Sub-Genres of Thriller Films

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Ideologies presented in Pulp Fiction

Ideologies presented in Pulp Fiction

 "Ideology is usually defined as a body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual, group, class, or culture. The term is generally associated with politics and party platforms, but it can also mean a given set of values that are implicit in any human enterprise -- including filmmaking.”

In Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino tells the story of four characters whose lives all intertwine at different points of the film. When making the film, Tarantino wanted to show redemption by allowing the character to make their own moral judgment in difficult situations, and their choices would result in either reward or retribution. The character that this is shown best through is Butch Coolidge, played by Bruce Willis. To begin with, the character lacks any sort of morals, getting himself out of bad situations using violence, and this reaches a peak when he steals Marsellus Wallace's money. The point of the film where Butch's moral stance changes is when he has faced the choice of fleeing a dangerous situation or staying and help Marsellus escape two rapists. Butch makes the decision to stay and help Marsellus, which leads to him being rewarded by Marsellus, who clears his debt and helps Butch to regain the respect of his peers.

Tarantino also addresses drug use and religion in the film through the other main characters. Mia Wallace, played by Uma Thurman, and Vincent Vega, played by John Travolta, are shown casually and recreationally using hardcore drugs like heroin and cocaine throughout the film, but the horrifying scene of Mia's overdose allows us as an audience to make our own judgment about how we feel about the character's drug use. Tarantino uses hitman Jules Winnfield, played by Samuel L. Jackson to show strong religious messages, particularly in two scenes of the film. One where Jules claims he has a new belief in 'divine intervention' after a near death experience, and once again when he makes his extremely famous Ezekiel 25:17 to the men that they have been ordered to kill by Marsellus. 

By showing the audience the idea of the American Dream through such a negative situation, particularly getting rich through illegal activity, it lets us as the audience to think about the reality of the American Dream and leaves us thinking about how far we would go ourselves to ultimately achieve the 'American Dream' 

Director Case Study: Alfred Hitchcock

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Mise-en-scene in the opening sequence of The Silence of The Lambs

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9 Key Screenshots from We Need To Talk About Kevin

Title Sequence of Reservoir Dogs

Reservoir Dogs Title Sequence  

             

In the title sequence of Reservoir Dogs, it follows the familiar formula of Quentin Tarantino's films, where the credits are in a yellow and either on the top of the scene or on a black background. This makes the film instantly recognisable to people who are fans of him. Like his other films, his name is the first thing shown on the screen, reading "A film by Quentin Tarantino". This is then followed by all the main actors names and the name of the film.

The scene starts with non-diegetic sound of narration from one of the characters, but it isn't made clear to us which character is speaking. The scene then transitions to a black screen with Tarantino's name, and with this, the music changes to a face paced soundtrack, which has connotations of the crime thriller genre behind it.

As the men walk along the pathway in slow motion, we get an extreme close up of each character. When the camera zooms in on them, the actors name flashes up in yellow font underneath. This is a way of the audience being able to tell who is played by who, and make us aware of any huge Hollywood stars in the film, like Steve Buscemi. We also see Tim Roth, who is recognisable to any fans of Tarantino's film. The majority of the men are dressed in suits, with one dressed in a polo shirt and the other in a shell suit jacket.

As we see the men walk into the distance, the word "are" appears beneath their feet, showing that these are the main characters of the film. This is then followed by "Reservoir Dogs" appearing in yellow across the screen, rising up from the bottom and stopping at the stop, similar to Pulp Fiction.

After this, the screen goes black and the names of people like the producers and editors appears on the screen in yellow, and the music continues in the background. This then fades to black and the name of the lead producer appears on the screen and the screen once again fades to black.

Analyisis of the opening of Shutter Island

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Pre-1980's Character Analysis

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Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory

Mise-en-scene elements in the opening scene of American Psycho

The opening sequence of this film is set in an apartment, which has a lot of daylight due to large windows, creating fill lighting in the room. The decor of the whole apartment is extremely sterile, which everything being white or black. The most colour we get is from a blue and red Les Miserables poster above the toilet, which is an odd thing to be in this room, but this could be an enigmatic clue to what his character is like, and the rest of the home is just for show, or this could imply that he has a hard exterior. This apartment belongs to a young man living on his own, so this sort of poster is an odd part. The brightness of the flat alongside the white furniture makes the whole place look and feel very sterile, especially when the main character Patrick moves to the kitchen, as this seems to be made completely of stainless steel. This makes it feel like there was a high production, as the apartment feels extremely real and lived in, and also looks very expensive.

In this opening sequence, the facial expressions portrayed by Christian Bale help us understand the type of character that he is playing. Even when looking at himself, he has an extremely dead pan expression, showing us that he is quite serious and it is probably his own choice to live on his own. He also looks at himself in all of the reflective surfaces in his house, showing that he is very vain and self absorbed.

