Visual Elements in 'The Piano'

In the scene beginning at 01:43:44, where Ada and George set sail for Nelson, shot sizes are used for various reasons. The scenes uses an establishing shot at 01:44:19 to communicate with the audience clearly the nature and set up of the scene. This particular shot is a tacking shot and it starts with a close up on a Maori woman’s face as she sings a farewell waiata. The shot then zooms out from the woman gradually to reveal the men pushing the waka into the sea. The shot reveals the establishment of the scene in an aesthetically pleasing way. The dramatic movement of the camera from the close-up to an establishing shot matches the movement of the waka through the sand in a flowing way. The use of a tracking shot here also focuses the viewer on the Maori woman as she sings her melancholy waiata, emphasising the fact that the characters are leaving the place they had called their home. The final part of the tracking shot really displays the big wide ocean that the characters are sailing into, this is to highlight the fact that they are going into an unknown, something big and mysterious. However, this is not presented in a frightening way because of the warm lighting from the sunset. 

The film also uses close up shots in the scene, particularly when they are rowing the waka across the sea. The use of close up shots in this scene does two things, it focuses the viewer on the emotions of the characters, and makes the boat feel cramped.  One example of these close up shots in the scene is the shot at 1:46:10. In this shot Ada looks at her piano falling into the water, and contemplates her suicide. The shot has a clear back ground, middle ground, and fore ground. In the background we see a Maori paddling the waka, the middle ground (where the focus is) is Ada, and the foreground is a man dealing with the ropes after pushing the piano overboard. The inclusion of so many thing in a close up shot, creates a cramped feeling for the audience. All of the moving, in one close up shot, really make the shot feel busy and tightly packed. This look is probably reflective of how the main character, Ada is feeling. I imagine she is feeling claustrophobic and suffocated. Maybe she is feeling claustrophobic and suffocated not just from the canoe but from her circumstances in general. From being forced to marry a man, to being shipped to a foreign country her circumstances are less than desirable. By making the canoe suffocatingly full, Campion may be symbolising the suffocating Ada does a few seconds later when she drowns. Her suffocated feeling is reiterated through the use of the close up to focus the viewer on Ada’s face. With the close up, we can see in detail the emotion on Ada’s face. This is important as Ada is having an internal existential crisis as she ponders her suicide. The audience is able to sense the drama on her face, and the use of a close up shot intensifies that effect because it is so large on screen.

The film is edited very slowly; it has a lingering and thoughtful pace. The pace slows the action down and gives the film a sense of realness, but in an awkward way. A critic once said of Campion’s work, that it conveys “the reality of experience”, and I think a huge component of that is the editing pace. The film has quite a considerable number of seconds on each shot, making the film seem very slow. The action seems slower because the dialogue takes longer. But this gives the film the “reality of experience. It makes the film seem more real because the editing pace allows the characters to take long pauses and ponder the actions that have been taken and wonder about the ones they’ll take next. This is much like how real life is, dialogue doesn’t flow and people don’t know how to react to things. The lingering pace gives the film genuineness and it brings the audience in to the world of the film.  Because it is more like real life, the actions taken by the characters seem more significant to members of the audience. Thusly they are more hurt or happier when things go one way or another. The lingering pace also makes the audience feel a little uncomfortable. Audiences are used to the standard fast paced and action heavy films, so the slow pace of the piano is a contrast for the Audience and it feels a little awkward. This stiff feeling, makes the Audience feel how Ada is feeling in the film, uncomfortable. She is thrust into a new, somewhat twisted society and she is a little bit of an outcast, subsequently she feels uncomfortable for most of the film. We are able to see how Ada is reacting to the scene through the editing pace. An example of the lingering pace is at 1:33:50 after Alisdair cuts of Ada’s finger and she is attempting to hold herself together. The camera lingers on Ada as she limps around in the mud holding her bloody wound. It spends several seconds looking straight onto her wound and her face. By having the camera spend so much unbroken time on her the audience is forced to look at her suffering face; creating an awkward feeling in the audience.

