Example of a Mise en Scene
Excerpt of Rushmore Review by Peter Travers  
in Rolling Stone Issue 806: February 18, 1999
Murray cannily crowds a lifetime into one small scene. As Herman distractedly throws golf balls in the pool, he notices his wife at another table, flirting with the tennis pro. Cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth, Herman heaves his way to the diving board, casts a look of disdain at his family and jumps, the camera noting his sad isolation at the bottom of the pool. The scene has no dialogue, only a Kinks song ("Nothin' in This World Can Stop Me Worryin" 'Bout That Girl") that catches just the right note of resignation. No wonder Herman responds so strongly to Rosemary. "She's my Rushmore," he tells Max. But Rosemary is haunted by her own ghosts. Her husband, a former Rushmore student, drowned the year before. She lives in a room filled with artifacts from his school days. Max reminds her of the boy she married, Herman of the man he never grew up to be.