Midge & Madeliene - Question Answer

In the Ernie's scene, the audience are encouraged to see Madeliene as an erotic object and therefore an object. The scene begins with a medium close up of Scottie as her turns to 'gaze' at Madeliene, the camera follows his line of sight. As the next shot is a point of view from Scottie, it is by extension our point of view. The camera tracks closer and closer to her, and the music meets a climax, reinforcing the romance in this shot. The background mise-en-scene glows red as we see the outline of Madeliene's face. As a colour, red connotes lust and danger, which adds to the effect of Scottie being unable to look away from her.

In contrast, we, as an audience, are encouraged to see the character of Midge as a 'motherly figure'. She is purposely unappealing to Scottie, and by extension the audience. Her dull clothes, and thick glasses give her a bookish quality, thus removing her feminine quality. She is a very passive character, the basic level of technicality of these shots reinforce this. Shots are very dull in this scene, there are many static wide shots. There are no point of view shots from Scottie, he doesn't see her as desirable, and neither do we as an audience - we are not given the ability to 'gaze' at her body and it isn't given focus. In this scene, Midge occupies the masculine role and is shot as such.