The Most Beautiful Man In The World (2000) - Alicia Duffy In the introduction to The Most Beautiful Man

In The World we are shown a slow, seductive tilt up a females revealed stomach. The colour palette is of a blue-green hue, giving a sense of sense of underground, hidden sexual acts. But following this tilt we are shown the face of a young girl. During this we can hear the tinny crashes and bumps of a childs cartoon playing in the background. This provocative costume and lighting is being juxtaposed by the sounds of what we associate with innocence and growing up. This represents the girls age. She is obviously very young but is being made out to be much older. This leads us to think about the childs parents, her growing up, her lifestyle and her future. The screen then fades to black. With but a few seconds to catch our breath, we are shown the same girl lying on the floor. In the background we can see somebodys leg, presumably sitting on a chair. The girl has her arm around a dog, stroking it. In this part of the film technical elements from mise-enscene are creating a representation. They are employed to create a representation of the girls age and the class and status of the people living in the house. This is confirmed in a later shot. The young girl lay tired on the ground, her head resting on a book that we would associate with very young children. It is scattered across the floor showing her disinterest, as if shes owned it for a long time. The carpet, again this shade of blue, is torn up and looks warn. There is discolouration and it looks tattered. In the background the other person is sitting on a arm chair that has a flowery, mouldy green colour similar to that that one would associate with an elderly persons furniture. We can see that they are obviously of a lower economic class. The props and colour are used very effectively to portray this. The constant use of the colour blue, associated with depression, really puts a negative tone to the scene and with the young girl constantly yawning, we feel there is something unstimulating about the life that she lives. From here the shot fades to black again. After, we have another shot of the girl, this time standing against a radiator, ignored by who we assume is her mother either talking to her friend face-to-face or on the phone. The is a repetition of the seductive camera style used at the beginning as the camera pans and tilts up the girls arm towards her face with her finger in her mouth, again reminding us that this is a young child being over sexualised. The screen fades to black again, but to the title. A stationary white text on black background in a plain, uninspired font. Again, this fades to black to the shot of the girl lying on the floor. The phone rings and we see the person in the background get up. The dog follows. The shot changes to a wide shot acting as a kind of establishing shot. The original intimacy is lost and we can see the surroundings.

Again, micro elements from the category of mise-en-scene are used to construct a specific representation of the class and status of the family, but in a more blatant way. The issues of the child growing up in a lower working class family, with what appears to be the absence of a father figure are shown through the use of props, set design, costume, lighting and colour design. First, the props of a few vcr boxes next to the television scattered on the floor show the disorganised lifestyle and carelessness of the mother. This attitude is replicated by the daughter who has paper from a colouring book scattered all around her head where she lays. The set design unlocks some subtle secrets to the family we see. Obviously we have the style, the arm chair and carpet, and absence of most furniture one would deem essential, such as a sofa or central coffee table but then we have some other truths. The fact that there is only one place to sit, a single armchair gives us the impression that the woman is a single mother and that the girl isnt being looked after properly by being forced to lay on the floor. Costume is used again because the elliptical editorial style has suggest time, hours and possible days, have passed and yet the girl is still wearing that same stomach-revealing top and shorts. The lighting has a hidden part to play. The single light source from the window projects a shadow created by the window from and curtains that look bar-like, like a prison cell. The shadows go right across the girl as she lays down. Even when she stands up, she heads towards the window and gazes out, as if looking out from her cell. Finally, we have the repetition of the dark, grimy, green-blue colour palette again reinforcing the representation of the lower economic class. Throughout these clips and snippets into this girls life a slow paced editorial fashion is used. There are many ellipses slowly pulsing from one scene to the next. This gives the impression of day by day going by, but also seems as if its a heart beat. A slow, uninspired heart beat. This bring up the idea of nature vs. nurture. The girl is being imprisoned by her mothers disinterest in her and wants to escape. She has nearly no energy as she is constantly on the floor or yawning. There seems not to be a hope for her in this situation.