SE7EN FILM OPENING

SE7EN

Seven is a 1995 American thriller film, containing neo-noir elements. David Mills and William Somerset are police detectives working in a crime-filled city, who become deeply involved in a case which includes a series of sadistic murders. The murders are all in correspondence to each of the seven deadly sins: Gluttony, Envy, Lust, Pride, Sloth, Greed and Wrath. The title is stylised as Se7en, which portrays the film is going to be a bit twisted and different from normal. This style is confirmed when we view the opening credits:

Immediately we are presented with music that has a continuous beat ringing in the background. The beat is used from one of Nine Inch Nails songs, 'Closer'. This is repeated over and over and starts to make the viewer feel a bit uneasy, especially with images displayed whilst it's playing. Occasionally the beat has an additional screeching, strange tapping sound, creaking or thud on top of the beat, making the continuous music irregular and mysterious, even though similar things are playing. Weird noises are constantly played, some that people have never heard before and is impossible to tell what the noise is. Towards the end, the music builds and builds, filling with so much noise and the beat gets heavier and scarier. Finally we hear a male singing "you get me closer to God" which is then ended with a final bass drum beat.

The things we see when viewing the opening credits consist of lots of strange objects which have something abnormal about them. We begin with a book open with something in the background out of focus opening the pages. Shadows tower over some other images, such as the two hands drawn on paper. We also see lots of small gadgets, but we see them for a very short amount of time, so we are unable to properly view what we are looking at. After the image has been taken away we are presented with a lot more short clips, and it is all a bit too much as we are still trying to figure out what the previous objects were. Also, what makes it more difficult to make out what things are is how close up the shot is. We are only allowed tiny glimpses of certain things, making us feel uneasy as something strange is going on. Using objects such as razor blades make us feel a bit on edge as it is clear that they are not using them for shaving. We see a piece of skin flake off the fingers holding the razor which is peculiar in itself. Flashing images are often used and when we are shown the credits one by one, there is always an eerie twist to the writing; for example, 'An Arnold Kopelson Production' is first showed to us backwards but suddenly flipped the right way. The writing is constantly moving, which we are not used to seeing as when we read things normally the words stay in the same place. This makes it even more mysterious. The focus of things is often a bit off, but only slightly, making things seem different but in a way that makes you question how they had done it.

Writing upside down, strange flashes, dark, bleak colours, unusual activities; I think this film has certainly accomplished in making the viewer feel most uncomfortable. Very effective and it makes you want to watch on, so you can maybe understand what is going on a bit better.

THE LION KING FILM OPENING

THE LION KING

One of my all time favourite films would have to be The Lion King; this being the reason why I chose to analyse the opening to this amazing Disney movie. Well known by everyone, the first wide shot shows a wide landscape in darkness with a glowing light at the back which rises above the land to present sunlight; spreading happiness through the whole kingdom. As soon as the sun starts to move, an African song begins to play. It is a happy tune, with one main person singing with many back-up singers in it. It sounds as though the people singing are grouped as a colony in a way; kind of reflecting how all the different types of animals come together as one to see the future King's ceremony. The whole scene gets the audience feeling warm and happy inside, as animals who are usually seen killing one another in the wild walk side by side looking up into the sunrise and walk towards the centre rock which is first show in a wide shot from a far away hill to show how big it was in comparison to all the creatures walking towards it. This lets the audience know that something special and important will happen there. We follow Zazu in the sky flying high, yet still we are below Mufasa as we zoom up towards him standing on Pride Rock. This shows the hierarchy of the animal kingdom; he is their king which is confirmed to us when Zazu lands and bows to the King standing high, with his mane fluttering in the breeze. However, Mufasa bows back to Zazu which doesn't tell us they have the same status, but shows instead that the King is friendly and warm-hearted.