Mise en Scene of 'The Piano' - Setting

In the film, setting plays an important part. The harsh cold environment of the west coast of the south island make Ada feel isolated and daunted in her new home. The time period means that the characters have to endure tough and dirty conditions, which creates an unpleasant feeling in the film. In this particular scene, however, the setting adds to the harsh reality of the scene. The setting is in a clearing in the New Zealand woods, the place is an unpleasant place to be. It is filled with mud and mire, created by the torrential rain that soaks the characters and their clothes, the fallen trees whose leaves branches stick out of the logs as broken shanks. All this culminates in the setting being a horrible place. The grimness of the place results in an increased gloomy tone for the film. The mud in the scene makes the characters feel uncomfortable; the dirty environment matches the despair of the scene. The audience react to the mire with repulsion, much how they react to the violence in the scene. The rain burdens the characters and makes them feel worn out. The rain, symbolically, means sadness or grievance, and the scene certainly has a lot of that.  The rain makes the scene feel cold, which, along with the blue lighting, gives the scene an icy intense feel. The fallen trees create darkness in the scene aesthetically. At 01:33:50, there are trees lying in the mud with broken branches protruding from the log like spikes. These violent looking things put a mood of brutality in the scene, which the audience reacts negatively too. All of these features combined make the scene more severe and harder to watch. This adds to what the scene is trying to say because, by making the scene dark and harsh, the film is condemning and regretting the action in the scene.  It is criticising the oppression of women by highlighting the most obvious example of Alisdair’s mistreatment of his wife and emphasising how wrong it is through setting and mise en scene in general.

 

Mise en Scene of 'The Piano' - Performance

The performances in the scene really heighten the drama and the sadness. The two lead actresses both give very good performances and both won Oscars for their work. Her performance in the film overall is phenomenal. The amount and range of emotion Hunter is able to show through her character, despite her character’s silence is incredible. Her detailed performance shows, as well as Ada’s emotions, the depth of Ada as character, which makes the film a more interesting watch. Both these effect are generated in this scene. Initially, Hunter’s portrays Ada as very calm and relaxed in the scene. At 01:32:32 Ada looks peaceful as she sits and reads her book. However, this provides sudden juxtaposition a second later when Alisdair storms through the house and ploughs his axe through the book. When this happens Hunter’s face goes immediately into shock and terror, which gives a huge and instant contrast to her relaxed face just a few seconds earlier. Her performance develops further into the scene, when she pulls away from Alisdair as he drags her through the mud. The desperation of Ada’s face is evident, as she fights to get away from her husband. We see her struggle in a midshot at 1:33:18. The way the film focuses on her in the scene, through shot size and screen time, forces the Audience to see Ada’s desolation. Making the audience grimace, her distressed performance in the scene makes it even harder to watch. Because Ada was seen fighting off her husband instead of letting herself be dragged along by her abusive husband, the performance shows Ada as a strong-willed woman, not willing to be pushed around. This characterization is a criticism by the writer/director Jane Campion of gender roles in society. While women are somewhat expect to be submissive and compliant, Ada is a headstrong independent woman. Anna Paquin gave the other Oscar winning performance in the scene, as Ada’s young daughter, Flora. Flora is another female that doesn’t fit into the expected role of a woman in society. Flora is a lippy, bold girl, not the quiet and meek person women were expected to be. Paquin’s portrayal of the cheeky Flora, as she goes from innocent child to tormented one, gives the film a grievous tone. Flora is initially performed, in the film, as an innocent sinless girl. However, in this scene the audience sees her innocence tarnished. Flora wails as her mother is abused in a close-up at 1:33:39. Even if only briefly, this shot focuses the audience’s attention on Flora’s misery. We can see close up Paquin’s face as she screams and her eyes water. This part of the scene is truly heart-breaking, through the performance here; the audience is able to see the consequences of Alasdair’s violence. The added despair of the scene, from Paquin’s performance reinforces the idea that women shouldn’t be expected to fall into gender roles. The dark, sombre tone of the film is a condemnation of gender roles and is reflective of Ada’s sadness as she is forced into gender stereotypes, and this tone is emphasised through Paquin’s performance. 

Mise en Scene of 'The Piano' - Costume

The costume in the film and in the scene is also important; they inform and remind the audience about what kind of time period the film is set in. Some costumes are more significant than others; particularly, Ada’s dress. Ada’s dress becomes a symbol of her and other womens’ oppression. The dress is a painful, uncomfortable thing that Ada is forced to made to wear by society. The dress comes to represent Ada’s cage, but she also uses it as protection. Not only does she uses it to keep her and her daughter warm at one point in the film, but it also shows her refusal to be affectionate, particularly to her husband. It becomes a barrier and she chooses who is allowed to come in and who is not. This symbolism is apparent in this scene as well when at 01:33:26 Alisdair tries to rip open her dress but she fights him off. In the scene, Ada is dressed in black. Perhaps this is condemnation for her adultery. Her daughter however, is wearing all-white and angel wings. This is symbolic of her innocence and her righteousness, since she did the proper thing to do and didn’t condone her mother’s affair. However, her clothes soon become dirtied in the scene. This represents her dissolving feeling of nobility as she sees what her actions are being done to her mother. This climaxes when she is sprayed with her mother’s blood. Both her and her mother Ada are gradually covered with dirt in the scene. At 01:33:39 there is a clothes up of Ada’s muddy hands. Seeing the two main and most likable character covered in dirt creates a feeling of discomfort in the audience. It adds to the horror of the scene.  It further emphasises the bleakness of the scene and the sadness experienced by the characters.

