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Reveals how mise-en-scène has shaped the fields of film and television studies.
Visions in the Frame provides a detailed evaluation of the journey and status of mise-en-scène—the organization of the visual field within the frame—as a critical concept in film and television studies. The first part of the book looks at the persistence of mise-en-scène within film studies amid a series of fluctuations in theoretical, historical, cultural, philosophical, and critical approaches. The second part shifts focus to consider television studies and the extent to which mise-en-scène has remained an ambiguous element in the growth of the discipline. The third part engages in a series of close readings from a range of styles and genres of television shows, exploring the relationship between visual composition, meaning, and significance as a central critical focus. Across the three parts of the book, Visions in the Frame presents a rigorous and valuable context for understanding the contrasting position and influence of mise-en-scène within film and television studies, using this to offer guidance for its future role within both disciplines.
"James Walters' careful attention to mise-en-scène as visual style across film and television is refreshingly open-minded. Looking into the history of critical approaches to these media, he develops new ways of approaching and understanding everything from high drama to cooking shows. An indispensable guide for students and teachers." — Adrian Martin, author of Mise en scène and Film Style
"This book offers an account of how a single aspect of the moving image and a single focus of moving image criticism—mise-en-scène—has developed in film and television studies respectively. Its extraordinary range and depth of inquiry into the history of these disciplines is rendered with deftness and clarity, and it offers a powerful invitation for mise-en-scène criticism to be accepted more broadly within television studies." — Elliott Logan, author of Breaking Bad and Dignity: Unity and Fragmentation in the Serial Television Drama
"Visions in the Frame makes a compelling case that mise-en-scène has been foundational to the development of film studies, yet remains far less central—and differently articulated—within television studies. With elegance and critical precision, James Walters maps this disciplinary disparity and shows what becomes newly visible when we attend to style across both media. A vital contribution to contemporary screen scholarship, and a persuasive reminder of why close analysis still matters." — Sérgio Dias Branco, University of Coimbra
"Rich in both critical history and attentive close analysis, Visions in the Frame offers a compelling account of why mise-en-scène matters in the study of both film and television, and ultimately, the value of attending to the image and its composition for a range of approaches and perspectives in both disciplines. Walters shows great sensitivity in his rigorous tracing of attentions to (and away from) mise-en-scène, drawing together an insightful picture of how, and crucially why, investment in mise-en-scène has and hasn’t developed across disciplinary developments; this is a story told through an engaging understanding of the connections and tensions between people, through their critical, ethical, and even prosaic concerns of writing about and teaching film and television. Modestly presented as a series of starting points, passages of mise-en-scène analysis deepen the argument, modelling readily and elegantly the critical rewards of engaging with the visual richness of television in all its variety as a medium." — Lucy Fife Donaldson, University of St Andrews
James Walters is Professor of Screen Aesthetics and Criticism at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. His previous books include Television and Repetition and Fantasy Film.
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part 1: Film Studies and the Persistence of Mise-en-scène
1. Screen Education
2. Using Images
3. "The Spatial Disposition of People"
4. Framing the World
5. Valuing Mise-en-scène
6. Beyond Words
7. Theory, Distance, and Distortion
8. Tear It Down, Make It Count
9. Nothing Special
10. Branching Out
Part 2: Television Studies and the Ambiguity of Mise-en-scène
11. Finding the Screen
12. Early Moves
13. Working Around Authorship
14. "Little Instants of Sought-For Revelation"
15. Cultural Sounds and Visions
16. "Judgements Are Being Made..."
17. The Aesthetic Turn
18. Bigger on the Inside
Part 3: Television Mise-en-scène
19. Where Are We Now?
20. The Surface of Power
21. Finding the Frame
22. The Play of Shadow and Light
23. Audience of One
24. The Shock of the Blue
25. Meanings in Motion
26. Eight by Two Inches
27. Blank Expression
28. Late Finds
29. Pieces of Television
Conclusion
Appendix
Notes
Works Cited
Index