Tuesday 28 February 2017

Analysis of the opening sequence of the Usual suspects- what mood is created?

In the opening scene we see a man in a dark outfit and black gloves pointing a gun, this straight away represents that the film will involve a mystery as we cannot see the man shooting with the gun. There is a lot of quick and loud non-diegetic music which adds to the pace of the opening scene to make the film exciting and highlight the action taking place. But the music change for the character Keaton as he is more educated and not treated as roughly as the other criminals were. He also got more camera time highlighting his importance and maybe help us see him as the hero and the one out of all the criminals we should believe. The lighting and scenery also further emphasise this as his arrest takes place in a fancy restaurant which is well lit with softer colours in comparison to the other arrests where it took place in darker more suspicious places or on the street. It is hard for people to believe that Keaton could've have been part of this crime by the way he is arrested and portrayed as having a more trust-worthy demeanour. The opening scene as a whole has guns, gunshots and police all things we associate with thriller films. From the opening sequence we see that the film is all narrated via flashbacks and the narrator is known as 'verbal'. Everything is coming from his viewpoint, there is zoomed in short of his legs highlighting he is disabled this is showing he is different and maybe trying to emit sympathy towards him.