Greg's Thriller Analysis (Usual Suspects)

Greg's Analysis

The Usual Suspects

In the opening of The Usual Suspects, we see a person light up a whole box of matches, smoke a cigarette and drop the matches onto a line of flammable liquid (probably petrol). We follow this chain of fire as it passes some dead bodies and we ask the question 'What has happened here?'. In this short sequence, I noticed that there is very little lighting and an absence of bright colours. The only light that we really see is from the fire.

At this point the fire is extinguished by Kaiser. He is wearing black clothes and his identity is unknown. This creates a lot of mystery around this character and makes us ask the question 'Who is he?' When the other guy says his name, I noticed the soundtrack increase in volume a little, which tells me that he is an important character. He doesn't say much either. His only lines are 'How are you doing, kid?', 'Ready?', and '12:30'

Just before Kaiser kills the guy, we cut away to outside the location (which we find out is on a ship). We hear two gunshots, and we ask the question 'Why was there two gunshots?' We know one of them was for the guy, but we don't know why he fired the other shot.

Afterwards we see him light the petrol again and the ship explodes. As we watch the fire chain go, we see more bodies and it intrigues us more. We don't see the ship in flames, but only the mushroom cloud left by the explosion.

We then get a dissolve to a brightly lit room with someone in the middle who says 'it all started 6 weeks ago...'. From this I know that the film will revolve around a flashback that shows us the events leading up to the ship

Greg's Thriller Analysis (The Conversation)

Greg's Analysis

The Conversation

This opening is very different to the other openings: This opening is a long take. It starts as an extreme long shot of this park or square with a monument in the middle. we are not given a name of the location, but we know from this shot that it is probably a big town or city. I say this because they don't put monuments that tall in villages. In this shot, the audience are wondering why start the film like this, and not like a normal film, and why this park is so significant.

We see the long shot start to zoom into the centre of the park, and we can see more of what's in the park. Because of the tall shadows, we can't see much of the right side of the park, so we are looking at the middle and left side. Because it is zooming into the middle of the park, we are wondering what is so important in the middle of the park that they want us to see.

On the left side is the most interesting thing in the park: The mime. The camera is still zooming in, but now it pans to the left, focusing us more on the mime. We now know that the focus isn't in the centre of the park, but in fact, this mime. We know are wondering why we are focused on this mime. What significance does he have to the story?

 At this point, the mime goes over to a man in a grey jacket and mimics him. He's been doing this a lot throughout the sequence, so we don't think about it too much. The man is wearing all grey, which is a symbol of mystery. The man then starts walking, and the mime follows him.

 While he is walking the Mime stops being the centre of attention, it's the man in grey who becomes the focus. We follow this man up the park until we cut to another shot. We don't see this man's face, so we don't know what he looks like until he turns around. The audience are now wondering why are we following this man now, and what significance does he have? This opening isn't suspenseful, but it does raise questions about some characters that need answering throughout the rest of the film.

Greg's Thriller Analysis (Se7en)

Greg's Analysis

Se7en

The opening of Se7en is weird and discomforting. The camera shots go very quickly that you don't fully grasp what's going on instantly, which raises suspicion and suspense. We don't see this man's face, which The non-diegetic soundtrack in the background is the only sound we get. It's contains creaking sounds and other disconcerting sounds that add to the suspense. We also see an absence of bright and positive colours, which makes this sequence even more unnerving. The titles and subtitles throughout the sequence jump around the screen and come out of focus, which adds more to the disturbing, discomforting tone this opening is setting

 Sometimes there would be a shot that lasts longer, to show us certain images that may tell us something about this character and what he is doing. This image shows us someone's mutilated hands. This makes us ask the question 'What is this man doing with a picture of bent of broken hands?'

 We then see an extreme close up of a razor in his fingers. We see he isn't using the razor to cut his nails, but rather the skin on his fingers. This is a disturbing image and it makes us wonder why he is doing this to himself. At this point, I'm believing he is a psycho, possibly a serial killer.

 This is one of many shots of him crossing out certain words and phrases in a book. I think at this point, he is creating a cryptic message, but I'm only speculating. This makes us ask one overall question, which is 'What is he doing? In other shots he is writing something, but we don't know what. Because we don't know why he is doing this, it adds more suspicion to his character

 This shot shows us that he has crossed out someone's face. He may have done this because he may have killed him, which would make sense and tell us his is a murderer and a psycho. This picture also makes us ask the questions 'Who is he?' and 'Is he dead?'.

