In the sequence both camera work and mise on scene help to establish the situation and character in the opening two minutes. The opening raises many questions which intrigue the viewer and make them want to continue watching. It does this in a variety of ways, one of which is the camera work which limits the view of the scene building suspense and making the viewer unable to see who the character is or what they look like.
In the beginning of the sequence the screen is completely black, then what appears to be a torch light moves slowly across the screen revealing and extreme close up of a moth sketch. The torch light then fades making the screen black once more. Again the torch light appears on the screen in the same place as before as it moves, it now reveals another extreme close up, this time of a woman’s hand. This creates many questions for the viewer. They wonder who she is and if this is the main character or if she is in some kind of trouble in the dark and dingy scene. As the torch fade once more to black the titles appear on screen.
The titles in the sequence appear white on a black background; this makes them stand out to the viewer as it can be clearly read as “the silence of the lambs.” The titles themselves are very scratchy as if some one has scribbled them quickly onto a page and letters flicker in and out of light. This creates a deep feeling of unease in the viewer, who is already set up for a film that may be shocking or scary. The flickering also builds suspense as the viewer is not sure what it going to happen next. They slowly fade out back to black. This makes the viewer believe that the torch light will once again appear on screen.
The viewer is set up to believe that the torch light will reappear on the screen; however, the next shot is a long shot which pans over an old looking church. The low angle makes the church look huge, intimidating and eerie.
Dissolve effects are used a lot in the sequence. This gives the impression that all the shots are linked very closely because if the dissolve effect was not present then the objects filmed would look completely unrelated and break the viewer’s attention. This is shown well when there are lots of very quick cuts between odd looking shots for example: the first shot depicts a shot of murky water, it is dark and slowly rippling, then hair becomes visible beneath the surface. It appears to be human hair. It is long and flowing much like a woman’s hair. This suggests that women are in danger and that some thing terrible has happened to this girl. It then quickly dissolves to a close up of a male hand working an old looking sewing machine. This raises questions as to what he is sewing as all the previous shots have hinted at something sinister. The next dissolve brings the viewer to the male putting measuring tape over the material he is sewing. It looks pale and like leather, it is unclear what he is doing or making. A close up of a needle going through the material answers this question as the material appears to be skin but is it human? This is not shown; however there are many other hints that the skin is human.
The first concrete idea that the skin must be human comes to the viewer in the form of pictures and drawings. The camera work has deliberately used extreme close ups to obscure the full pictures and shots from the viewer as this creates more suspense. The shots mainly consist of pictures of women’s bodies with designs painted onto them like tattoos. The use of the close ups make the viewer unsure as to what is happening but the drawings on their bodies coupled with the sewing machines suggest to the viewer that this man is making some sort of master piece out of humans, in particular women.
This idea is reinforced when the camera shows extreme close ups of parts of women’s faces cut from magazines. However, the camera is jolting at this point so that the viewer cannot see, fully, what is happening. A mans hands begin to paste the pictures onto paper, he is obviously planning what he is going to do as the close up reveals him scribbling out women’s faces and drawing designs on their naked skin, blood splatters across the pictures. In particular he draws moths and butterflies; this suggests that these insects will be a key theme throughout the rest of the story. The bloody nature of his project suggest that he is defiantly using the women’s skins and the close ups frustrate the viewer as they cannot see who he is.
The shots then get very fast, only appearing on screen for a second or so. They are very repetitive as they are the pictures that have been seen before. This reinforces the idea that he is mutilating women and the repetitive nature also builds tension as if it is going to reach a climax soon. Another reason for the repetitive shots could suggest that he has killed more than one woman.
Mise on scene also helps to establish the situation in the sequence as it creates mystery and suspense in the viewer.
Throughout the opening the colour palette is very limited. It uses all black with also a stained orange colour. This gives the whole scene a dark and dingy atmosphere that is dull and depressing to their viewer. This suggests that we are among the villain of the story and that despair will be a key theme throughout the entire film. The only true colour that is used in the sequence is a vivid red of the women’s blood this contrasts well with the rest of the sequence as it is so bright. This creates tension as the blood reinforces the idea that this man is skinning his victims to make something out of them.
The pace of the film also influences the viewer a lot as it starts off very slowly with very little to see. This makes the viewer want to continue watching as there are so many questions that arise, such as, where is this place, who is the man and what is he doing. The sequence begins to get faster and faster with the passing of time, images flash at such a pass the viewer really has to concentrate to see them all, it also is very exhausting to try to keep up with the pace of the film. This creates suspense as the viewer is unsettled and their pulse is racing due to the fast nature of the film.
The “killer’s” face is never visible this creates mystery as to who his identity is. The camera never ventures away from his hands. This creates a real emphasis on what he is doing. Almost as if he is constructing a masterpiece. This is unsettling to the viewer as they can see that he is mutilating people even though the way he is acting suggests that he is a creative genius, who is ‘cherry picking’ the best bits of his subjects to create a work of art.
In conclusion, the camera work and mise on scene of the sequence creates lots of suspense and tension in the viewer as well as raising many questions which may be answered later on. For example, the torch light effect shows nothing of the setting and only shows a snippet of a sketch of a moth. This keeps the viewer guessing as to what is going on and later on in the sequence, the fast passed nature and bloodied pictures suggest crime and murder are among the key themes to the thriller and they want to watch on to find out who the antagonist is as he is shrouded in mystery.
No comments:
Post a Comment