A Comparison Between Love And War And Titanic

Love and war

The movie ‘love and war’ is basically about a boy who left his home to go and fight for his country. He then came back with a girl, nurse, from Red Cross as his wife. The film only takes four minutes and takes on a silent mode. Some scenes are unexplained; however, the short clip gives all the narration of the whole story. The young man chooses to oblige to his country as a fighter despite the condition he leaves his parents.

Titanic

Jack wins a trip on the Titanic, and it is while taking his journey that he notices Rose. Rose was on her way to Philadelphia to get married to her rich snob fiancé. At some point, Rose feels helpless due to her situation and attempts murder at the deck, where Jack saves her. Rose’s fiancée hosts Jack for dinner after saving her life. In return, he invited Rose to third class for an evening of dance where she had the time of her life. Rose then asked Jack to sketch her in the nude form as Jack had made a living making sketches on the streets of Paris. Her fiancé, Caledon, found out about the nude painting and got Jack locked away. Soon afterward, the ship hit an iceberg, and Rose was obliged to look for Jack so as they could escape from Caledon even though the vessel kept sinking deeper.

In this paper, I will use the four components of mise-en-scene to compare and contrast between the films ‘love and war’ and ‘Titanic.’

Setting

The setting is an essential visual component of the film. It demonstrates all a viewer sees which defines costume from a location. In the movie ‘love and war,’ different scenes have different settings. Different illustrated songs are used to introduce the various stages in the film. Each scene emphasizes the painful tension created by war between the young man’s family and his perceived responsibility to his country. As the film begins, he bids his family goodbye in an act that leaves the family sobbing. The battle scenes are set during the Spanish-American war.

‘Titanic’ was filmed on a ship. The vessel was massive, fast, and believed to be unsinkable. There are various social classes identified in the ship. Rose, for instance, was living in the first-class together with his rich fiancé (Bagnoli 31). Jack, on the other hand, belonged to the third class. At the beginning of the film, Jack and a friend are seen gambling for their tickets on the ship.

On the other hand, Rose had arrived in a vehicle and had servants meeting all her needs. Class is demonstrated too in the scenario where a porter belonging to first-class was taking his dog for a walk and decided to let it use the toilets in third class. Jack’s friend commented that it was typical of them to get such treatment.

Costume

Clothing is an essential visual component in the film. When the outfit is manipulated to function in line with the film, effectiveness is achieved. In the film ‘love and war’, we find that the soldiers in the battle are dressed in uniforms different from their opponent’s. They carried guns on their arms, too, to suit the costume. The opponents carry a flag as a prop to indicate war. The nurses also wore white caps as an indication of their professionalism.

In the movie, ‘Titanic,’ Rose is always on elegant but straightforward wear. In a particular scenario, before the ship sank, she is seen in a slightly big and long necklace, and she had her hair fixed in a classy way. According to this kind of style, a conclusion is reached that she came from a high class of living. On the other hand, Jack is always on simple wear with no jewelry indicating that the two did not come from the same social status levels. The type of style and clothes evidenced in the movie generally suggest that the film was taken a while back.

In comparison, the type of dressing in both movies indicates that the film was produced some time back. This is demonstrated by the kind of dressing shown by the young man’s mother in ‘love and war’ and as dressed by both Jack and Rose in ‘Titanic.’

Figure behavior

Thematic unity can be achieved in a film if only the move and express accordingly. Figure expressions refer to the type of gestures and facial expressions made by a character, while movement is the actions they undertake. In the film ‘love and war’, the young man’s parents are seen to mourn when he bids them go to war. The man is also seen to pace in the house as a sign of restlessness and tension. At war, the nurse who tends to him after he got injured, held her chin and walked a little as a sign of worry about her patient.

The film characters in ‘Titanic’ start jumping in the water and hasting up and down in the ship after the realization that the boat was drowning. Rose and Jack are also seen trembling in the water to show how cold it must have been. When the police come for Jack, he tries to resist them. Rose and Jack, as the major characters, used the right facial expressions and body movements appropriately. They reacted to each scene with the right actions needed.

In terms of figure behavior, in both films, the characters contributed to making the filming a success by acting appropriately. In ‘Love and war’ the young man’s mother fell into tears when he was leaving for battle and embraced him with enthusiasm when he returned. The difference between the figure behavior in the two films, however, occur in the manner at which character display action. In ‘Love and war,’ the characters show reaction and movement in a dramatic and almost funny way. This is not the case in ‘Titanic’ as there the environment is calm, and characters act in a manner that retains that calmness.

Lighting

Black and white colors in the film ‘love and war’ create a tense mood and embrace the environment of war. In the young man’s parent’s house, the camera only focuses on one angle giving the viewer a clear view of the inside and the characters. During the battle, lighting is modified to create an environment of tense and fear.

In the film ‘Titanic,’ lighting and sound were modified to make the scene appear terrific. The viewer only gets an idea of the enormous size of the ship, only when a long shot is taken as the boat is going down. This happens when the victims in the boat start rowing away from the titanic using lifeboats and jumping into the water. In this film, lighting was linked to the music to create a sense of fear. After the tragedy, cool lights were used, which created a cold atmosphere that followed on the aged Rose revisiting memories.

In both films, the lighting has been modified to suit specific occurrences. However, in ‘Love and War,’ the range of light modifications were limited due to the black and white color used. Multi-color choice by the filmmakers of ‘Titanic’ made the general lighting in the film a success. Various moods and atmospheres were under control of the manipulation of lights.

Conclusion

According to the film ‘love and war’, ambition and effort have come out as the major themes. The young man’s efforts and devotion towards fighting for his country are outstanding. He chooses his country even over his family, but luckily his efforts do not go unrewarded as he comes back home with a wife.

The ‘Titanic’ is a love story that also touches on some things that go on in a healthy society. For instance, the makers of the ship were overconfident about its inability to sink. This, however, proved wrong after the ship hit an iceberg. The film rebukes social inequality, too, as seen by the various social classes in the boat and how they behaved towards each other.

Works cited

1. Bagnoli, Franco. ‘Sinking with the Titanic.’ Europhysics News 46.2 (2015): 30-31.
2. Deldjoo, Yashar, et al. ‘Recommending movies based on mise-en-scene design.’ Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2016.
3. Khanna, Shaurya, Shweta Bhardwaj, and Anirudh Khurana. ‘Titanic Data Analysis by R Data Language for Insights and Correlation.’ Emerging Trends in Expert Applications and Security. Springer, Singapore, 2019. 73-79.
4. Rajendran, Susai, and Gurmeet Singh. ‘Titanic Corrosion.’ (2019).
5. Whitehead, Jean. ‘Creating an interior mise-en-scene: the relationship between interior design, production design, and film.’ Film and Furniture, (2019).