Mise Quotes

(on directing) No "mise en scène" has the right to be repeated, just as no two personalities are ever the same. As soon as a "mise en scène" turns into a sign, a cliché, a concept (however original it may be), then the whole thing - characters, situation, psychology - become schematic and false.

A lot of it is being done in commercials and music videos. I`ve never done them, but I think that those are forms in which cross-cutting and parallel action are absolutely standard and accepted as a mainstream language. Film-makers like myself enjoy the fruits of that experimentation and absorption by the mainstream. I think people`s capacity to absorb a fractured mise-en-scene is extraordinary now compared to forty years ago.

The narration, in fact, doubles the drama with a commentary without which no mise en scene would be possible.