The following is a blog post written for my Introduction to Cinema Studies class, re-published here so all my work is in one place.

The term mise-en-scène describes a wide range of visual elements and techniques that make up what’s in the frame at any given point in a film. To give his film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou a heightened, storybook quality, director Wes Anderson manipulates mise-en-scène to build an artificial world entirely its own.

Setting: Many scenes are set in an underwater dreamland, populated by weird and wonderful sea creatures brought to life with stop-motion animation and clay models. Zissou’s ship, the Belafonte, is shot in cut-away style reminiscent of the 3D diagrams in children’s cut-away books. To an audience this deliberate style (and the movement of characters between locations in the cut-away ship) highlights the constructed artificiality of the film, for comedic effect and also to heighten the feeling of artificiality and the sense that the universe of the film is not governed by ordinary rules of physical movement. Even the composition of Anderson’s shots, which are often perfectly symmetrical and evenly balanced, constantly reinforce to the audience that each shot and scene has been hand-constructed to achieve the director’s purpose and meaning.

Costume and make-up: Similarly, the red hats and blue uniforms of Zissou’s crew serve multiple purposes: as striking visual elements, as opportunities for physical comedy, and also help reinforce the idea that Zissou and his crew are a group removed from regular society operating in their own universe. The red hats highlight Zissou’s quirky, antiquated notions of his crew as a family (a common theme in Anderson’s films), and also hints to the audience that Zissou has a dictator-like hold on his crew’s every move — explaining character motivations and driving the plot forward.

Lighting: As most of the film is set either underwater or in the lower decks of the Belafonte, lighting is another area that Anderson crafts to manipulate the intellectual or emotional response of the audience — particularly the quality, direction and source of light. Each room in the ship uses an entirely different lighting set-up, to change the feeling of each location, and the above-ground scenes are lit with a wide range of intensities and quality of light. Lighting also functions as a recurrent joke in the film referring to Team Zissou’s incompetence, as all the lights in the Belafonte turn off completely at different points in the film.

Acting and performance: The speech and mannerisms of the actors also reinforce the artificiality and comedy of the film. Bill Murray’s quirky, unpredictable characterisation of Steve Zissou adds comedic anticipation to any scene, because he doesn’t act in a rational way that audiences would expect. Cate Blanchett’s character speaks and acts as if she just stepped out of a Lauren Bacall screwball comedy, but this incongruity is not felt as strongly since all of the other characters act and speak in a stilted, cartoonish way too.

The combination of all these elements (plus many more artfully crafted visual techniques) give The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou a feeling and personality unlike almost any other film.