Opening of a thriller analysis

How is Mise en scene and Sound used in a thriller?

Name of film: Se7en

Year: 1995

Director: David Fincher

Main cast: Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kevin Spacey

The opening to Se7en draws the reader in straight away by its silence and simplicity. There is no background music at all. There are just murmurs from possibly his TV or radio, but they are so quiet you have be carefully listening and focusing on them to hear. This silence helps make the audience focus on what the character is doing. Although what the character is doing is not anything of interest it is significant to showing what kind of character he is. It helps work him out. Making it very intense as we can hear every little thing he does. Every touch, every movement, and every time he picks something up or puts it down. This has a great effect on the audience as we don’t now if he is the victim or the villain; this keeps us guessing and makes us curious. With no music to help sway our opinion of him we have to wait there fore drawing in the audience.

However as there is no background music to distract the audience they feel calm. They can start trusting this character as we can start to notice subconsciously the sentimental ornaments around the rooms he enters in, what we assume is his flat, and can see how tidy and lonely he is. As by now we have assumed he lives alone and has a set routine every morning. We can see this is his usual morning routine, as he is getting dressed, making a cup of tea and generally getting ready. Nevertheless his facial expression within a big close up shows that he is possibly bored or tiered of it. With no music of any kind, diagetic and even non-diagetic, it shows how uninteresting his life maybe and also gives an edgy feel to the scene.

The brightness of the kitchen contrasts well with the dullness of possibly his bedroom were he is getting ready. This plus the silence shows really well that he is living alone. His home is also very tidy and looks like everything has its place and is in order this gives another insight into his character and more reason to trust him. The positioning of the camera while he is getting ready shows him from the waist up, this could show some kind of authority. He then walks towards the camera obviously going into the next room. However the camera does not follow or look up at him making the audience feel like maybe he doesn’t care anymore.

In the 2^nd scene it is extremely dark and the colours are dull and not very inviting compared to the first scene. Within the framing of the shot, the audience can see the body of a man from the calf up to the top of his back. Next to the man is a pool of what we assume is blood by the colour, positioning and the way it generally is placed within the frame. This ‘finding’ contrasted with the overall colour gives the scene a very eerie and dangerous feel. The voice over that is used, is obviously diagetic, as they are explaining to the character we are following, what has happened and makes us assume the man on the floor is dead as they are not helping him, panicking and also they are talking about him not to him. This makes the audience uncomfortable as it sets the scene in their head’s of the kind of noises that were heard before the man was killed and the result of what happened. This makes the audience realise he was murdered.

When we see the character in this scene he is walking around the crime scene, we immediately now he is a detective and the way he is shot within the frame suggests he has the greater authority and is good at his job. On the other hand his body language and the way his colleague talks to him with what he says, suggests the character has had enough and is retiring soon. We get the feeling he has been doing his job for years and is used to this sort of situation as he is calm and is the main focus of the camera framing. They show what his expression over the ‘case’ is and what he looks at so the audience can follow his thinking. This helps the audience keep up with the story line and starts helping them form a suspect in their minds.

Se7en has a very strong opening sequence that keeps the audience intrigued and makes them curious about the rest of the film. The use of silence helps build up the tension and shock the audience by how calm the characters are. It also suggests that something else is going to happen as it is ‘too calm’. This shows us there jobs and that they are used to seeing dead bodies. This makes the audience uncomfortable as they are not trained to be as calm. Using this opening immediately throws questions into the audiences mind of who done it? Are they going to be able to solve the case? Will who ever done it strike again? There fore drawing in the audience as they want answers to their questions. Overall I think this film intrigues the audience because it makes u start guessing from the beginning. Lighting makes it seem mysterious and dodgy in places were you can hardly see till your eyes adjust. The use of a dead body so early on in the film shocks the audience into questions and it captures their attention. Personally I have been drawn in a plan to watch the rest of this movie and take in to account things the director has done to start thinking of ideas to suggest to my group for my main task.