Staging, Journey, Discovery
Scene staging is an element of film form pointing clearly to cinema's origin – theatre. Kinuyo Tanaka in THE MOON HAS RISEN uses staging to shape the scene's invisible geometry, accentuating the tension between characters. Maren Ade in TONI ERDMANN stages the scene through depth, facilitating the tragicomic punchline. And in Maria Schrader's STEFAN ZWEIG: A FAREWELL TO EUROPE, the criss-crossing complex staging in the final scene makes the space where it takes place come alive. Movement is key to a motion picture, and journeys in film can be horizontal as well as vertical (into the self). Travel can be like glue and bind characters from two different worlds, like in KRANE'S CONFECTIONERY where a middle class woman and working class man go on a moral journey against society. Driving can be a test of will and courage, like in Nell Shipman's SOMETHING NEW. The mode of transportation itself can serve as a safe space and a social microcosm, like the car in Andrea Arnold's AMERICAN HONEY. Or, like in Jennifer Kent's THE BABADOOK, it can take the character on a journey into their nightmares. Discovery and revelation shape some of cinema's most iconic moments. But beyond the best-known scenes, there lies the humanity, craft and insight of discovery – like in Céline Sciamma's TOMBOY, when the mother suddenly sees her child in a new light. There's the discovery of the opposite sex's naked form, like in the male-gaze-flipping scene from Patty Jenkins' WONDER WOMAN. Then in Sabiha Sumar's SILENT WATERS the audience itself is guided through a discovery that changes everything about how they view the story.
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