MIS EN SCENE

MIS EN A SCENE: THE CAT IN THE HAT

I am absolutely thrilled to announce that today's post will be about the very movie that inspired my blog's layout, The Cat in the Hat. It was delightful to watch again, and I don't even care if that makes me biased. I'll be focusing on the mis en scene of the movie, hence the post title, which is one of the many factors that make it my favorite movie.

(EDIT: The original video I entered here was deleted from YouTube and this was the next best thing, I sent my sincerest apologies about the quality)

The clip above shows the first few minutes of the film, which gives a really good feel for what it's about and how it's going to look.

The setting is a little fictional town called Anville. They established this by creating a very suburban area where everything is mostly the same. Everyone lives in the same house and drives the same car with a few exceptions. Each lawn is mowed well, all things kept up to a high standard, and it is overwhelmingly middle class. This allowed the creators to get across the message of how dreary and monotonous life in Anville was before the arrival of the cat, in turn raising the film's success. In terms of the genre, which is fantasy comedy, the absolute normality of the town really makes the fantasy aspects stand out because of their drastic difference when compared to it. To me, that fact makes the movie that much more enjoyable. 

This next clip shows the arrival of the cat, where you'll be able to view the points I mention on lighting in the next paragraph.

The lighting of the film, to be honest with you, is not very clear to me, but I do believe it's high key lighting. There are a few shadows here and there, but I think that may be due to the circumstance of filming within a house, so there isn't all that much space to place light without such lights being visible on camera. I am also assuming this because it is a comedy and very lighthearted, therefore there should be a lot of light to set that tone and mood. For this same reason, I think any success the movie had was highly influenced by this, as the brightness of the screen draws in attention. Like I mentioned before, it is a comedy, which tend to have a lot of light and little shadow, so it would make sense for the fantasy comedy to be shrouded in lights. I think the light is a very important part of why I like the movie, I don't really love scary things all the time, and when I need something simple and soothing to watch, The Cat in the Hat is perfect.

Moving on, the images above show the costumes of some of the movie's main characters, which I will elaborate on now.

As you can see, the costumes are bright and make heavy use of color. The vibrancy of the costumes I believe is to help brighten the film since it is a comedy, as well as tell the story of two children, who tend to see the world through a more imaginative set of eyes. I love the costumes in this movie because of the color and how everything pops, so I do think they did a good job aiming for that and succeeding. The people of the town can be seen in purples, greens, and yellows, which makes a couple characters specifically stand out. Conrad wears orange, which is to signify his separation from the family because of how he never listens. The cat wears red, as do his Things One and Two, because they are not from this world, and it makes them stand out.

These pictures are some shots of the inside of the main characters' house to aid your visual needs while I describe them below.

Last but not least, the staging. Most of the film's run time takes place within Sally and Conrad's house. It is decorated as any house would have been at the time, a quite modern look with some antiqueness. However, the decor is all in colors that are abnormal for the average house, which plays into the look of the movie itself where everything is bright-colored and saturated. This is a really interesting feat in the storytelling when the house becomes the mother of all messes, because not only is everything very wacky, but it's also all colorful and full of whimsy. I think it must be very important to the film's success, because similarly to the costumes, it draws the audience in and makes it that much more pleasing to the eye. The difference from our world in the staging of the film plays into the fantasy portion of the genre, making that distinguishable separation that tells you this is a movie about a pretend story. Again, I do love the use of color in the movie it's one of my favorite things about it, and this does show in the staging as well as everything else you see on the screen.

I really enjoyed this blog and getting to talk about something which I am truly passionate about. If you haven't seen the movie, hopefully this convinced you, and if you have maybe you'll want to go watch it again, this time looking out for the mis en scene of it. Anyway, thanks for reading catch you next time!