Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (c) I

| By Tom O'Brien on 00:16
Part 1:
     -Mis-en-scene

Mis-en-scene is defined as all that the director places on screen, e.g. the actors, props, setting, costume, etc. Two examples of this from the titles of Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (MMWE) are the shots hosting the names of Dustin Hoffman, and Natalie Portman.




The shot of Natalie Portman’s name shows a piano, metronome, and music notes, all relating to Portman’s character, Molly Mahoney, a composer, and manager of MMWE. This is giving us audience insight to Portman’s character, without revealing any surprises or important events in the film. The piano keys are crooked and uneven, which represents how Molly Mahoney is stuck musically, unable to finish writing a piece of music, and that nothing in her life is fitting into place, along with the arm on the right hand side constantly trying to grasp hold of the notes flying around, showing that she just cannot grasp the idea for her composition.


Dustin Hoffman plays Mr Magorium, the peculiar yet brilliant owner of MMWE. We are shown an array of objects, seemingly unrelated, but which actually describe Hoffman's character perfectly, an eccentric genius, while also referencing to recurring motif's in the titles, e.g. the red ball and paper plane, which will be explored later. Mr Magorium is extremely random, often saying things out of the blue, such as:
“Mr Magorium: Why are you lying?
Molly Mahoney: I have to.
Mr Magorium: But your pants will catch on fire...”
But his part of the title sequence indicates this to us, and also lets us know that this random nature he has is also a stroke of genius.
Each of these examples give us insight to the main characters of MMWE, and allow the audience to have a brief understanding of their backgrounds and personalities. This is repeated throughout the title sequence, as it is separated into segments, each of which represents a character, or key event in the film, giving us a general understanding of plot before the film has begun. By giving us minor visual clues toward characters, the director would now have to spend less time on establishing the characters personalities for the audience within the actual film.

The director, Zach Helm, placed into the title sequence two recurring images; a red ball and a flying paper plane. Each of these symbols have a meaning to the film, themes, characters, plot, etc.

  • The red ball, often seen bouncing around screen, symbolises the ups-and-downs of life, and that once you hit the bottom, it can be so easy to bounce back up. This is relevant to the film, as Mahoney often feels down about her writer’s block, but toward the end of the film, her emotions lift and is happy again. It also relates to events in the film, such as a giant red dodge ball appearing and almost squashing a child.
  • The paper plane flies through the scenes, symbolising the journey that we must take in life to find our inner child, a key theme in this movie, and also represents Mr Magorium’s “departure” at the end of the movie. The plane flying through the titles represents his life, and at the end when it lands, shows that all journeys must eventually come to an end.
Helm wrote another film, Stranger than Fiction, which uses very similar mis-en-scene to give an understanding of the main character and his background. He uses visual representations of Harold Crick’s, the protagonist, obsessive nature, shown below, him counting his brush strokes. This is quite similar to the style used in MMWE, although Stranger than Fiction just focuses on references to the character, rather than character, plot and themes, like MMWE.

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