Textual analysis
Textual analysis of opening thriller films allows us to understand what the opening of a thriller film is like in order to make one ourselves.
Textual Analysis of 'Don't Look Now' opening sequence
In the opening of the film 'Don't Look Now', many omens are shown. The scene opens with a close up shot of a woodland area where it is raining, and this is known as pathetic fallacy, where the weather signifies something bad is going to happen, and so it is also an omen. This fits into the codes and conventions of a thriller film as the audience expects an element of suspense and danger in thriller films. Another omen would be the little girl's coat, as her coat was a bright red. The colour red connotes death, blood and danger, therefore the colour of her coat signified that she was in danger. This fits into the codes and conventions of a thriller film as the audience expect that a character is targeted by someone or something that may lead to the character being in danger. Another omen was the sound of a crow croaking over peaceful music. A crow signifies evil and death, and as the crow croaked, the girl was shown, signifying she could be the character to die in the film. This can fit into the codes and conventions of a thriller film as the audience can expect an atmosphere of tension and death in thriller films. Another omen would be the brother of the girl riding over a slab of glass and breaking it. This is an omen because it signifies bad luck, and therefore connotes the brother may have a bad day. When the brother is checking his bike wheels for shards of glass, the camera shot shows how far away he is from his sister. This denotes that the brother is very far away from his sister, and thefore connotes he would be unable to help her if she was in danger. This can fit into the codes and conventions of a thriller film as the audience can expect a sense of helplessness and tension. Furthermore, another omen would be when the father of the little girl spills a drink over a picture of his daughter, which made the ink spill. However, the ink spilled where the girl was standing in the picture, and as she was wearing a red coat, the ink that spilled was red, making it look like blood shed.
This fits into the codes and conventions of a thriller film as the audience expects tension, excitement and danger as the main elements of a thriller film. The last omen in the opening of this film is the doll that the girl carries. The doll is an army themed doll, and connotes death and danger as in the army you are at risk of many dangers, including death. The doll has a talking feature and one of it's phrases is 'Fall in', meaning 'Fall in line', however this ould be interpreted differenlty as the girl 'falls in' the water. This fits into the codes and conventions of a thriller film as the audience expect death and danger as the main elements of thriller film.
By Skye Smith
Textual Analysis of 'Don't Look Now' opening sequence
In 'Dont Look Now', at the beginning of the film it was raining, this pathetic fallacy, foreshadows that something bad is going to happen, as well as setting the mood of the film. A few seconds later the camera zooms into the pond, so you see a close up of water foreshadowing an event that could possibly involve the pond.
After the titles is a close up of shutter blinds on a window, it traps the light and it makes everything look dark, this could foreshadow that something from the outside is going to happen but the vision is trapped and the fact that its dark signfies death and an unpleasant mood to the thriller film.
The little girls is blonde, this stereotype portrays a witty naive character. She is wearing red, that connotes danger, the coat is very distingtive, as well as the colour red reocurring in the film alot to signify that it may play an important role in the film. The little girl has a doll that has a gas mask, gas masks connotes disspear, no hope and suffering inrelation to wars. Gas masks also relate to death and pollution from gas, this could be foreshadowed with the little girl not being able to breathe properly.
The omens of smoke and fire generally symbolise danger and death and mostly negative connotations. The dad looks uneased due to his facial expressions -looking up and around constantly- this conveys suspense as both the audience and character don't know what is happening. The music becomes more appearant and starts to create more tension as it becomes louder throughout the film. The mother then asks if he is okay eventhough, he doesn't look it. As he discovers a red figure in the picture, bloods starts to poor on top. This could signify death and danger, as he runs to the save the daughter. The camera close up shows she has sunken in, the blood splatters more which could signify she has been killed. Meanwhile her brother also rides over glass cracking it, which is an omen to foreshadow misfortune and something bad to happen later on, also a crow was spotted nearby the pond which is an omen for death too. The doll that the girl washolding continously said "falling in line" the word falling emphasies and foreshadows actions with faliing to take place in the future.
When they discovered her, she was dead and numerous screams were made from the characters this is a code and convention of thriller films.
By Nya Browne
Textual analysis of The Dark Knight Rises
In the Dark Knight Rises, before the film has even started the production company logos eg. Warner Bros has changed there usual theme colours to a dark colours which could foreshadow what specific film genre it is (thriller). It also connotes what theme the film is about, as it uses dark colours such as blacks and greys to connote misfortune, eery and misterious theme. The birds eye view of the batman sign is also dark and looks as if its a cracked earth, between the cracks are lightning this pathetic fallacy foreshadows that soemthing bad is going to happen. The diagetic and non diagetic sounds over-lapping have been used to emphasize particular elements in the opening sequence. As the non diagetic sound of the orchestra is used to show the importance of the action as the orchestral sound is deemed as power. The usage of continous straight cuts to show the fast pace tempo of the film brings tension to thriller as well as the mis en scene of weapons such as guns are convetions of thriller because it connotes death and mystery.
