The film Cleo from Five to Seven focuses on the feministic transformation of female protagonist Cleo (Corinne Marchand) after experiencing a series of plots. Scholar Janice Mouton of Women’s Studies refers to as “…the protagonist’s transformation from feminine masquerade to flaneuse (street roamer) (3)”. In this essay, the mise-en-scene of three chosen scenes will be analysed in order to unravel how this essential cinematic element is applied to demonstrate and interpret such transformation. Notably, the director (Agnes Varda) is an activist of ongoing (of that time) Left Bank Group cinematic movement whose gist idea is to narrate the story in an aesthetic and “literary” manner despite the expectations of film stereotypes. In Mouton’s paper, she notes that Marchand coined the term cinecriture (“Cinematic Writing”) to describe her interpretation of aesthetic and “literary” story narrating that encompasses “sound and visual emotion (11)”. Thereby, this essay also looks into how mise-en-scene in this film presents such gist idea.
The film begins with Cleo conversing with the tarot reader, which makes her aware that her ailment may be death threatening. The following scene is a long take (despite the inevitable cut) from the moment Cleo exited the room until she reaches to the corridor. When Cleo is stepping on the stairs, he director chose not to film her by following her on the stairs. Instead, she places the camera steady from above. Therefore, Cleo is gradually getting smaller in the shot, and the handrail starts to block and fragment her figure. Connecting to the “visual emotion” of cinecriture, the devised blocking gives a sense of being powerless and lack of dominance. As she was approaching the staircase, an intercut frame shows square-shaped windows outside the window, from which she peers through. This shot comprised of fragmented shapes of square may also signal Cleo’s alarming inner thoughts of possible lethal illness.
In her paper, Mouton discusses about “…her feminine masquerade—assures her that she is healthy and alive, and wards off her anxiety about being fragmented…and her dread of annihilation and nothingness”. Women’s sensitivity of fragmentation is one focus of the film, and Merchand believes in delivering such message through cinecriture. Unlike literary works whose characters’ contemplation can be clearly stated on paper, these thoughts required to be presented audibly (internal diegetic sound, beside this essay) and visibly (mise-en-scene, the focus of this essay) in films. This “show-not-tell” pattern emerge right from the first few scenes. The handrail that fragments Cleo’s figure and fragmented shot of windows may subtly refer to the fragmentation of Cleo.
The pattern is reassured in the scene that follows. Cleo’s figure is again blocked and fragmented by the stair handrail. As she continued walking downstairs, rather brusquely and bewilderingly, the camera films a blank shot with only the fractured wall. Fracture and fragmentation serves similar purpose since they both touch ground on breaking the “wholeness (Mouton, 5)”. After reaching the first floor, she walked to a mirror and looked into it. There are two mirrors facing each other so that her image(s) duplicates each other in infinite layers. This scene is crucial to the film, as Mouton interprets “…[In that moment,] [s]he becomes the women she is not—a fantasy, a fetishised object, someone to be looked at…(4)”, which is one way to interpret it. However, considering the consistency of depicting fragmentation, this scene can also be seen as a woman rejecting the horrifying fact (potential acute sickness) by submerging herself into her beauty that still remains while the duplicative effect suggests her subconscious disturbance.
With this steady scene, the Cleo’s costume and appearance are also given a feature. She certainly put great effort on managing how she looks. She is wearing a dotty dress with a waistband even just to visit a fortuneteller, which contrasts greatly to the other women waiting in line. And her powder on face, thick cosmetics-applied eyebrow and lip slightly shimmers in the following close-up shot. These efforts of sustaining her beauty agree with Mouton’s interpretation that before her transformation, she embodies a “fetishised object (4)” that “masquerade[s] (3)” her true self. In other words, she values more of what people think of her rather than how she thinks of herself, and is insistent in keeping her beautified (or, “masqueraded” in Mouton’s words) image. Plus, this embodiment also foreshadows the incoming transformation symbolised by the change of costume.
After playfully lingering on the streets for some time, Cleo returned her home where the transformation is about to take place. Before analysing the transformation, Cleo’s room also shares some values of interpretation. Film Studies scholar Jon Lewis states in his book Essential Cinema that “…the set affects how the actors behave because it defines the space within which they operate.”The room is spacious and elegant with a cat, light-coloured walls, several carpets on the floors, wooden chairs and a dresser, a pair of pengzai flora, a piano, an indoor rocking chair, and a palace-like queen-size bed. The room does not look like a place of household but a palace of royal members where everything is deliberately placed. Mouton reflects the elaborated room set to a place where Cleo could “perform [her] invented persona (6)” However, like the commodities she encountered on the streets, “…they are simply objects on display—beautiful but devoid of a life or meaning on their own. (Mouton, 6)” Seemingly, she devises the room not to please herself but to display her masqueraded wellbeing to others in her life, while her words and inner reflection always suggests otherwise. Varda masters in creating discordance between Cleo’s harmonious living conditions as suggested by the mise-en-scenes and her constant state of worrying presented through her words, internal reflections, and facial expressions.
