Mise-en-scene for The Matrix

There is a lot you can talk about in this scene but a lot of what I could say is how amazing the film is but I will try to restrain myself and only describe the Mise-en-scene.

First off is Setting:
                              The setting is obviously a subway is the general answer.  The question is when where and what kind of subway well firstly its not a big station as there is only one track, its fairly run down, a lot of rubbish and relatively old every prop the rubbish the old phone booth all lead to the conclusion that this is a dark rundown station.  From the technology present and the style of clothing of both heroes and villains it hints at a late 1990's time setting.

its dark but a big open area to fight in. There is no one else around adding to its abandoned feeling and isolated feeling.

Next is the Lighting:

Now there are two major lighting effect one major one that anyone can realise and one far more subtle. Starting with the major one then is the subway lighting, it is dark this adds to the effect of seriousness of the scene and the run down nature of the setting. The other use of light is used to show the escape/ way out so it is much brighter representing a form of safety.

Now onto the minor lighting its not something a lot of people pick up on is a colour tint in the films.

Here inside the matrix there is a green tint to the scenes most likely because of the green machine code that is shown on all the screens that depict the matrix this is like a subliminal message that all this is still a virtual reality and in a sense is not real

Where as when there are scenes in the real world and the screen is tinted blue probably to offer a direct opposite to the green tint which helps highlight them more, also blue is a more calm and still colour showing a more calm world (even though the world can be very violent)

Costume and Make-up:

   The costumes also are two different sets one set in the real world and one in the Matrix. The real world clothes and loose fitting maybe even a bit ragged which shows how bad things have gotten in the future and how desperate they are, the raggedness of the clothing show how hard it is to get clothes and the loose fitting show the lack of food.

In the matrix however you can have whatever clothes you imagine for yourself so the agents wear these suits which gives the illusion of a unified force, organised and powerful. The free humans have a lot of similar clothing suits and long cloaks it gives them power as well but also a veil of mystery about them cause they all wear sun glasses to hide identities and give more power to the characters. These clothes also look very impressive whilst fighting with whirling clothes/coats.

Positioning and Space:

    The positioning and space in this scene is interesting just like any fight scene there is a big open area to fight in and to move about , their position at the start of the fight is very far away from each other in a stand off from each other to emphasise the showdown look to the fight. After this stare off the fight really begins and their positions are closer to each other (because there fighting). They keep the fight moving not really staying in the same place for very long, there are also jumps, throws, knock-backs and a lot of different camera angles.

Acting Expression and Body language:

As you might assume in a fight scene most of the facial expressions are angry or focused. Its hard to find variety or at least good variety in this sort of scene, even body language its hard to describe for most of its body language is based on the fighting and there stances. The scenes out of the matrix show a bit more but still they are very short and not much can be picked up. Im not trying to say that this scene is bad when it comes to expression and body language, in fact it is really good for it, it just does not have the biggest range in the world.