Definitions and Film Analysis

Continuity: Continuity, as I have researched it, refers to unchanging elements within a story or a plot that create an understandable product through consistency.

Mise-en-scene refers to all the visual aspects that apply to telling a story. It is a general term that could apply to costumes, the type of film used in a movie or even the gestures that a person uses while narrating a story. The literal translation of Mise-en-scene is “put into the scene”, and any visual aspect the storyteller chooses to put into the story is rendered Mise-en-scene.

Composition: A composition is combination of simpler elements to create a more complex or diversified whole.

Here is the link to the scene I analyzed: http://youtu.be/VwLCLG218AU

I did not analyze past 2:25 on the movie.

Agent Smith vs. Neo

The scene opens up with some easy dialogue where the director uses some pretty stock shots. Neo walks towards the camera on the left of the screen with a low frontal shot, and then the camera cuts to who he is concentrated on and talking to, Agent Smith (a surprise! He was supposed to be dead). Agent Smith’s shot mimics Neo’s shot except he is shown walking on the right, and this spacing gives a good idea of where both persons are at this time during the film.

            Then, for barely an instant, there’s an expository shot of the backs of Morpheus, Trinity and Link in the Nebuchadnezzar watching Neo in the Matrix. This shot is very short, but it does an important job of laying out the setting as the viewer jumps between the real world and the matrix. Next we see a close up of the right side of Morpheus’s face, and then a straight on shot of Link’s face. This works well, because Link’s hair is visible in the shot of Morpheus’s face helping the viewer understand the placement of each character even from different angles.

            Then, when the camera returns to the matrix, Agent Smith and Neo switch sides, so now Neo is on the right and Agent Smith is on the left. Switching sides may have been used to jar the audience, because this is the come back of Agent Smith, a character who died in the last movie. Originally I thought that changing sides was a terrible idea, but considering the situation I now think it works.

A close up soon follows creating a more intimate setting, and communicates to the audience that the next portion of dialogue is important.

Agent Smith then unloads a monologue about how he survived, and anytime he says anything of worth the camera goes to a close up of him and then to a close up of Neo’s reaction. This back and forth creates a greater tension within the scene, because the audience is waiting for them to fight.

When either one of them says something ominously ambiguous the camera goes to a shot behind the shoulder of one of the two (not over, because it’s a lower shot). Sometimes it is the listener, and sometimes it is the speaker who gets his face in the picture. This type of shot creates a feeling like the viewer is being guarded like a child is guarded under the arm of a parent, and makes Neo and Agent Smith seem bigger and more threatening. This type of shot gives the ominous words more teeth, while building tension.

26 seconds into this particular scene Agent Smith refers to the connection he has towards Neo, and this is illustrated well with a shot that shows the two of them standing in profile facing one another creating a visual back and forth. 

As Agent Smith delivers his speech he edges closer to Neo three times, while Neo stands still. There’s a sequence that the first two movements follow, and then it is broken the third time that Agent Smith moves closer to Neo. Agent Smith is viewed by the camera with a close up the first two times he starts moving towards Neo. This creates tension and fear in the audience for Neo, because we don’t know what is happening to him. This shot is quickly followed, both times, by a shot behind and under Agent Smith’s shoulder creating the illusion that he is bigger. This all builds even more tension especially when done in sequence two times. The tension is raised to a higher level the third time Agent Smith walks closer to Neo, because Agent Smith’s words become more hostile and there is a visual break in the sequence that the audience was familiar with. The shot that was used for the third movement was the same profile shot that Agent Smith used when he said they were connected, and this creates a visual theme and fear because we have seen Agent Smith infect other people before.

Agent Smith then continues his monologue with another close up until it climaxes with Agent Smith talking about purpose. A second Agent Smith enters the screen talking about an attribute of purpose, and it scares the crap out of Neo. This is illustrated well by the camera shot that jars the audience once again by switching Neo to the left and Agent Smith to the right. The camera whirls around Neo on eye level, as one after another, the copies of Agent Smith close in on Neo listing the functions of purpose. This shot makes Neo seem normal and weaker than the early under the shoulder shots, and also creates a seemingly trapped reality for Neo.
            This is where I ended, because the rest is fighting, and while cool, it is not what I thought you wanted us to look at for this assignment.