Hacksaw Ridge's Fantastic Mise-en-Scene

                  What's up people! I am here today to discuss how Hacksaw Ridge utilizes Mise-en-Scene during the film, Hacksaw Ridge, and amazing film about a soldier named Desmond Doss, who went into World War 2 without a gun, but had saved dozens of soldiers lives during the Battle of Okinawa. His heroism provided him the opportunity of receiving the Medal of Honor and he has become such an idol to millions of Americans, including me. If you have not watched this film, I highly recommend dropping this blog right here, jump on the couch, and renting this movie.  However, enough said, let's get into it!

    The first image that I wanted to comment on was one with Desmond and Mr. Doss, who are currently located at a graveyard. Desmond is considering enlisting for the war, to which his father highly goes against and attempts to persuade him out of it. These earlier scenes and the backstory before the battle are much brighter with greenery being present. Natural lighting is used here, as the scene is located outside, with soft lighting used to convey the peacefulness of the film before the war begins. In addition, we do have 1900s dressing being used to achieve historical context, such as Mr. Doss's vest accompanied by long sleeves tucked into his pants. The entirety of the scene gives us false security to what war really is. The high key lighting being utilized battles against the gloomy setting of the graveyard, providing us Desmond's positivity in this situation that he is putting himself in. He is going to war to save as many people as he can, even if it is all in vain.

    The second image I am including in this blog is one where Desmond Doss is located within a jail cell. The context of this scene is that he refused to use a rifle during training, meaning he could not graduate from bootcamp. This counted as a violation, leading to his imprisonment for the duration of the war if he is convicted of this crime. The lighting of the cell is gloomy for the most part, with back lighting emphasizing his silhouette and key light being minimized, only being used to light up his face. It allows the character to appear as if he is reflecting on his situation, and the conflict he faces for refusing to use the gun. I do also want to mention that at this part of the story, we can see that Desmond is wearing his army uniform, and that throughout the rest of the duration of the film he has it on.  

    This scene contains the location that is where the rest of the movie will be located in. Hacksaw Ridge, Okinawa, Japan. The battle begins with bloodshed and fear develops within the 307th infantry, 77th infantry division. The costuming of every character consists of the normal soldier outfits with their respective rankings and roles taken into consideration, such as Desmond with his medical decorations. Additionally, the battle field uses natural light, with barely any sun being shone on the battle. It is a much different environment than the first half of the movie, where sunlight brightened up the scenes. It conveys the dire circumstances that the soldiers were put in, featuring much fatality's that the film was able to pull off, such as both of a soldier's legs being blown clean off by explosions. 

        The story takes a dark turn, where hundreds of men were killed during the assault on Hacksaw Ridge. Desmond's uniform is tattered, stained with the blood of men he could not save. His grief expressions are encapsulated by the gloomier lighting used to express the sadness of all the men. We can see fill lighting is used to remove shadows from his face, to reveal those scratches and blood that is found all over his face. Desmond was able to escape from the war, but not without causalities, and even a personal loss. Doss carried Smitty Ryker on his shoulders through gunfire and hell. Smitty was heavily injured and could not move on his own, so Desmond decides to play hero and attempt to save him. Unfortunately, Smitty dies from his injury, which is why our protagonist is tearing up during this scene. If I am being honest, Smitty's death was a tragedy, even making me tear up during the movie. The lighting, the bloodiness of Desmond's face, all this contributes to how depressing his death was, and really sells you on the terrible consequences of war. I understand I may be going off tangent with describing how fitting this scene was to the movie, but it develops Desmond's character so well. He could not save his friend from the tragedy of war, even after he tried so hard to get him out of there. This crushes him, and leads to his epiphany in the film, to go save the men still injured on enemy territory.

        The final scene that I want to leave you with is the last scene you witness when watching Hacksaw Ridge. The context of it is the result of Desmond's actions, where he had saved well over 50 men, and some even say upwards of 70 to 80. Desmond appears to be at peace, although he is heavily injured. His uniform is even more tattered up here than the last image, as he had spent all night on the Ridge saving soldiers. The designers for the gore in the movie did amazingly, showing their talent through the disturbing leg injury's that Desmond obtained from kicking a grenade away. The lighting is much brighter here, where we can actually see the sunlight over the scenery, to express the peace that our protagonist has over saving those men and surviving the battle. He is led down to the ground by ropes and a stretcher. His facial expressions are not captured, but rather the camera positions itself to show how wide the setting really, as well as how high up Desmond is. Although I do not know what effect his current position in the setting has, I do think it looks amazing and a fitting end to this story. 

