Research Task -Conversation Piece - By Joe Tunmer (2009) By Maiken Davidson

1) The mise en scene used in this film if very homey, we get establishing shots of a house were a couple live, we assume married, we get to see a kitchen where the woman is standing cleaning the dishes - stereotypical role of a woman, especially in British films, and her husband sitting in the living room just about to read a newspaper, when he turns on the record player. The camera zooms into the spinning disc and then cut to the male character and his newspaper. It uses typical characterisation of a male and female, the women is looking after her man.

The main narrative is on a vase, that has been chipped, the women notices it and goes to speak to her husband to find out how it happened, but instead of hearing them talk we hear the music that is in time with what they are saying giving it a comedic style.


2) Instead of having the couple arguing you can just hear the music matching every single piece of dialogue to a note, gives it a unique edge. Its not something you expect hear or see.


3) It uses the short film format well, we are introduced to the characters by seeing them in their roles 'the calm period', to then move into this chaos of a broken vase and the two of them arguing, it then gets resolved and you seem them then going back to what they were doing before they began to argue bring back the 'calm period' as everything is restored. This is a perfect way to show Todorov's theory, we have the equilubum - disequilibum - equilibum.


4) The use of sound is the most interesting part about this film, it is used in a very unusual way which makes it stand out. At the beginning before the music begins, we do hear typical sounds that you would hear around a house, the sound of dishes and so on. When the music begins to play, it is an unusual spin on diegetic sounds.

5) The film seems to represent a married couple in a routine on an average day, which brings in social realism, it’s also uses stereotypical roles which support Laura Mulvey's theory on how women are portrayed as being submissive however it makes it different in the way we hear the argument to the music