To synthesize the things we've learnt so far, we were given the task of analyzing two thriller openings in detail. I chose American Psycho (2000) and Blade Runner (1982), two thrillers that criticize society - one for 80s Yuppie Culture and one for AI/Capitalism. Both movies are considered classics of the thriller genre, but their openings say different things.
American Psycho
American Psycho transitions out of the title sequence by revealing that the drops that looked like blood and the knife that was held out were actually for food - This links to ideas of murder, while foreshadowing the blurring-together of Patrick Bateman's psychotic behavior and his normal business life. The opening prioritizes cleanliness - images of red on a clean white, the perfectly clean dishes and meat, and the almost-absence of any imperfection. Even the title sequence font is clean - Copper Plate Gothic, a clear-cut, sans-serif font used commonly in the 80s to represent money and power. The camera mostly focuses on plates and utensils, starting with not showing the faces of any of the characters and removing the human aspect of the film - everything here is expensive, from the cutlery to the cups, and commodities take center screen, reducing the human to nothing, a theme that runs through the entire movie. The dialogue starts, too, with discussion about expensive commodities. This can link to Marxian ideas such as that of commodity fetishism and reification.
From the start, the slasher genre is reinforced through symbolic and technical codes. The red droplets (sauce) that look like blood and the outstretched knife conjures images of killing - after all, when you cut someone with a knife, blood comes out. You are deliberately drawn to believe that the red liquid at the beginning is blood. Here, too, the knife cuts down on meat in one clean swoop, possibly reflecting how Patrick kills Paul later in the film.
Sometimes, attention is drawn to the rest of the scene. The mise-en-scène includes impeccably dressed people, paintings on the walls, pastel curtains, wine, and pillars that evoke a classical style - all expensive things for rich people. When the characters throw their platinum Amex cards onto the golden dish when they pay for the bill and say "not bad" (without any irony detected in the voice), we can see which strata of society they are on - the upper class.
There is a contrast between Patrick's internal dialogue and the dialogue with his colleagues - he calls one an "***hole" and says that another is asking "dumb questions", but he is smiling at all of them. The words in the dialogue are also very hostile and negative - when Van Patten leaves for a while, they immediately start talking negatively about him behind his back. The characters also discuss taking cocaine and one openly makes anti-Semitic remarks.This leads us to believe that their smiles is forced and fake, and their dialogue is interspersed with periods where their facial expressions suddenly turn hostile, which could represent their façades and niceties temporarily breaking - something that happens in the rest of the movie whenever Patrick kills people. This shows us their vanity and forced business-amicability to each other when they hate each other in reality.
When the businessmen enter the club, there are a number of fast cutaways to the beat, symbolizing the fast rhythm of the club and of youth. Many of the people at the club are wearing "hip clothes" while dancing to New Order, which shows the setting as being from the 80s.
When Patrick asks to pay for a drink (with cash, his coupon rejected) and the bartender turns away, he calls her a "f**king ugly b***h", and that he wants to "stab you to death" and "play around with your blood", all while smiling.
Many of the camera shots are either high-angle shots of vanity goods or of the character's faces, emphasizing the vanity of 80s yuppie culture as well as showing us the dissonance between the characters' faces and their dialogue.
The opening creates enigmas - why are these people so hostile to each other? Who is the person holding a knife (Christian Bale's name shows up here, partially answering the question)? Where is the red substance coming from? What is everyone here (aside from Patrick, who narrates his inner thoughts) thinking behind their masks of amicability? Why are they hiding their true sympathies like this? Much of the film is about the great enigma (to the characters) revealing itself - What is Patrick really like? Just like the characters themselves, the audience is supposed to find themselves second-guessing the characters at every move. Behind their veneer of smiles, what is going on?
The mood created is a strange one. Most of the characters in the movie are extremely rich, but this wealth is mixed with violence, as can be seen in the contrast between the characters' movement and their dialogue and the transition between "blood" and ketchup on fine food. Through this, the filmmakers blend together vanity and violence, creating a mood distinct to American Psycho.
The audience, which has come to watch a slasher movie, is not satisfied at first - they are only given little tastes of what is to come through the "blood", the music and the knife. This "appetizer" foreshadows what is to come and appeals to the viewers, saying "Don't worry! The slashing will come!"
The sound establishes the genre, using string instruments (commonly used in the horror genre). Even though much of it is smooth, there are undertones, with interruptions by very unnatural notes in the music, suggesting the increasingly psychotic state Patrick finds himself in and creating a sense that something is wrong.
