Syllia Newstead

Pd. 3
Wes Anderson Mis-En-Scene

In the film, The Fantastic Fox, Wes Anderson uses color, composition, and character
movement to create a dollhouse aesthetic as having an ordinary life even though
what is happening in the movie may not ordinary. The mis-en-scene makes some of
the scenes look out of place or disconnected.

The colors that are overly used are orange and light brown. Those are kind of plain
colors but the movie would not be considered plain with all the action going on. The
use of ordinary colors appears when there is nothing of significance that is
happening. Everything in the frame matches with each other which create an
unimportance of what the characters are actually wearing and that of the
background. The color clashes with the background which gives off that there is no
exact reason for the character to even be wearing clothes. Mr. Fox wore the same
color as his family which also shows the connection between them. It makes it seem
like their family is an ordinary one with nothing exciting happening. The colors used
are always a shade a part of the others colors which makes it look like something is
off or should not be there.

The composition used shows that there is stuff going on in the foreground and the
background. The use of foreground shows the characters and their actions while the
background shows the everyday life that happens around them. In one scene, Mr.
Fox was talking to his lawyer about the house he wanted to purchase and they were
disputing over it and in the background you could see the lawyers assistant typing
on the computer. There may be something out of the ordinary happening in the
foreground but in the background there always a normal setting. That also gives a
balanced composition. Wes Anderson may put two images in the foreground with
proportional sizes to make sure it is balanced. His use of composition may put
emphasis on the unordinary scenes and foreshadow future events. Having only one
thing in the foreground creates an unbalance and a feeling of disconnection of the
scene. Anderson purposely does that to get the viewer to feel odd about the scene.

Character movement is used with all the characters. They mostly have the same
movement. They walk and run on two legs for the most part. There are also animals
and some of them use four legs and you can tell it is an animal by how they run or

walk. The people do not walk as normal people do, they kind of have a little break in
their walk but it is still mostly the same. It looks like they are toys that are restricted
to move a certain way, which adds to the dollhouse aesthetic. The movement of the
characters does not flow when the character is doing something. It looks like the
characters body is dysfunctional and do not align with one another. The weird
movements of the characters show how they are different and how it does not really
connect with the background. It makes it seem that the characters are just moving
in front of a green screen.

The use of composition, color, and character movement by Wes Anderson shows a
disconnection in the scene and a feeling of out of place. Anderson creates a
dollhouse aesthetic with the mis-en-scene.