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Because I like taking apart movies to the point that you don't enjoy them anymore.



One of my pet peeves: the horrible horrible script in the Star Wars prequels. Here is the scene that takes the cake, where Amidala tries to dissuade Anakin from the Dark Side in too many words, and Obi-Wan and Anakin discuss what we already know in case you were too dense to notice. And in case you happen to fall asleep, their discussion is punctuated with the musical farting of the surrounding lava spouts, guaranteed to wake up any bored moviegoer who's waiting for the sabre duel to start. Notice the red look and the bubbly lava which heightens the already over-the-top emotion. They may as well put on masks and act out Greek tragedy with the overblown melodrama. Or a spoof of a Greek tragedy--the lines are too bad to do the classics justice.

Compare that to the superb scene from The Last of the Mohicans below, which carries the equivalent amount of emotion in just a handful of lines . The mise-en-scene obscures rather than illuminates. Though blue is often used to give a calming effect, the scene here is mainly in blue and black which heightens suspense because of the obscurity. The emotion is intensified because we see so little of their faces that every gesture takes on meaning. Just compare: Amidala's moment is "Anakin, you're breaking my heart!" (I'm not heartless, but I couldn't help laughing); when Cora has her moment she is just a still silhouette gazing in Hawkeye's direction. Hawkeye's glistening hair, Cora's shining eyes...everything serves to intensify the emotion, not meaninglessly amplify it and rob the audience of the chance to use their imagination. Daniel-Day Lewis and Madeleine Stowe could have acted badly and it'd still be a good scene (but good acting has made it one of the greatest romantic scenes I have ever watched--ok, the greatest. I don't watch very many movies).