Mise en scene is the arrangement of scenery and stage properties in a play. The setting or surrounding of an event or action. The key components of mise en scene are the setting, the costume and make up, the lighting, and figure movement and expression (acting).
In the movie The Martian mise en scene is used in a big way to further explain the story. They use mise en scene to show how lonely Matt Damon’s character truly is through out the movie. There are countless time in the movie where the shot is of the character surrounded by a vast sea of red/orange sand and mountains with nothing in sight.
In the movie 42, that tells the story of famous baseball player Jackie Robinson the director is basically the opposite of the director of The Martian. The mise en scene in the picture above has many different parts to it. There are tons of people in the background all looking at Jackie. This helps further the story in my opinion because this is when at the time in his life he was become well known around America and this is how the director chose to portray it in the movie.
In the movie V for Vendetta the mise en scene helps show to background the character and who he really is. In the movie he is a mysterious figure but when it pans to his “lair”. There is priceless art everywhere that has gone missing along with other rare artifacts. This shows what he has done in the past and made him elevate to where he is in the movie.
Brody Mariotti Cinema blog 