Mise en Scene of 'The Piano' - Lighting

The lighting in the scene is very gloomy, the scene uses mostly grey and some blue tones. The filmmakers possibly have used a filter to make the lighting more monochrome. While other parts of the film have warm colours and lighter tones, this scene is particularly dark and grey. This emphasises the emotion of the misery of the scene. It further hammers home how bleak the scene is and what it represents in a wider sense. These dreary colours add to the tone of darkness, not only in this scene but in the film overall. They symbolise the sadness in the scene, the film, and the characters. This is very different from other romantic films, making the film seem even darker and more brutal. The dark tones are a representation of the dark and heavy themes in the film, such as spousal abuse, women’s rights, adultery, and gender roles. While it may be stylized, the lighting is naturalistic in the scene. This wasn’t chosen thematically as such, but instead to give a realistic look to the scene, as it is occurring outside. The naturalistic lighting is, however, used to create a dramatic effect. At 01:32:11 in the film Alisdair is running through the forest with an axe, the camera pans through the forest following him with trees cutting in front of the camera. The trees are silhouetted and the contrasting tones of the black trees shadows in the foreground and the light clouds in the background create a dramatic effect. This juxtaposition is very striking to the audience and could possibly make an audience member anticipate the climax that is about to occur. 

Intro to Mise en Scene of 'The Piano'

‘The Piano’ uses Mise en Scene to create various tones throughout the film. Mise en scene is how the cinematographer or the director frames the shot and everything in it. It is particularly prevalent in the scene happening at 01:32:02. In this scene Alisdair hacks off Ada’s finger with an axe after he learns she has seen George again against his orders. The scene is a very important and is, depending on how you look at it, the climax of the film. Through lighting, costume, props and performance the scene creates an impacting scene by the means of mise en scene.

Sound in the film 'The Piano'

The film ‘The Piano’ makes effective use of the convention sound. Ironically, for a film named after a musical instrument, the film uses a lot of silence. One such use is in the scene where Ada goes to see George for the last time and the room scene is silent except for George’s quiet monologue about their relationship (11:11:28). The silence creates and eerie and suspenseful tone. It is suspenseful in the sense that the audience doesn’t know the intentions of the characters or what their actions will be, and the silence builds on this suspense because the audience isn’t given any hints through music or sound effects. The silence builds a dark tone because it makes the scene feel very raw. Although the stripped-down nature of the sound in the scene doesn’t blatantly imply macabre tones, the silence feels very creepy and strange. This is because it breaks the convention of the usual swelling score in romance scenes. The Piano gives the audience a bare, naked scene, instead of something where the music does the thinking for them. This strikes the audience as peculiar and eerie. But the film and its main character Ada are peculiar and eerie, and the use of silence demonstrates that. The strange and unconventional of the silence in the scene makes the audience feel uncomfortable, through the silence and the broken dialogue. Ada is probably also feeling uncomfortable in the scene, so the use of silence helps relate Ada’s feelings to the audience. It creates a sense of awkwardness and realness in the scene; the silence makes the film feel more realistic because silence is not something you usually hear in a film. It adds to the format of the slow lingering pace the film has because it draws out the dialogue and slows down the action. The silence in the film may represent Ada’s silence which in turn represents the silencing and oppression of the women across the world. In general, the silence adds to the overall dark and moody tone of the film.

The film also uses music to carry effect. Most of the films score is just piano music, which, of course, relates to the film as the piano is a motif. However, this doesn’t hinder the range of emotional impact from the score. The piano music can matches the happy mood of the scene at 01:49:38, and the dramatic and romantic mood of the scene at 01:15:13. The diverse moods of the piano music help the audience feel the various tones of the scenes and the emotions of the characters. Particularly Ada, whose perspective the film follows most of the time, because the piano is descrived as her voice. Ada says “I don’t think myself silent. That is because of my piano”. So it follows that the tone of the piano would reflect her emotions in a lot of the film. Where Ada is unable to express herself, both physically and in society, we get to see into her soul through the film and the music. It helps us see how Ada is ignored and how she is empowered. A lot of the music is diegetic, which is quite unusual for a film. The further emphasises how the music is reflective of Ada’s feelings as she is creating the music. The diegetic and simple music also helps the film stay grounded. It makes the film more grounded. It makes the film seem more disciplined as the music is more realistic. The very raw simple score adds to the dark tones of the film. This breaks the convention of the standard romance films’ score. These scores are generally orchestral, fickle and climactic. But the score of The Piano is different; it furthers itself from a standard romance film through the score.