Question on City Of God

What is the importance of mise-en-scene and/or sound in creating meaning and generating response in the films you have studied? (35)


Mise-en-scene is important throughout City Of God and the scene where Rocket first starts delivering newspapers. Rocket is from the favela's in Brazil which is effectively the slums in Brazil. People who are from the Favela's don't normally escape and no matter what they always end up staying in the Favela's. An example of this is when Shaggy and Bernice try to escape with the person from the city but as the car goes to leave it doesn't work, meaning Shaggy has to push but he's shot before meaning he doesn't escape the Favela's as no matter what he can't escape. Bernice doesn't escape as we see a high angle long shot when the car gets started the car just turns back into the Favela's so effectively the car is just going back in circles and never escaping because people from the Favela's can't escape as they are not meant to leave because they wouldn't know what to do when leave. However we see a glimpse of Rocket in a long shot with the Christ the Redeemer statue in the background but the statue is a good distance away from Rocket and is fairly hard to see. Also the statue is blurred as well as Rio De Janeiro and this shows how Rocket is not meant to fit in to the city life as the blurring implies that something isn't right because the shot that we see isn't clear in the background which is different to when Rocket is in the Favela's as the shots are clear nearly all the time and an example of this is when Rocket is a kid in the 1960's and is playing football, the long shot we see of him is clear which suggests that Rocket is meant to be in the Favela's and he fits in there because everything is right in terms of shots.This shows that when Rocket is in a different place other than the Favela's everything isn't right because we don't get clear shots of him, we get blurred extreme long shots of Rio De Janeiro and Christ The Redeemer which means Rocket is not meant to be out of the Favela's and this again suggests that once you are in the Favela's there is no getting out.
Mise-en-scene and sound are both really important throughout City Of God and the very first scene shows that. The film starts with a diegetic sound of a knife being sharpened and we then see the knife being sharpened and this shows us very early on that people living in the Favela's are living on a knifes edge as the directors Fernando Meirelles and  Kátia Lund want us to see how living in the Favela's is dangerous and you never know what is going to happen so there is always that feeling of living on a knife edge, not knowing if you are going to still be alive the next day. The camera then cuts to  chicken and we see lots of cuts to people cooking chicken and a chicken that is still alive and the camera cuts back and forth between these shots. This again implies how everyone is living on a knife edge because one minute you alive, the next minute you are dead and the directors show this by cutting from a chicken which his alive to other chickens being cooked so this shows how living in the Favela's is like living on a knife edge. The music being played throughout this part of the scene is diegetic music as its being played on the streets and the music is traditional Brazilian music and it is one of the only times there is traditional Brazilian culture in the film which shows how the Favela's are so much different to Rio De Janeiro and other big cities in Brazil and we don't see much Brazilian culture in the film. The camera then cuts to the chicken who is still alive, running away which shows the only way to escape being killed in the Favela's is running away and he knows that if he stays he knows what his fate will be, but the chicken is chased by children as we see a tracking shot of the children and the children and all the children have guns which shows how violence is very likely in the Favela's as even young children have weapons which shows how the Favela's is full of violence and crime and that children are introduced to violence and the life of crime at such a young age because they don't go school and have nothing else to do so crime and violence is the only option for these children. The children used for this scene were real children from the Favela's so the directors are trying to show how all this is based on a real life story by not using actors for children and instead using children who actually lived in the Favela's.