Les+Choristes

The Chorus (Les Choristes) 10 choices 1. This is a shot of Mathieu, an old music teacher, teaching Pierre how to sing properly. Both characters are lit by edge lights, only showing their outlines. Because the outside is warmly colored, this lighting creates a warm tone and an assuring, calm, and peaceful atmosphere. Also, because everything inside the window are not colored as well, it feels like the two characters are in their own world of music instead of being at a boarding school with “difficult” boys with ruthless punishments, which is outside of the window.

2. This is a shot where Mathieu first met the Principal of the boarding school, and where the Principal is introduced to the audience. This is a worm-eye shot, with the principal standing over Mathieu. This shot shows the authority of the principal, as he is looking down on Mathieu, it suggests that the principal has power over him. The whole shot colored with gray, dull, and relatively dark colors, adding to the mood of this shot. When this color scheme is accompanied with such camera position, it gives the whole movie a strict and intimidating tone whenever the principal appears, as it reveals later that he does punish kids by spanking them.

3.This is the shot where Mathieu confines Pierre for violating the school rule by staying in the classroom alone at night. The lighting outside of the confinement room is day light with warm colors, while the lighting inside is a cool, blueish light. This shows a theme of the movie, which is that the kids are being held in this “school” where they are being constantly punished (most of the times violently), because they’re not “good kids”. They want to get out, but they can’t fight back against the violent system of punishments. More specifically, half of Pierre’s face is filled with light and the other half is filled with shadow. This also suggests that Pierre does have a good and pure side to him, but because of the oppression from the school, he is acting rebellious and always causing trouble. 4. This is a wide shot of Mathieu before walking in to teach his very first class at this school. Because he was late, there are loud noises and yelling coming from the back of that door. this shot shows Mathieu’s reaction: his body language such as his twitching fingers and slanted body all shows him being very uncomfortable and nervous before going in. This gives the tone a little bit of suspense as we would wonder what is going on behind that door, but it also gives a slightly frightening feeling to the scene because compared to how calm this shot seems, the loud shouting behind the door forms a strong contrast. I also see this shot somehow sarcastic because from the statue and the bookshelves in the shot, we can tell that Mathieu is in a school, yet the students don’t have any discipline.

5.This is a wide shot of Mathieu’s chorus (the students) practicing at night. From this shot we can see that there’s only lights on the group of singing students, while their beds are all dark under shadow. This reflects the central theme of the movie: the boys need singing as a way to take them away from the cruel reality that they belong to, and singing is their only hope and only light in the school.

6. In this shot, the only light source is in Mathieu’s room behind the curtains. This is where Mathieu stays up late to write music for the kids to sing. The lighting here magnified Mathieu’s shadow, and also showed his face. It also shows the kids sleeping outside. The shadow of Mathieu indicates another theme in the movie: he is a fatherlike figure and he wants to protect the kids from the harsh treatments they get. This shot significantly portrays the role of Mathieu in this movie, although he may just seem like an old ordinary music teacher, his actual role and influence is much more than that. 7. The technique used here is an eyeline match. In this shot, the new student Mondain challenges Mathieu’s authority and mocks him. Mathieu is taller than Mondain, so he is looking down, and Mondain is looking up, so although they are not in the same shot, the audience knows that they are talking to each other. This shot also gives a really intense mood to the scene, because even though Mathieu is taller and bigger than Mondain, he is the one being threatened by him. 8.This is the shot where Mathieu witnesses Mondain being taken away by the cops, although he knew that Mondain didn’t steal the money. This shot abides to the rule of thirds, where Mathieu is standing at the left crosshairs of the lines. This shot shows him holding onto the gate of the school, which in this shot, largely resembles like a jail’s door. This reflects one of the themes of this movie. Although Mathieu is striving for justice throughout the whole movie, here he is facing a moral dilemma, because if he does tell the police that Mondain didn’t take the money, he would most likely have to leave the school. With the body gesture of holding onto the gate indicating that he wants to do what is right, but he cannot because he needs to save the rest of the kids at school. 9. In this shot of Mathieu’s music, we can see the shadow of his hand conducting. The lighting of this shot is relatively low key, but from the moving shadow of Mathieu’s hand, we can see that the music is coming alive. This reflects and enhances the theme, or what Mathieu needs in the movie. He needs music, and he also needs relief. Through the conducting hand, it suggests that Mathieu is making the dark and depressing school alive with his music as well. 10. This shot is a bird’s eye view of when Mathieu is leaving the school. As he looks up at the window of his classroom, his students were flying out paper planes with goodbye messages to him. This shot creates sad tone and mood, as it shows how powerless Mathieu is towards the fact that he is fired and cannot meet the kids anymore without even saying goodbye. With shots cutting back to the window of the classrooms through a worm’s eye shot, we can see the paper planes flying out of the window and flying around him. This shows that he is accepted and actually loved by his students, thus achieving what he was always trying to do: to bond with them and understand them.