Mystic River

Within this tightly framed shot of Mystic River, elements of mise en scene contribute to Jimmy's entrapment. Surrounded by two rings of police officers, Jimmy struggles to escape the enclosement to locate his assumed dead daughter. The director, Clint Eastwood, utilizes intimate proxemic patterns and extreme close ups to increase the audience's emotional attachment to Jimmy's heartbreaking realization. Starting with a high angle and moving to a bird's eye shot, there is no doubt of the power the police officer's have over Jimmy through his constant struggle. Eastwood focuses in on an extreme close up of Jimmy's face blurring the police officers around him in order to increase the intimacy and emotional attachment between the audience and Jimmy's pain over the loss of his daughter. The intimate proxemic patterns increase the proximity to the character and allow the audience to feel Jimmy's emotion as much as he does. In addition, the territorial space and depth in this frame is used to further emphasize Jimmy's entrapment. As Louis Giannetti addresses, "Space is a medium of communication" and the tightly framed elements of this shot emphasize Jimmy's inability to escape to see his daughter, but more importantly to escape his own loss and need for revenge later on in the movie (Giannetti). Little depth is used in order to add to the dominate contrast of Jimmy's face. The shot moves to a bird's eye view circular view of the father and switches to a similar

circular frame of his daughter's entrapment in death. Furthermore, the quarter turn of Jimmy's face throughout this frame increases intimacy to the character. The audience feels more invited into the emotional depth of Jimmy's heartbreak because of almost addressing the audience directly in eye contact. In this shot, Jimmy's emotional and physical entrapment is utilized by Eastwood to introduce the character's emotional motives throughout the film.




Mystic River utilizes mise en scene in order to demonstrate thematic moral flaws of humanity. As A.O. Scott of the New York Times writes on the film, " the basic moral distinctions we depend on in our efforts to make sense of the world (and to survive its random, inexplicable cruelty) are hopelessly and fundamentally flawed " (Scott). From the beginning, the parallelism used as Dave is entrapped within a car by both the molesters and then the Savage brothers suggests how

innocence can not always be saved. The tightly framed shot and the dominate contrast in Dave's face with the blurred subsidiary contrasts of those who entrap him, emphasize a childhood innocence which is forever lost by the second time the scene arises. Lines of moral distinctions are constantly being questioned. Within the first parallel shot, the dominate contrast of the molesters ring is supposedly suggesting a religious man considering the cross he wears on his hand. Although Dave is entrapped, normally suggesting his guilt, those who entrap him are always to blame. Dave's innocence as a person and in committing the crime of killing Katie each time he enters the car adds to the idea that innocence can not always win. Although people normally believe those to blame will always be brought to justice, that is not always the case. The affect it will have on the innocent is long lasting, as seen through Dave never recovering from entering each car. Justice is further questioned by Jimmy

killing Dave. In the scene when he speaks about the murder to Sean, Jimmy walks down the street in a very openly shot scene. He appears to be free, but Jimmy moves his arms outward in a Christ position symbolizing his realization of all moral lines he has crossed as a character. In a way, he has sacrificed himself for the sake of his family representing the openness of the frame. Morally, murder should not be condemned yet his character is set free. Within Mystic River, lines of moral distinctions are constantly being redrawn in order to demonstrate their flaws.