Case Study: Body of Lies - Mise-en-scene.

Body Of Lies was released in 2008 and was directed by Ridley Scott. It features famous actors such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe. Throughout its time in the cinemas it made a total of $39,380,442, which is less than what it cost to make (which was an estimated $70,000,000).

The film starts with a quote from W.H Auden then fades out and tells you the location (Manchester, England). The black then slowly fades onto a foreign man and half his face is hidden in the shadow whereas the other half is lit up by sunlight. He is facing piratically facing towards the camera and addressing other people in the room, he is gesturing his fingers at them which makes him appear more important. The camera angle makes you feel as if you are one of the people he is talking to.
The camera pans out and shows more of the room, then switches to the camera moving down the corridor of what looks like a small, clustered flat. It shows a room with a lot of light coming in from the window, because its so bright it makes everything else appeared darker and with more shadows.
There is a man sitting at a table in there with lots of strange pots and pans surrounding him and smoke coming out of one of them. He looks hard at work (and very stressed) like he is building something (a bomb).

You then move into another room where a different man is standing watching television which has the first man talking on it. Another man is then brought into the scene, he is asleep in a dark room which light shining on him which makes his body and muscles appear big, this makes him look very powerful. He also has a book on his stomach and he is holding it with his hand; this can also mean he is clever as he can read. The second man appears with smoke around his face.

The next scene cuts to a street view of Manchester, just outside the building. Police and Swat Teams are everywhere and smoke is also coming from somewhere. A milk truck clatters down the road and the police let it through. All the swat team are now running into their positions and breaking into the flat. Its very busy and there is a lot of movement and things going on as they rush around. There is one part that is filmed from behind a fence which makes you feel imprisoned or as if something is trying to be kept in and you aren't meant to be there.
The milkman appears at the door of the flat and everyone is eagerly watching him as he puts the milk down outside. He is a distraction for the swat team as they break the lock on the door and sneak inside.

The people upstairs in the flat realize something is wrong and alert each other and wake up the sleeping man.
The room that the swat team is in is very dark and slightly smokey,all you can really see of them are their silhouettes (you cant see their faces as they are in masks). The others upstairs talk to each other in their own language and there are no subtitles on screen to tell you what they are saying and the camera switches between them. You never really see any of their faces because they are concealed by the shadows. The man at the table says something then blows up the building with the bomb. It quickly cuts to a shot of one member of the swat team and flashes yellow because of the explosion, then goes to a long shot of the exploding building and the road, you can still see the milk truck.
People everywhere in the street are panicking and screaming and its all a scene of confusion, bits of the building are falling down among them. It shows the explosion from another shot and more bits of building flying everywhere.
The scene then ends here.