 This image confirms to us that he is serial killer. It shows a man with some sort of sharp object in the back of his skull. No normal person would file something like that, while also also cutting off the skin of his fingers. This image makes this character seen even more disturbing.

 This final also confirms something: What he is doing. In this extreme close up, he is binding his collection of papers into a book. This tells us that he is not filing these disturbing pictures and (probably) disturbing literature, but making it into a scrap book. Why he is doing this? We don't know, an the fact we don't know makes this character scarier. Overall this sequence tells us this character, who we don't see, is a disturbing serial killer who has made a scrapbook about what he has done.

Greg's Thriller Analysis (Bourne Ultimatum)

Greg's Analysis

The Bourne Ultimatum

 The film opens with Jason Bourne on the walking with some urgency, which makes us ask the question 'Why is he hurrying?'. The soundtrack in the background is quiet yet with a hight tempo, which give us a sense of urgency and action. We see from the way he is walking that he has a limp, probably from an injury. He is wearing all black, which adds a sense of mystery to him. He turns around when he hears sirens, which indicates to us that Bourne is on the run from the police, though we don't know yet if they are looking for him.

 We then find out that the police are on a manhunt for Bourne. We know this because we get a shot of a police car turning towards them, across traffic. We then ask ourselves a new question: 'why are the police chasing Bourne?'

After some more chasing through a train, we get an answer to the question, We get some subtitles of someone speaking through an intercom. She says 'Suspect from tunnel auto chase heading east from Kievsky Train Station'. We find out why Bourne is running from the police, and it's because he was involved in a car chase. From this, I also believe this almost immediately follows the events of the previous film, The Bourne Supremacy, which ended with a car chase that ended in a tunnel.

The soundtrack slows and quietens when Bourne escapes the police and enters a pharmacy, where we get a shot of him pulling out a gun and putting it in a sink, I assume, to clean it. We now get a new question: what has Bourne done with that gun?'

At this point, we hear a non-diegetic vacuum-like sound, which immediately led to a flashback. I know this is a flashback because there is an effect used on the film. The effect makes everything look brighter, increases the blurriness and also makes the visuals stop and start very quickly.This gives a sense that this is a flashback we don't fully understand. However, we do see enough to make conclusions. We believe that Bourne was forced into this 'programme'.

While this is happening, the police have found him again and they tell him 'put your hands up'. He doesn't turn around, but the police start to move closer. This increases suspense as we feel that when they get too close, Bourne will strike. The non-diegetic sound track is building up again to a crescendo.

Greg's Thriller Analysis (Kill Bill)

Greg's Analysis

Kill Bill

The film starts with this Uma Thurman's character laying on the floor, clear badly injured. The film is in black and white,which tells us this may be a flashback. The only sound we get here is her frantic breathing,which makes it clearer to us she's in pain. We see from this shot she is wearing a wedding dress. This makes the audience ask 2 questions: What happened to her and why is she wearing a wedding dress?

 

 

 We get a sound bridge to the next shot. We hear footsteps coming towards Uma's character, and we then cut to someones feet, and we see he/she is walking towards her (judging from the shoes, we think it's a male).

His first lines confirm that he is a male. He says 'Do you find me sadistic?', which tells us he did this to her. He then pulls out a cloth a wipes most of the blood off her face. On the cloth is a name: Bill. We know the man's name, but we haven't seen his face, and we've seen the woman's face, but not her name.

Bill then backs away from her, and we hear a gun cocked off-screen. At the same time, her eyes widen, which tells us the gun is pointed at her. At this point we ask the questions 'Why does he want to kill her?'. I also start to believe that Bill is the groom

 

Before she is shot in the head, we hear her say her only lines: 'Bill, it's your baby'. This raises a lot more questions about her, like 'What is her relationship with Bill?' Immediately afterwards, she is shot, and the wedding veil blows away. The wedding veil being blown away at the same time indicates that their relationship and marriage is over

                

Just as we hear the gunshot, we cut to a the opening credits, with the bang still echoing. This may be what Uma's Character. As the opening credits roll,we get a non-diegetic soundtrack, which is very slow, sad and the lyrics refer to an old relationship that has ended. We then fade out to a shot of the silhouette  of someone lying on a bed. Judging from what we have already seen, we assume it is Uma's character, who is either dead or in a coma