From the opening sequence, we can tell that the main character is a white, American male, but this isn't well portrayed through his costume, but by his voice that we hear in his monologue. The only thing he wears in the sequence is white pants
, which continues the idea that he is a very vain character. This is an odd costume choice as it doesn't give us much information about where the character is from, his identity, his ethnicity or sexuality.

This institution manages to involve the audience in this opening, as it is the characters daily life with a monologue that introduces himself over the top of this. This makes the audience feel like that they know this character, which makes us more engaged in the story and finding out what happens to him next.

Comparing three films from three different time periods: Psycho, The Shining and The Others

The three films I’ve researched, Psycho, The Shining and The Others all fall into the genre of a thriller films, but all come from different time periods. Psycho was made in 1960, The Shining was made in 1980 and The Others was made in 2001. As these films are from such different times in cinema, it helps us see how Thriller has developed over time, what has changed and what has stayed the same.

For this essay, I watched the shower scene from Psycho, one of the most famous scenes in cinema history. In this scene, the music has a huge impact on the way the scene pans out. The non-digetic sound used by Hitchcock helps to build suspense at the beginning of the scene, but as this fades out to the digetic sounds of the running of the shower, we as the audience can understand how victim wouldn’t have been able to hear the killer approaching her. By doing this, Hitchcock is submersing the audience in the scene, and putting them on the edge of their seats, like a thriller is supposed to do. The sudden screech of non-digetic sound when the shower curtain is ripped back and the digetic sound of the woman screaming is enough to shock the audience and make them jump, which makes this scene a lot scarier than we originally suspected it to be. This is also complimented by the fact that the film is in black and white, as the shadow cast on the shower curtain by the killer is a lot more impactful than being able to see the killers face, as it keeps the element of mystery and makes us think and question who this person is. Towards the end of the scene, we see an extreme close up of what is presumably blood running into the plughole, which then transitions into an extreme close up of the woman’s eye, and then pans out to show her face. This makes us an audience feel empathetic towards the woman, as we don’t expect to see her dead body lying in this shower. However, the tell-tale sign that this thriller
was filmed in the 1960’s in the prominence of the Male Gaze Theory throughout the scene. The woman in this clip is clearing being objectified, as the main focus of her scene is her naked body, even when she is dead. We see close up shots of different parts of her body, but despite not seeing her whole naked body at once, it is clear that Alfred Hitchcock is appealing to the typical male audience of thriller films. He uses the woman to make this scene more upsetting and shocking, as this is not a situation that we would expect to see
a woman in.

Another film that uses actors to provide its audience with this shock factor is The Shining. Stanley Kubrick uses children in the scene with the two twin girls to upset his audience. This scene starts with a tracking shot of the young boy cycling through the halls of a hospital or home, and we see him come to a halt when twin girls appear at the end of the hallway. This scene uses mise-en-scene to indicate that these girls are from a different time period to the young boy, as they are wearing very old looking dresses compared to the boy’s jumper and shorts. The colour scheme throughout the scene is very pale colours, like light blue, white and cream which shows the innocence of the young girls, and makes the image of the dead girls even more shocking, as the scene is now covered in blood, and the red is a large contrast to the image in front of us. This means that the flash of the image has even more impact. In the frame, we can see two different camera angles. One angle is a close up of the little boy in the films face, where the other angle is the two twin girls at the end of the corridor who he is staring at. When the scene suddenly cuts two the image of the two girls dead on the floor, with blood covering them and every surface of the hallway, not only shock the audience, it raises so many questions, like thrillers are supposed to do. Who killed them? Why were they killed?

Why are they in the hallway? Why have they appeared to the young boy? The use of the bright red blood in this scene also makes it so much more impactful than the black and white shots in Psycho, as it shocks the audience and makes us almost feel uncomfortable, as we feel like we shouldn’t be looking at these young girls. This is different to Psycho, as in Psycho Hitchcock wants us to infer that the woman has died and think about it for ourselves, whereas Kubrick in The Shining leaves no room for us to wonder whether or not these girls are dead.

One of the main things that connects these three films is that the thing that is scaring us as an audience is human. In The Shining, Psycho and The Others, whether the person is alive or a ghost, that is the shock factor to the film.

In the fog scene of The Others, the setting also has an impact on our uncertainty of what’s going to happen as an audience. The fact that the protagonist is standing in a woods, surrounded in fog and she can’t see ahead of her, and we can’t see what’s ahead of her either, makes us concerned for her well being. The non-digetic sound of the crash indicates that something is about to happen. This is an element used by all 3 directors in all of the films, every time something dramatic or impactful to the story line is about to happen, we hear some sort of loud, shocking noise. When the man appears through the fog, who is her husband, from the tone in her voice when she sees him, we as an audience can understand that she feels relieved, but from knowing what happens in this film, we can’t be too sure

of this is reality. The mise-en-scene of the costume of her husband shows us that he has come straight from the war to see his wife, but these dirty clothes compared those of his wife show the difference between life at home and life in the war. However, the extreme close up of the wife’s face compared to her husband’s makes us wonder why her husband isn’t happy to see her after being away for so long.

