holds it up against a man’s chest. The film producers use frontality to show the man with the crystal against his chest. This is done so the audience can clearly see how the crystal turns his eyes completely black and then to a blue glow like the crystal.