Mise-en-scene - Acting & Costume

Acting

There is enormous historical and cultural variation in performance styles in the cinema. Early melodramatic styles, clearly indebted to the 19th century theater, gave way in Western cinema to a relatively naturalistic style. There are many alternatives to the dominant style: the kabuki-influenced performances of kyu-geki Japanese period films, the use of non-professional actors in Italian neorealism, the typage of silent Soviet Cinema, the improvisatory practices of directors like John Cassavettes or Eric Rohmer, the slapstick comedy of Laurel and Hardy, or the deadpan of Buster Keaton and Jacques Tatí, not to mention the exuberant histrionics of Bollywood films.


Costume

Costume simply refers to the clothes that characters wear. Costume in narrative cinema is used to signify character, or advertise particular fashions, or to make clear distinctions between characters.   

In this example from Life on Earth (La Vie sur Terre, 1998) filmmaker and actor Abderrahmane Sissako uses "similar" costumes (long loose clothes, big hats) to further stress the cultural and psychological implications of a nomadic existence, split between the cold affluence of France and the colorful poverty of Mauritania.