In conclusion, these three films all make us as an audience question and think about what is going on in the film, all of the directors incorporate digetic and non-digetic sound to help the audience feel submersed in the film and all three films use people for the scary element of the film, making us feel more connected to the characters and the scene. 

How the director engages the audience in the opening scene of Jaws

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Elements of Mise-en-Scene in Kill Bill, Legally Blonde and Suicide Squad

The use of mise-en-scene elements helps in the telling of many films. An example of a film where mise-en-scene elements help with the narrative of a story and the relationship between characters is Kill Bill Vol 1, particularly in the very opening scene. The scene starts off with a very close up camera angle of Uma Thurman laying on the floor, it appears that she is wearing a veil, which would suggest that she was getting married. Her hair is soaked, and as there is no water in the immediate shot, we can assume that this is due to sweat. Her face is covered in various sized cuts and blood which makes us question what has happened to this woman? She also has a look of sheer terror on her face and is moaning in pain. This question is even further emphasised by the fact that this has happened on this woman’s wedding day, which makes us wonder who she is and what she's done to deserve this, as we are forced to believe that our wedding day is one of the happiest days of our life, and this also leaves the audience to wonder why this woman is alone, where is her husband? Where are the guests? This shows just how impactful on the story this small piece of view in the shot is. This is then followed by a shot of someone walking across the floor. We only see their feet, but they are wearing boots, not high-heeled

women’s boots, but slightly heeled men’s shoes. The sound that this makes on the floor also creates more tension in the scene. This man starts to talk to the woman on the floor, but in a foreign language, which sounds like French. He then wipes her face with a handkerchief with ‘Bill’ inscribed on it, making the connection between this man and the title of the film. The way the woman looks at this man isn't in shock, which is an indicator that she knows him, but she also doesn't look please to see him, which creates more intrigue about the relationship between these two characters. We hear the man open a case, and the woman’s eyes widen and she looks completely horrified and begins to breathe deeply and shake with fear. She responds to the man, once again in French, but she gets shot straight in the head. This raises, even more, questions about the relationship between these two.

Legally Blonde is a film that heavily focuses on stereotypes and breaking them. In the film, the lead, Elle Woods, has bright blonde hair, is obsessed with clothes, hair, and makeup and always looks perfect. She also always wears the colour pink, which makes her heavily stand out in most scenes. Even her boyfriend says to her “I need to marry a Jackie, not a Marilyn.” A scene where the uses of mise-en-scene really show the stereotyping faced by Elle is when she's in court, every single person in the room is wearing black and white, and Elle is wearing bright pink, and every person in the room undermines her and laughs about what she is saying, but in five minutes manages to clear her client's name. 

Mise-en-scene is also used with iconography in a film, a good example of this being the car chase between Batman and The Joker with Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad. This scene shows all the stereotypical iconography aspects of an action film with the use of mise-en-scene. They drive through a dimly lit city, with the main focus of the scene being the supercars driven by the two men. To make this the attention, the cars are nothing like we see in everyday life, especially The Joker’s, which is clearly meant to be the main focus over Batman as the bottom of the car is illuminated and the car itself is purple chrome, a colour that we immediately associate with The Joker. Not only does this scene have cars, a protagonist and an antagonist, which shows the reference to Propp's narrative theory about character types, but also a beautiful female sidekick in the form of Harley Quinn, who is covered in jewellery with perfect hair and makeup, a way we aren't used to seeing her in the film, which is obviously used to appeal to the male audience, which shows us the Male Gaze Theory, as even though Harley Quinn may be shown as an evil protagonist and sidekick, she realistically is part of the film to satisfy the male audience member, who this film would be aimed at, and be objectified. As well as this, Harley’s prop of a gun to shoot through the roof of the car is also the use of mise-en-scene to conform to the iconography of an action/superhero film. The tattoos covering both The Joker and Harley is also another way of clearly distinguishing who is the villain and who is the hero in this situation. Also, by ending the scene by showing Harley’s facial expressions of her being clearly very annoyed shows that even though she is a pretty face, she's just as bad as the boys.

Comparison of 'Bullitt' and 'Pain and Gain'

Introduction

Hello, my name is Anna Day and welcome to my AS Media blog. As I didn't take Media at GCSE, so this is my first experience of Media. Here I will be showing you the process of researching, filming and producing my own two minute opening sequence, which will be the genre of Thriller. I think that the strengths that I can already bring to my group are mainly with the writing aspect of the process, as this is the area that I have the most experience in. Over the course of making my opening sequence, I hope to develop more skills in camera work and editing, as this is something that I don't have any experience in and would be a valuable skill to have in later life.

During this time, I will be working with Maddie, Alex and Jordan.