Rafiki, the baboon, enters the scene with a bright light shining behind him, so only a sillhouette is shown. This portrays importance to this character and we know he is special to the royal family. He climbs to the top of Pride rock and through to where the sleeping Simba lies. This is where we see the baby King; the music begins to quieten down and we hear a very soft purring coming from between the mothers paws. The camera peers over to reveal the baby cub; being smothered in orange juice from a fruit, possibly a ritual in the animal world. Sneezing sweetly in the dust, Simba is then picked up by Rafiki and is taken the the end of the Pride Rock. As they walk up the rock, the music in the background begins to return and gets louder and louder until they get to the end of the rock and suddenly chorus of "Circle of Life" kicks in and Simba is thrown into the air infront of all the animals surrounding the Pride Rock. A round of applause is suggested by all the animals screeching and stomping their feet in approval. There are lots of low angle shots in this part to show the status of the cub, and a final high angle panning shot which shows the audience what Simba can see. After this, the sky is shown and a beam of light shoots down and hits Simba and lights him up so that all the animals can see; they all begin to bow to him and then a mid-shot zooms out on Simba to reveal the end shot of the opening showing us all the animals in the Kingdom surrounding to create an amazing ceremony that the audience have also felt a part in. As soon as the finishing wide shot is established, the music suddenly cuts off to a finally with a massive drum beating once, making the title almost scream its name - The Lion King.

ANALYSIS OF A CLASSIC NOIR

During one of our Media lessons, we had the opportunity to view one of the very many classic noir films. It was chosen to watch 'Double Indemnity', a film based on a hard-boiled novel of the same name by James M. Caine. The film itself is a 1944 American film noir, directed by Billy Wilder. A previous post in the blog gives a brief analysis of the film, but after having watching it I will be discussing a lot more key characteristics from my point of view.

To begin with, I will outline the representation of four of the main characters involved;

Walter confessing

Walter Neff is a very slick salesman. He is successful, tall and handsome yet still single. He is the one falling for the femme fetale, Phyllis, and like many people in the film he smokes cigarettes (even whilst he is dying on the floor!) He talks in fast, short sentences which makes us feel as though he is a very smart man; continuing to think this when we realise he is the one to plot the death of Phyllis' husband. However, come to the end of the film we realise he is used; not so smart as we had initially thought.

The first we see of Phyllis

Phyllis Dietrichson gives us a first impression of blond beauty; a lovely wife to a man and is introduced half naked in a dressing gown, showing her natural beauty. However, as Neff begins talking we realise she is suffering in the marriage and is maybe slightly abused. We see her as a lady who has ended up in the wrong hands and the audience feels for her and wants her to have a better life; with Walter! As we work our way through the film we begin to realise that she is not what initially thought; she is the femme fetale of this production, very manipulative. She is using Walter throughout the film, but he is so in love with her that he can't bring himself to see that she is actually evil. She is unkind to her step daughter, Lola, who is a lovely girl and doesn't deserve to be treated as such. She willingly kills her husband and from what we see of her, it would not be surprising is she had killed before that! Overall, a horrible character but makes Double Indemnity a Noir.

Lola being driven by Walter

Lola Dietrichson is the step daughter of Phyllis. We know that her step mum does not treat her well, but Lola is an innocent, young brunette. Her mother had passed away, of which he new one has no care for. Not only that, Phyllis takes her father away from her too by murdering him. In the scenes she is involved in, she is often crying and upset; she is not living happy with the way her parents are. She wants to date Nino, to her father's disgust, but it is shown that she is happy when she is with him.

Keyes in his office

Barton Keyes is a short, intelligent man. He is Walter's friend and employer and smokes just like Walter. Walter is often seen lending a light to Keyes cigarette, however, come to the end of the film as Walter is dying on the floor, Keyes gets a light and ignites his final smoke. Throughout the film, we notice that Keyes always has a good instinct. We know what he doesn't, yet he always seems to know that something isn't right. He says it's down to his "little man". We have an example of this in practise when he almost married a girl until the "little man" told him to check her background. Low and behold his instincts were correct and although he remains a single man he was happy of his decision. He is a sincere man, with a good heart.

