Mise en scene of Gummo: A Film by Harmony Korine

Gummo is the tale of the aftermath of a tornado that has affected the residents of Xenia, Ohio. With no real narrative plot, Korine communicates his story through a bizarre array of characters. From a pair of cat killers to wannabe strippers, the mise en scene in Gummo helps to create a mood of increasing boredom and obscurity.
Most of the action in this film takes place in a rural/suburban setting. The viewer gets a sense of impoverishment and backwardness. The scenes that are shot outside are that of junkyards and freeway crosswalks. This communicates a dirty and gritty feeling. There are also many interior scenes that take place in the character’s houses. All of the houses showed in the film are cluttered, unkempt, and extremely dirty. This was done to show the laziness and overall carelessness of the characters, who seem to have literally nothing to do throughout the film.
The actors in the film are not glamorized. However, they are portrayed as people who are bored. The director accomplishes this not only through dialogue, but through the movement of the actors as well as their performances. There is a scene where Chloe Sevigny’s character has a moment with the camera, where she is looking into the barrel of the camera as if it is a mirror. The scene is supposed to resemble that of a glamour shot. However, there is nothing attractive about this character, the actions seem out of place and seem to be done out of monotony. We learn later that her character spends her time trying to make herself seem more attractive.
The composition of many of the shots seem to mirror the different characters monotonous life. There is a scene where an extremely thin young boy goes to his basement to “workout”. He plays a music on a radio and lift weights in front of a mirror. This shot suggests repetitiveness by the way the character is positioned in the frame. He is in the center, and as he works out he stares into the mirror. Surrounding him is trash, clothes, and clutter, and we know as an audience that this is an everyday routine for him.
There are many monologues throughout the film. The director chose to have some of the actors deliver their monologues while looking directly into the camera. One character, a mentally disabled woman, delivers most of her monologues while looking into the camera. The director does this to emphasize the boredom and restlessness of the characters in this small town. Also, there is a character in the film who wears a bunny hat wherever he goes. There is a scene where two young boys beat him up in a junkyard, and leave him there. The bunny boy is left in the middle of the junkyard to “die”. However, he is only pretending to be dead. There is an aeriel shot of the bunny boy laying sprawled in the middle of junk cars. This scene implies to the viewer that like this boy, many of the characters in the film are surrounded by rubble, filth, and destruction, they are literally