El regreso de la puesta en escena cinematográfica como concepto teórico en los inicios del siglo XXI

Abstract

This research Ph.D. thesis in inscribed inside the field of Film Studies interested on film theories, specifically in the ways cinematic concepts are acquired and used by the critics and academics to explain the film experience. The object of study is the concept of mise en scène, mainly the critical uses that it has today, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, this concept that seemed forgotten. What we explore and defend here is that there exists today a return of the mise en scène; that simultaneously, two decades since, in the main countries with a larger theoretical film tradition, United States, France, United Kingdom, but also Australia, Holland and Spain, a new interest has grown on the subject, reflected on many recently published books on which the concept is analysed, explained, questioned and updated.This thesis pretends to show these new approaches, but also to propose a new way of understanding today the concept of mise en scène. In order to do so, a few books have been selected which have been published around the world the last twenty years, written by the most preeminent theorist that give this concept a major role, among them, David Bordwell, Jacques Aumont, John Gibbs and Adrian Martin. As we pretend to present those different approaches for comparison, we take as a departing point the methodology created by Dudley Andrew (1978) for his book about the major film theories, adapting it to the distinctive features of the mise en escène concept.In order to understand the scope and the novelty of their proposals, we start by a chapter devoted to explain how the concept was born, how it was used by the critics and theorists, how it had its apotheosis and how it almost disappeared, and the classical function it had then.Next, we present the results of this investigation. Using a methodological net constructed from the one already mentioned, we make all the different ideas from each author, reflected on his books, to pass through it, in order to find how they define the concept, what elements they include, what different forms and functions it has, and finally which is for each author the essence of the concept and the uses it has today. The books analysed all come with references to other texts, from the same author or from many others, who have thought previously about the concept, which help us to understand and explain the ideas of each author, so they have been analysed too.In the conclusions we propose a few key ideas to understand and appreciate the concept today, its function and relevance. Inevitably, it refers to a moment in the film history, and understood this way is still helpful. But today it brings with it new ways of thinking about it, new uses and implications. Linked to the concept of film style, mise en scène can be understood as the form or shape of a film, but also as the process across which it acquires its form, and the way this form is reflected on the film. These are different ways of understanding it, today and ever, and depend on who is using them and what for, the spectator, the filmmaker or the critical or academic researcher, and they are a proof of the diversity and richness of the possible approaches today to mise en scène.