Film Techniques In The Philadelphia Story

The position of an object in a frame can tell an entire story of its own. The setting, lighting, and even position of the characters in a film can give a whole new meaning to a frame or scene. In The Philadelphia Story, mise-en-scène plays a large role in the overall tone and understanding of the story. Each frame is carefully thought out and set up, resulting in a beautifully composed film.
The setting of the film is a large Philadelphian estate in which the high class main character Tracy Lord lives. The house is filled with expensive looking furniture, silver decorations, and art, almost to the point of the house looking cluttered. There is such an excess of shining luxuries always positioned in view of the camera that the fact that the Lord family is quite rich is obvious. The outside of the estate is also fast, almost never-ending in land with hotel-worthy pools and sophisticated stables. Even without the script saying the Lord family was rich, one would
The camera zooms in and the wedding cake is now almost out of sight, with just the side of the large cake visible. At this point, they’ve stopped talking about George and the wedding entirely. They have started talking about themselves: about the ship the True Love, about how Tracy felt like she had never been a good person and how Dexter had always been there to pick her up when she had fallen. Tracy constantly puts herself down in this scene, even though she is bathed in a positive, virtuous white (from both lighting and her white dress). Both the viewer and the characters forget about the wedding entirely, represented by the cake going from fully shown on screen to barely visible at all now that the attention is solely on the two characters. Dexter also shifts into a very casual position with his legs on the chair and his arms around her. This shows that Dexter is completely comfortable around Tracy, and we know this with just a simple change in