Mise-En-Scene in SINGING IN THE RAIN In the movie, SINGING IN THE RAIN, mise-en-scene goes with this film in a big way. From a visual standpoint, the costumes and set designs were absolutely astonishing. The bright colors in the costumes and the set designs were very appealing to the eye and are able to draw the audience into the film. The musical numbers were also entertaining and very catchy. Typically, a musical is the last type of movie I would pick to watch because they are one of my least favorite movie genres. However, SINGING IN THE RAIN was quite an entertaining film, in my opinion. Especially when looking at the film from a different standpoint, rather than just taking it for what it is, mise-en-scene was able to help me appreciate the movie. Mise-en-scene literally means staging or putting on an action or scene (Barsam pg. 172). There are two major visual components of mise-en-scene: design and composition. Design is the process by which the look of the settings, props, lighting, and actors is determined. Composition is the organization, distribution, balance, and general relationship of actors and objects within the space of each shot. The design portion of SINGING IN THE RAIN was great. From the costumes and set designs, everything blended together really well. The bright costumes and set designs really helped bring the movie to “life.” It also was very cool how they had the movie within the movie correlate with film’s costumes and designs. It was not like they were totally different, the costumes and set designs for SINGING IN THE RAIN and the other movies portrayed in the film helped keep the film going by sticking with the nice choice of designs for costumes and set choices. The composition of the film was put together very well, too. When films are about films being made or something along those lines, sometimes it can be hard to follow, but SINGING IN THE RAIN did a wonderful job of balancing out the two. The comedy in the film was also quite amusing. I genuinely enjoyed seeing how big of a change it was during those times when “talkies” were becoming the next big thing. Seeing how Lena and Don were huge actors for the silent films and the struggle the directors had when they needed Lena to talk because of her annoying voice. Also seeing the struggle they had when trying to get her to talk into the microphone that is hiding in flower pots and then eventually hide in her dress. It was also funny to me how Don and Lena are proclaimed to be together, but in reality, Don has no feelings for her, but strictly continues the act that they are together for good publicity. One scene that stands out in particular is the scene when they sing “Make ‘Em Laugh.” Right before the musical number takes place, we see how Don and Cosmo are walking past sets and Don is wondering about the future of his acting career. We, as the audience, are able to see all of the things that goes into making a movie. We see the crew cleaning the set, all the props, and costumes they will use for the film. A part that I found interesting in this scene was actually the crew in the background in the beginning of Cosmo’s musical number. Initially, they did not stand out to me, but after watching this scene again, it was pretty cool to notice them. Though they are just cleaning in the background, it seems like they were all cleaning in synch with Cosmo’s song. I’m sure it was planned this way, but to me, that was interesting because it was something I usually would not notice in a movie when watching a movie. I thought having them in synch in the background helped the overall flow of this scene, along with all of Cosmo’s dancing and other workers in the scene all moving in a flowing motion to the song. Obviously, the biggest sense of mise-en-scene was the “Broadway Melody” Don is