In such a room setting, the transformative moment takes place when she starts to try out a new sad-themed song just arrived with her fellow musicians. As she is singing the song, the camera draws to her closer and closer excluding all the other objects of the room such as the people and the piano but her own figure. The shot pauses at a close-up level to her face whose background is pure black curtain without anything else in it. Apparently, she stands in front of the black curtain, and pure black background is what naturally will be shown when placing the camera too close to Cleo. Meanwhile, this could also be interpreted meaningfully. This is the moment when she starts to look into herself regardless of what is surrounding her. By doing that, she realised her not being paid attention, or in Mouton’s word, simply “fetishised (4)” by people around her. She descends to a pure state of loneliness. However, this internal transformation cannot be presented directly by cinematic mythologies. Therefore, Varda applies the black curtain and individualise Cleo by placing her in a pure black background. Plus, black is also a colour of negativity that may appeal to her lonely feeling at the moment.
Suddenly, Cleo no longer resisted her feelings and stopped singing. She starts to yell at people unprecedentedly. Notably, from this moment on, Varda starts to apply more medium shots, in which Cleo regains some power and dominance. When she quarrels with the other two musicians, her size in the frame is about the same as the others. And the slowly-moving camera is replaced by a simultaneous track of Cleo’s quick treading inside the room, leaving no space to focus on the objects but the Cleo’s irritated figure. Then, she enters the black curtain to change her clothes, and the frame included only a black blankness again until she draws the curtain after changing. Applying the idea of cinecriture, two times of applying pure black may indicate the entering to and withdrawing from her negative feelings.
She changed her cloth to a black dress. If white and other light colours adore people, this choice of black may manifest a rejection to such adoring. This is her declaration of transforming. Mouton echoes this declaration by claiming, “She signals the difference visually by tearing off her wig and feathered robe and donning a simple black dress. (6 and 7)” This black dress could also be rebellious since it is the exact opposite of what people would expect from her. Almost deceptively, Varda presented her wig as if it is her real hair before she pulls it off. However, this deception adds another layer of de-masquerading by pulling off something artificial. The following scene contains two bars that block the vision of the whole room. Notably, when her maid tries to pursue her, they both never stand in the same crack divided by the bars. Inspired by Lewis’ teaching that “…while the goal may be realism, blocking is seldom improvised or inadvertent”, this visual design may suggest that after the transformation, Cleo is determined to free from what shackles her previously and stand on her own identity.
Before she decided to head out on her own, she paused around her necklace collection and quickly draws the one she favors. This quick decision differentiates greatly from her time-consuming shopping in the store before the transformation. She no longer concentrates on what may please people but on what she desires the most for herself. For the mise-en-scene, her figure takes about the same portion as her necklace collection, unlike in the store where her figure is submerged by the “fetishised commodities (Mouton, 5 and 6)”. All of these new behaviors consist of the comprehensive process of her transformation. The mise-en-scene style is also to be adjusted by Varda in following sections of the film.
Shortly after leaving her home, she enters a café full of various customers. Varda applies subject point-of-view to illustrate Cleo’s visual observation to the people around. From this moment, the camera is inclusive to others instead of Cleo, inviting her to a city of diversity. However, she is still wondering what people would response to her change. Her vision pauses at the jukebox, with which she plays a piece of her own song. In this scene, Cleo is not the focus. Instead, Varda includes two other random customers in the forefront and applies their diegetic voice of talking about Algerian War. Therefore, Cleo becomes an element of the scene, which Mouton suggests, “…she becomes both an observer of the crowd and a part of it. (9)” This conflation of Cleo and the city Paris is pivotal to the film. The diversity of the city allows her to be part of it rather than pointlessly working hard to outstand herself.
After the music is played, she continues observing people. Undoubtedly, no one actually pays attention to her or her jukebox music. They simply go on with what they are doing before the music is played. Varda applies long take pausing on each person/ a group of persons and quickly transit to from one table to another, implying Cleo’s anxiety to witness people’s responses. She took a seat with a cup of Brandie to wait for any signs of response. However, people seem to overlook her being there. Finally, she is out of patience. She takes off her last “fetishised commodity (Mouton, 5 and 6)”, the pair of fancy black glasses, and put on her black cape. Cinecriture underscores that any visual change, particularly change of clothing in this film, may betoken a change of mindset. In this case, Cleo’s transformation is confirmed and reassured by her observations and immersion to the diversity of Paris.
In summary, Cleo from 5 to 7 is a Left Bank Group film that discusses about feministic transformation. Director Varda applies her own theory of cinecriture to reflect the exterior (such as changes of mise-en-scene and filming angels) and interior transformation of Cleo’s women identity. With the help of Mouton’s Women Studies, This significance of such transformation is better understood. The changes of clothing illustrate this transformation by vision while Varda makes such changes naturally inbound with the film’s ongoing plots. Most importantly (for this essay), the deliberately chosen mise-en-scenes are crucial to decipher the transformation with the unique adaptation of cinecriture.
Work Cited
Lewis, Jon. Essential Cinema: An Introduction to Film Analysis. Publisher: Michael Rosenberg, 2014.
Mouton, Janice. “From Feminine Masquerade to Flaneuse: Agnes Varda’s Cleo in the City”. Cinema Journal Vol. 40, No. 2. Published by University of Texas Press on behalf of the Society for Cinema & Media Studies, 2001: 3-16.