Question Rewrite - The Gold Rush

 The Gold Rush was directed by Charlie Chaplin in 1925 during the silent era of film. Mise-en-scene refers to what is in the frame and is used by directors to produce different messages and emotions and values. At the time that The Gold Rush was directed, technology was far behind where it is today and didn’t allow sound and video to be recorded at the same time, which led to mise-en-scene being a relient feature of the films as it had to create meaning to form a strong narrative – an example where mise-en-scene is used is the opening scene of the film where Big Jim find a huge deposit of gold on his land when a blizzard hits, where The Prospector gets lost in the same blizzard while aiming to get gold. He gets blown into the cabin of Black Larsen, who is a wanted criminal, and Larsen tries to throw the Prospector out until Jim also stumbles inside. Larsen attempts to scare both out using his shotgun but is not as powerful as jim and all 3 agree to truce to keep warm inside the cabin with an unlikely alliance.

 

One feature of mise-en-scene is the use of props. The main prop in this scene is a shotgun, which was made to look weak when Jim overpowered Larsen. The fact that all 3 men were able to form an unlikely alliance/truce even with props such as a shotgun showed how desperate each person was to survive and take a share of gold. The use of a gun connotes the idea of a villain in the story, which is portrayed onto Larsen to further the idea of him being a wanted criminal, and Claude-Levi Strauss’ binary opposites theory can be used to show the difference between The Prospector and Larsen. Perhaps the truce was created out of empathy by Larsen for The Prospector and Jim as contextually, there were economic issues caused after the effect of WW1. However, through performance Chaplin creates humour as he uses a table to run and hide from the gun as the 2 other people fight over it. This simple yet effective act helped to convey different emotions and messages without sound as the absence of diegetic sound was replaced. 

 

Another feature of mise-en-scene in this scene is the setting, as the setting of this scene is in a dilapidated cabin on snowy mountains, which is eery, empty and desolate. This connotes destitution in each person as that was common during that era due to the effects of the 1896 Klondike rush as well as World War 1, which rampaged US economy. Most of the scenes were shot on a snowy mountain, due to the absence of computer generated images at that time and Chaplin wanted to realistically convey the struggles that people had during the Klondike Rush. Chaplin had to replace the missing diegetic sound with a realistic setting so that the narrative could be followed easily to convey different messages.

 

Finally, another aspect of mise-en-scene is costume. The costumes on Jim and The Prospector are dark and dirty and connote destitution in each character. The costumes are a huge reason why a narrative is easy to follow as well as increasing character development after Jim and The Prospector struck their luck and found gold and becoming rich. Chaplin is also able to create binary opposites in characters as poor characters wore dark, ragged and dirty clothes however Georgia was presented to looks glamourous and gold, almost like their target of a jackpot, with her makeup and clothes to make her appear feminine and appealing.

 

In conclusion, in all scenes in The Gold Rush, Chaplin uses mise-en-scene to portray a narrative and to convey messages and meaning to the audience. His main focus in The Gold Rush was creating binary opposites of rich vs poor through costume, location, props and more with his own interests in the history of the 1896 Klondike gold rush and his passion in recreating an exciting film that is accurate.