Mise-En-Scene Costume And Makeup

In the elements of Mise-en-scene costume and makeup help play a key role in each and every film. Along with helping to develop characters, costumes and makeup can tell a story about each of the characters before they even speak. After watching both, AMERICAN BEAUTY and THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, it’s easy to see there are many differences between the two films even if they seemed to fall in the same genre of film. But the strong differences in each films costumes and makeup are what make them iconic and well known. In AMERICAN BEAUTY the costumes seem very normal giving the perception of a typical “American family”. Though if we look deeper, viewers can see what each costume says about the characters. Starting with Carolyn we first see her out gardening with a white apron over her business suit. Later on in the film it’s made clear the image is very important to Carolyn, hence not wanting to dirty her suit in any way. Lester even mentions that by no mistake Carolyn’s clogs match the handles on her gardening shears, which show us how, much of a perfectionist is. Carolyn lives to keep her life picture perfect, but when she is left alone for no one to see she has a totally different side to her. Another character in …show more content…
This is now no shock that this costumes are so unique because they are matching character that are like ones we’d find in a fictional novel. When looking at Margot Tenenbaum she’s seen as a very dark soul with almost one facial expression. Margot seemed to have gotten the most ridicule when growing up, being constantly reminded of her adoption. She doesn’t seem to show much emotion and we see that her makeup is very dark almost like it matches how she feels. Her wardrobe is quite nice which seems to only be that way because of the lifestyle she grew up with. Looking even closer she seems to wear tennis type outfits that could possibly correlate back to her love for