The character Bane has been introduced in the beginning which shows his significance in the film unless he is a red herring but otherwise he is represented as a powerful character and you can distinguish that he is a villian. Most shots of Bane are over the shoulder to show his power and dominance as well as, his voice being louder than everyone elses to intensify his power. He wears a mask over his mouth, which is used as an enigma code to enage the viewer so they can question who the character is and why he wears it. The mask signifies suffication and disspear as masks help breathing like gas masks in ww2, it tends to be used for someone who is weak but, in contrast in Bane's case it seems that it could be used for strength.
Lastly, through the usuage of shot reverse shot during the conversation of Bane and the CIA at that moment both of them are seen as powerful, this makes the scence intense because we know that they are at the equilibrium at the point and it makes the audience want to know who has the overall power.
By Nya Browne
Textual analysis of Take Shelter
(opening 5 mins)
The movie starts off with dull skies and lighting (low key lighting) and spooky music in the background. It starts to rain and the colour is very odd (orange), which is pathetic fallacy as it is implying that something has occured. Storm usually connotes suffering, disaster, death. After it shows a normal family eating breakfast, with a daughter that is deaf and speaks through sign language, this scene allows to introduce the main characters to the audience. As the father goes to work, more spooky music starts playing and it shows drilling in the ground. A drill can be used as a weapon which is what thrillers tend to use to cause tension which is what is happening in this scene. Pathetic falacy is used again as the clouds start to get dark again, and the wind blows the leafs on the trees. Scene changes to his wife who runs outside to take her daughter and notices the dark clouds and lightning. This shows that it is unsafe to stay outside.
The thunder, spooky music, yellow rain, dark clouds, wind blowing, drilling are elements that show it is a thriller movie.
The scenery is what we notice the most as the weather (the dark clouds and rain) is shown the most in the movie, the yellow rain gives a suspense as to what is happening. We also notice the deaf daughter as she is shown a lot and the attention is on mostly on her as she is probably the innocent character. The clothes that the family are wearing is everyday clothes; the women (normal pink vest top, with denim shorts), The deaf daughter (purple and white polo shirt with black shorts and a tiara on her head) and the father (brown work uniform). The mood is usually doom, gloomy, dull because of the weather around.
By Lolita Lind
Textual analysis of Agoraphobia
Productions: Starts of with Lotus productions which has a background of a grey breaking wall (dull spookey colours) and lightning breaking the wall (pathetic fallacy) which can foreshadow what the movie is about and what genre it is (thriller).
real heroine productions- Heavy use of the colour red which connotes blood, death, suffering etc which should link in with the movie.
5mins of the movie: Starts off with a close up of the mans face, which is screwed up, looks like he is crying or in severe pain. This gives a mystery to the audience as they want to know what is going on. The music is spooky and crescendos as the scene carries on which gives a thrill and more mystery. out of nowhere the man turns to hit something as he does that the music changes completely to a more dramatic and repeated beat which should lift the audience off their seat. As the beat repeats in the shadow we can see the man holding a kitchen knife and hitting someone/something continuesly. The scene is a murder scene and should give an insight of what its like to be in it and make the audience feel uncomfortable. After that there is very quick shots of a cut body which the man is destroying with lots of blood. blood connotes evil, death, suffering, pain etc which all link in to what is happening in the scene. Blood is very commonly used in thrillers as it gives a thrill! The shadow couldd connote that somebody from the dead or the devil is controlling his acttions, somebody that is not in his body or is not him that is taking over to what he does. The amount of blood splatting on the wall increases as he continues to cut the body which shows more and more suffering and pain. The lighting in the room is dark and he has a shadow on his face which could connote that he has an evil and dark side to him which is why he is commiting a crime. The dark room would also scare the audience as they would feel uncofortable. The scene changes from one image to another to bring up tension and to connote that he has no time and he is rushing to get this done.
After it moves to a scene of him placing the body parts into a big plastic bag which foreshadows that he is going to hide the body and get rid of it. Once the character grabs the head he stares at the face, the head is turned so we can only see the hair which gives a mystery as the audience would want to know who he killed. He shakes his head which connotes that there is a story as to why he done it and that he is not happy with the person or situation. By the hair you can tell it is a woman. Soon once he got to the hand there was an engagement ring on her finger which he took off aggresively which foreshadows that it was his wife he murdered, he placed the ring in his pocket which could be to hide the evidence or to have something left of her. As he put the ring is his pocket the music increased and finished off with a blurred image of him walking away which could connote that it is in the past or a dream etc.
The title of the movie appears in bright red writing which connotes blood, murder, injury, suffering etc. The writing looks like blood is dripping down and could connote to murder.
By Lolita Lind