Atmosphere is key to Noir. Being a classic noir, Double Indemnity is quite pessimistic the whole way through. From the very beginning we hear the confession of Walter about the murder and the whole story is a flashback of this grim event. From this point we already know the rest of the film to follow will not have many happy events; a very common characteristic which has an extraodinary effect. As we know the end of the story at the beginning, we start to piece together all the information we get to help recognise how this came to happen. We already knew that the ride would be bleak, and Double Indemnity certainly was.

Lighting helped towards the unsettling atmosphere; it used many of the conventions traditionally used for Film Noirs. There is a lot of use of venetian blinds and there are shadows the entire place with different uses; sometimes to hide something, other times to mark evil in some people. As the film was made in 1944, it is black and white; this easily helps us to separate the black from the white, and makes shadows look more scary and creepy. We are not used to living life in black and white, and when we see it on screen with all these odd shadows, it can some times make us feel uneasy, which is exactly what we want from this Film Noir.

All in all, Double Indemnity definitely deserves being classed as a classic Film Noir. It contains all the codes and conventions needed, and it is presented in a way to really give that pessimistic feel.

EXAMPLE OF NEO-NOIR: BLADE RUNNER

Blade Runner is a 1984 film, Directed by Ridley Scott. However, the film is shot as though it is in 2019. Rick Deckard is a Blade Runner, a police man who hunts and terminates artificially created humans with limited life spans; known to them as replicants. He doesn't want to be in the force, but is forced to remain when some replicants hijack a ship back to earth to seek their creators to find out how to live longer than the short period of four years. Deckard searchs through a huge and smoky oriental city, which feel also very claustrophobic. Though this film is very much science fiction fantasy, it brings us these brilliant scenes which just scream noir film all over. Settings often consist of raining in the lonely streets at night, or in the shadows. Not only that, the main character is the classic anti-hero; a lone man who falls for the Femme Fetale, Rachael. He also drinks more than he should showing to us that he is not the stereotypical hero or role model.

A typical Noir lighting effect is the venetian blind; Blade Runner manages to use this when Deckard and Racheal share a kiss in front of it. Scott did very well in this movie to put Noir into the future and combine it with science fiction and fantasy. Overall, Blade Runner is a neo-noir worth the watch.

EXAMPLE OF NEO-NOIR: KISS KISS BANG BANG

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Neo-noir film, 2005

 Directed by Shane Black and filmed in Los Angeles, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a contemporary film made in 2005 engaging in many aspects of film noir. The film is narrated by a small-time criminal, Harry Lockhart, discussing the events of the film.
Fleeing a robbery, Harry escapes the grips of the police by creeping into a movie audition and pours his emotional regret about the robbery; impressing the producers who think he is a method actor and hiring him for lead role. He then heads on to Hollywood, where a party is being held. Attending the party, Harry encounters his high school crush. They leave the party to his apartment but the soon-to-be romance was destroyed when drunken Harry accidentally sleeps with Harmony's friend instead.
While working with Perry, Harry stumbles into a conspiracy of kidnapping and murder involving a profile heiress. Evidence suggests that it could be Perry, but there is someone out to try and frame Harry for this.

Whilst this happens, Harmony mistakes Harry for a detective and asks him to explore the death of her sister; it was believed to Harmony that her sister was murdered by someone trying to kill her, but it is insisted suicide by Perry. As events related to both crimes escalate, Harry, Perry and Harmony team up to investigate.

The situations that the protagonist is put into are suspenseful and thrilling, made all the more so by the fact that Harry Lockhart (Downey Jr.) is so ill-equipped to handle them. The film itself is shot in colour, giving it the neo-noir feeling; the characters are modern and up to date. However, the noir concept remains due to the shadowy nature of some shots, and most certainly by the actions of the femme fetale, Harmony Lane. Also, Shane Black uses the third-wall shattering technique of having the narrator talk directly to the audience as though he's telling a story; an approach which definitely makes a noir film.