Bea Ademujimi's Textual Analysis of 'What Lies Beneath'

Task: Explain How the Mise En Scene and Sound is used to establish the situation and the characters in the opening two minutes of the thriller film What Lies Beneath

I will be finding out how the thriller film, What lies beneath uses mise en scene and sound to represent s the genre of a thriller. The genre of the thriller is not easily noticed in the beginning of the film trailer, the way of the mise en scene makes the film look upbeat and relaxing not like the normal scary jumpy thriller approach that is normally associated with the genre of thrillers. By watching the two minute trailer of what lies beneath, I found that the director Robert Zemeckis was aiming for the trailer to look gentle and forthcoming in the beginning. This is why he put a lot of effort into the trailer. The Mise en scene included the settings, décor, props, lighting, costume, make-up, colour, body language and body movement. The director chose to put the setting in a new lakeside house set in Vermont. The setting evokes many responses from the audience. The home supposedly belonged to Dr Norman Spencer’s (Harrison Ford) scientist father. In the opening nine seconds we have an eye level extreme long shot of the home which is positioned in the middle of the screen so the audience can see the families car the trees on the porch and the house which is on the left side of the lens which shows the audience the beautiful setting of the lake on the right hand side, by all of this we already have a sense that the home is of a small middle class family.

The dialogue starts off as non diegetic sound and then in a matter of seconds we see the characters Mr. Norman & Mrs. Claire Spencer (Michelle Pfeiffer) in their home and then the sound becomes Diegetic. We know that the characters are in their home because we can see both of them standing outside what looks to be their bedroom window you can tell this by the décor of the room. In the 13th second of the thriller trailer there is a close up of the house there are many neat looking plants around the house which gives the set a luxurious yet normal look to it, from this shot there is a fast fade into a MCU of Caitlin Spencer (Katharine Towne) their only child who is going off to college. There are six very fast cuts between her eating her breakfast in the morning and her leaving the house and packing her things into the car. Her costume is quite normal she is wearing a pale orange t-shirt and her hair is wet showing us that she has just taken a shower and not dried her hair. She does not seem to be wearing much make-up because she has just left the shower not too long ago. In the very fast paced cuts we see little parts of the house behind the characters the props help to show what certain locations are. For example the cupboards are filled with glasses, the microwave in the kitchen counter and the cups next to the sink show that the room they are in is the kitchen and in the other fast cut scene other room wallpaper is clear white and most of the furniture is based on the furniture of a bathroom the sink, the flowers on the side, the white mirror and the single light.

After two single lines of dialogue is spoken by Mr. & Mrs. Spencer soft background music is being played (it is non diegetic sound its pace is slow but effective), and the couple is seen on the bed cuddling, when suddenly they here their new neighbours screaming with passion but only for a couple seconds. Mr. Spencer looked out the window to see if there was trouble but returned to the bed and joined his wife on their bed. At forty seconds we see Claire on her computer playing a game of solitaire it is raining outside and we can see and hear the diegetic sound of rain when she suddenly a non diegetic sound of lightning comes and there is a power a power cut. There is a medium paced fade and we see a two shot of her and her husband in the hospital that her husband probably works in we can assume this because we see medical equipment behind him and a female who looks like a nurse wearing gloves behind him putting some equipment away, she claims to have heard noises. After she says this, the volume of the background music increase slightly and when she says the word “home” there is a fast fade into a centre shot of the home. Then there is a cut into a two shot of Mr. & Mrs. Spencer sitting in a restaurant with another couple opposite. At this part the music has decreased slightly. Her make-up is gentle and neat and her costume is a nice ivory v neck dress which makes her look angelic, her body language is uncomfortable and her facial expression shows that she is stressed. The props used to make the location look like a restaurant are the small tables and the glasses of wine and the cuisine laid on the table and male characters dressed as waiters. The colour is normal but the lighting is used so that we have a clear focus of the two couples but a less clear slightly blurred focus on the other diners in the restaurant the director probably used key, back and filler lighting only for the scene. As more cuts become more rapid the music increase pace slightly.

At the 57th second the audience can see an ECU of an old news paper and on the newspaper “Search Intensifies for missing girl”. The background music is still playing, and Claire is seen holding up a card of the “missing” girls’ photo and this is again shot as ECU. The shots are moving quite rapidly now and the audience are only viewing snippets of evidence from these shots. I think Robert Zemeckis chose to use discontinuity editing because it makes the audience confused it interreges its audience because the audience are stuck on what’s going to happen next and you certainly can’t tell by the way Zemeckis has created this trailer. Zemeckis uses many jump shots to show time passing and he uses montage editing which works successfully because the shots are not seamlessly joined together. At 1 minute 2 seconds we suddenly jump cut into a braid of hair being fished out of the lake and at 1 minute 4 we see and OTS shot of Claire facing an wooden based café. The lighting in there is not very light due to the lack of natural light in the setting but it is enough. A woman is talking to her about Claire husband. She looks tired and run down and by what she is wearing she seem to not really care about much and it does no look like she has any make-up on. After this there is another jump shot were we see Claire taking a picture with a camera of her neighbour, she shows the image to her husband and tries to persuade him that there new neighbour is in fact the missing girl but her husband is quick to persuade her otherwise.

At 1 minute 14 seconds there is a non diegetic sound of Norman and we then see him on the phone, but this intrigues the audience because he does not tell who he is talking to, he is wearing normal house cloths and his body language shows seriousness. In the next jump cut we see Claire walking around in her house when we hear a non diegetic ghostly sound above the creepy yet soft background music. The décor of the house walls are white which make the shot a lot brighter and also more ghostly. Then there is a 180’ Rule shot of her talking to what looks like a male psychiatrist. Then suddenly we see the words “you know” written in dark gray in a scary font onto the pure white doors and there is a slow zoom onto it. The background music then increases again but only slightly. The jump shots are continuing and we find out that Norman had an affair with the missing girl; he tells how the girl had threatened to kill herself, and in an OTS we see Claire in a red revelling dress telling her husband to get out. There is now whispering going on while the background music is still playing both are still non diegetic sounds.

The jump shots turn into quick blackouts were we see a different location in the house each time and a different facial expression by the two main characters, Claire looks shocked and deeply upset while Norman shows no remorse. At 1 minute 37 seconds we suddenly see a shot of the bathroom the lighting is bright and we can see that there is defiantly something wrong by the way the objects are moving and the lights are flickering. We slowly see Claire’s head appear out of the water in her bath. And then the blackout appears again and we see text appear on the screen there’s another quick shot and again text comes upon the screen this intrigues the audience because it tells the confused viewers a little bit about the movie