Film Language: Mise-en-scene 2

Peaky Blinders

It is a serie created by Stephen Knight. That speak about  a gangster family epic in Birmingham at the end of the World War 1(1919). This serie is inspired by a the true historic story, the story of Peaky Blinders gang. 

Today, I am going to describe the 'mise-en-scene' of the first 4 minutes of the first Peaky Blinders' episode.

Setting and Props

• The setting is perfect because that represents exactly the period of the real Peaky Blinders. This is filmed on location so in Birmingham, we can see the 'custard factory'. The genre is explicit and we directly see that is a drama historic series.
• The presence of the horse, red powder, the misery and dark places, old chinatown location, smoked, old buildings, the fire, boats on the street and miriness on the floor show clearly than all the story is situated in the past. The horse's presence gives a  superior connotation between the poor people walking on a dirt floor poorly dressed and this men looking powerfull sitted on the horse with the fancy oufit. So they show the social difference at this period. 

Lighting and colour 

• This is a natural light who is used in this clip, so a sky light of the day. This is a an low intencity , who create the atmosphere gloomy, poor and dirty. 
• For the colour it is used a cold grey.

 

Casting

 

 

 

 

• Cillian Murphy is the main character who play Thomas Shelby. He is the second eldest in the Family Shelby and he is the most ambitious and the leader of them. After the World War 1 he was decorated like a hero. His family is everything and he want to make their business legitimate at any cost.
• Annabelle Wallis who plays the role of Grace Burgess. She is the beautiful and mystery barmaid who come from Ireland at The Garrison's where the brother Shelby come to drink.
• Sam Neil who plays the role of Chester Campbell. In this series, he is the Chief Inspector Campbell from Belfast who is going to clean up Birmingham. He is a brutish man completely committed to his job .
• Helen McCrory as Aunt Polly. She is the matriarch of Peaky Blinders, she looked after them since they were children.
• Charlie Creed-Miles as Billy Kimber. He controls the legal and illegal bookmaking sites at racecourses all across England, which has made him one of the country's richest and most powerful gangsters. 

 

 Costume and make up

 

• The costume are perfect to show where we can situated us in the period. This 3 piece suits represented exactly that. But the most important Peaky Blinder's costume is the cap, it is in this cap , they put blades to cut the face of their enemy. 

 

 

 

 



 Movement

 

• In this first scene , the most atmosphere who is create is the fear. Just look the old Chinese men when he ask to the other men where he is going to bring the girl. That body language is all the game of the actor.
• Another scene when the main actor arrived on his horse and everybody just run to hide of him or they know something strange is going to happen. We see the difference between this men who nothing frightened compare to all this people . On his face, he is looking really on him. We can guess by all his body language who is going to be one of the main characters.

 

 

Diegetic sound

 



 

• The voices of characters show the accent of Birmingham especially when the police men said: "Hello , Mr Shelby".
• We can hear the horse's hoof, people talking in the street , the sound of tool and the fire That's add to the meaning of this frame a feeling of old period when people was working with the coal and could walk on horse, but that give too an atmosphere of poverty.

 

 

 

Frame and composition

 

• A lot of thing has been included in the frame, like they boat on the street , this old panorama of the city of Birmingham.
• On this frame, everything is positioned in terms of Thomas Shelby the main character. We see his viewpoint.
• He is all time in the centre of the frame in all the scene, who show again how he is important in the series.