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Life Lessons: How Set Design Tells A Story (an Ihsan-scene blog post)



With all the muscular camerawork, soundtrack, and use of the iris transition, one facet of the filmmaker’s toolbox appears to be somewhat overlooked when analyzing Martin Scorsese’s 1989 film, Life Lessons: Set Design. The set design in this film really fades into the background even though it’s instrumental in translating the emotions of the scene to the viewer. Although this film appears to be relatively realistic in it’s set design, there are ways in which the abstract nature of Lionel’s loft proves that it isn’t simply a large room for the characters to communicate. 

Life Lesson’s set design, particularly the design of Paulette’s room in Lionel’s loft is used to expose the inner workings of Lionel and Paulette’s relationship. In scenes throughout the film, that set evokes themes of boundaries and idolization, themes that are subliminally transmitted to the viewer through the essence of the set design and how it works in accordance to the other techniques in Scorsese’s repertoire. 


One of the first things that comes to mind when thinking about Paulette’s room’s design is it’s high placement in Lionel’s loft. While Lionel dwells in the lower levels of the loft, Paulette is placed upon a metaphorical pedestal, which prompts Lionel to gaze up towards her room, salivating at her distant closeness. This image elicits the emotion of desire just beyond reach. It does this by keeping the room quite close to Lionel’s day to day life yet it remains so high up and closed off that it leaves Lionel to do nothing but idolize her larger-than-life presence.

The square hole in the wall of Paulette’s room adds to that effect of being just beyond reach by creating a small opening into Paulette’s world while still being almost completely separated from Lionel. There’s a rather creative use of this hole in the wall towards the beginning of the film when Lionel is playing basketball and his hoop is directly underneath the hole in the wall, so naturally his basketball flies through the hole and lands on Paulette, she immediately rejects it and tosses it back to Lionel. This symbolizes how Lionel’s crazy lifestyle is beginning to encroach upon Paulette’s life (as she is talking on the phone to her friends at the time) and Paulette’s increasing shortness with Lionel and his various eccentricities.



The scene that uses this placement most effectively is the scene in which Lionel is listening to the opera music, sitting in dim light, he stares up to Paulette’s room longingly as if gazing upon the gates of Mount Olympus. This is one of the scenes in which the theme of boundaries is most emphasized, due to Lionel’s only (visual) way into Paulette’s life: the hole in the wall, has the curtain drawn in order to hide Paulette’s new mate: Toro (a graffiti artist she met at the art gallery). At this point Lionel is not separated by a wall with one small glimmer of hope, he is separated completely with absolutely no way to participate in Paulette’s life.



One thing that film has the ability to do that many other art forms can’t do is the idea of showing change over time. Lionel’s loft at the beginning of the film is a bare white filled with blank canvases. Then as the film progresses and Lionel finds his inspiration, the loft develops a rather moody aesthetic filled with paintings. While this device is almost entirely based on the necessity of plot being: ‘well where else would he put the paintings?’ it still maintains a somewhat textural (rather than logical) association with Lionel himself being a somewhat blank canvas at the beginning of the film. It creates a sense of longing, and lack of inspiration, which visually welcomes Paulette’s spirit to Dobie’s loft to fill that longing. And then over time, the viewer is able to visually track Lionel’s change over the course of the three weeks that Paulette stays with him.

So much of Life Lessons is filled with extremely showy aspects of filmmaking yet I believe that the set really allows for the audience to feel their relationship’s struggles and desires. The film is able to communicate so much just through set design and it’s clear that Scorsese had a hand in making sure the other elements of the film such as camera, lighting, or blocking were able to work in concert with the set design. So while the set design might not be the centerpiece, it works as a well-oiled cog in the Life Lessons machine.

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