    In my personal opinion, I give the film a 10/10 for how they were able to portray Desmond Doss and his bravery under fire. Andrew Garfield is such an outstanding actor in his films, and this one is surely one of his best. The movie's use of Mise-en-Scene was delivered perfectly, and really conveyed how terrible being at war is. I also want to applaud costume and make-up designers for making each uniform and outfit feel as if the film really does take place during WW2, as well as gore artists showing how brutal warfare is. I thank you audience for reading through this blog, and I will see you tomorrow where we discuss Tom Hank's influence on a generation of kids!

Mood Board

 

        Hey bloggers! I introduce you to my new project, a mood board on the movie, Nope, which I had reviewed the different shots produced by Jordan Peele and his team to capture the thriller and horror of the film. My mood board provides us the themes of fear, darkness, mystery, and wonder. Nope managed to create these emotions and feelings within me while I watched, and I truly advise you to give the movie a chance.

        First things first, you may notice both the dark and light aspects of the film, as well as it being set in a western location with desert all around. Nope is set in an isolated area, where not many people wander around, allowing for the characters to appear stranded and small compared to their surroundings. I really enjoy this factor, as taking place in an urban or suburban location would throw off the horror feel of the movie, which usually is used in most popular movies in the genre, which we can all say from experience is effective.

        Additionally, Nope plays the night time events in the movie well, first revealing the alien UFO during the dark hours. In fact, most of the extraterrestrial events occur during the night. The movie takes the darkened atmosphere to establish mystery and fear as themes for the movie, and it makes viewing it that much better. After the reveal of the UFO, we begin to see it in action during the daytime, as we already know how it looks, so no reason to hide it. However, seeing it in action with light outside seems to make it even more threatening to the characters, as it rampages and attempts to scare them away from its territory.

        Jordan Peele used these factors magnificently, because he managed to capture those feelings of wonder and terror all on the subject of this UFO, using the secluded surrounding area in both the day and night. I'm excited for whatever movie project is next for Mr. Peele, and I hope it captures my attention the same way his past 3 films have done.

Errands in the Snowy Woods

     What's up bloggers! Today I want to present a new project my friend and I have been working on behind the scenes. We worked to achieve a sound story, which is using only sounds to create a plot, without any visuals at all! Sounds fantastic, right? Anyways, let's dive right into it.

    We went for a story about a man going out of his cabin to chop a tree down. Simple, right? Well, not exactly. We never accounted for how difficult brainstorming ideas to create these sounds were, and ultimately, we had to call upon a few sample sounds from online to create the aesthetic of the project. However, we were able to come up with various sound effects for our scene. To start off with, we had our protagonist open his front door to leave, allowing the sound of the icy wind to blow into your ears. Davin simply used his door to create the sound, a good start to our project. Following that, we have sounds, created by me, to mimic the sounds of heavy footsteps on a wooden porch, mimicking the scene of our protagonist leaving his house and heading to the snow. Right after, we have the man step onto the snow and walk in it for a bit. This was created by myself by stepping on my backpack savagely to create the depth of the snow sounds. It is not perfect, but we are glad to have reached that solution.

    Following along, the man stops in the snow in front of a tree, the wind continues to blow to keep the continuity of the story going. The protagonist picks up an axe from the snowy ground and begins to chop down a small tree for fire wood. We were able to accomplish this with sounds created by yours truly, which involve me removing a shovel from dirt to mimic the sound of the axe being picked up, as well as punching my bed to create the sound of chopping wood. Sounds pretty realistic, doesn't it? We ended up pulling up a sample sound of a tree falling, as attempting to make the sound of a tree fall without an actual tree is quite difficult. Next up, the man picks up the fallen tree, dragging it through the snow all the way home to chop up later. Davin was able to grab a large branch with leaves and drag it through grass and dirt, then he layered my audio of walking through snow onto it to create the sound of dragging a tree through snow. Afterwards, my audio of dropping the tree onto the ground was produced by dropping wooden planks onto dirt. We input the porch footsteps to show that he man is going back inside, opens the door, and the audience is able to listen to crackling fire as the man makes his way onto his couch. With sounds created by myself, we mimic the man sitting down, picking up a newspaper to read, and drinking from a mug full of hot coco. What an adventure that was!