Blade Runner
Blade Runner is a very different film from American Psycho. The thriller genre is known for being wide - this movie is an action thriller sci-fi noir, with one of my favorite openings in film history.
The film opens with the logo of The Ladd Company, revealing from left-to-right, top-to-down with green lines like a CRT screen, hinting at the sci-fi nature of the film. Immediately, they are bombarded with the names of the actors and the important members of the crew. The first actor to come up is Harrison Ford, known for his work in such beloved franchises as Star Wars. The font looks like promotional font for sci-fi media, while still preserving the serifs used in fonts for noir movies.
The sound starts with the sound of a heavy bass drum, echoing and trailing off. There is some silence when it comes to the name of Harrison Ford - an awkward one, symbolizing the power that comes with being slow. It sounds somewhat like the footsteps of a giant. Then, the movie title - Blade Runner, is shown in red, unlike the white of the rest of the title sequence's words, giving it importance. The sound then goes to a very high-pitched electronic noise, which then pitches down back to bass drums. This can link to the dichotomy in the movie between the inorganic and the organic. The music sounds almost dreamy, but it is brought back to Earth every few beats. The sound then pitches down when the explanation for the setting starts, sounding almost like a police siren (the main character of the game is a former police officer). The sound then turns very atmospheric, sounding like chiming bells pitching up and down. A bass builds up at the back nearing the end. When the final lines - "This was not called execution. This was called retirement." come into frame, the pitching up and down of a noise becomes more evident, sounding much like an alarm.
The film then opens on an establishing Los Angeles in 2019. It is a dark city, with many lights and fires shooting out of large pipes. The reveal is very slow, with the flames coming from the chimneys almost "illuminating" the film to reveal it, going along with an instrument going upwards with every quick note. One of the next "flares" from a chimney gets the bass rolling, which then reveals a flying car coming towards the screen. There are then some other shots - a bolt of lightning strikes the city, and the movie instantly cuts to fire being spewed out (the lightning giving momentum to the fire), showing how dangerous the city is and how much the environment has been destroyed. As far as the eye can see, there are only city lights, giving off the impression that Los Angeles has become much larger than it was when the movie was released. The melody then kicks in, and we can see the Tyrell Corporation headquarters in the far distance. As the car enters into frame again, we hear percussion almost as if the drums are trailing the car. Immediately, enigmas are created all around, the main one being "How did we get here?"
The movie then cuts to an extreme close-up shot of an eye. The eye, unflinching, gazes at the fires reflected in it. The eye, in contrast to the dark city, is bright. This foreshadows the Voight-Kampff test, a method used in the setting to find out if someone is human or not, and perhaps has a deeper meaning of symbolizing the viewer - the Cyberpunk genre is supposed to be didactic, criticizing the failings of modern capitalism. The eye could also be foreshadowing the theme of what being human is. The eye might symbolize God, the all-seeing eye, or some other higher power.
The next shot closes up on the Tyrell Corporation headquarters. We see flying cars occasionally flying around, and the giant monolithic headquarters that towers over the rest of the city. This large building symbolizes Tyrell's immense power. This also creates an enigma, at first - what is this large building for? The slow camera, the slow music, and the long periods between cuts give us the idea of Tyrell being a giant - the bigger things are, the slower they are (at least in folklore).
The movie cuts back to the eye - this shot-reverse-shot between the eye and the city evokes a sense that all is lost in the city with the eye seeing fires (possibly a reference to the fires of Hell, or of any eternal damnation). The eye, in contrast, being bright, may be a symbol of our innocence or of nature, both human and non-human, that we are continuously dominating (Blade Runner takes this domination to the extreme, however).
There is then a cut to inside the building. A shadowy figure, whom we can only see the silhouette of, is standing in a dimly-lit room with a lot of dust, smoking, his back turned to the camera (the use of noir technical codes here is obvious). His lack of movement, his posture, and his visibility create a sense of authority and an enigma as to who the character is. The music fades out and a beeping comes in, going from very high-pitched to low-pitched. It is very rhythmic but very electronic, and there is a tingling sound in the background (much like a chandelier when it wobbles), giving a sense of possibly either extreme wealth, highly-developed technology, or both.
The mood set is that of an equilibrium, establishing the dark, sci-fi setting and making a nod to the central themes of the film - what it is like to be human. The audience is already expecting a noir film with the setting of a city at night, quiet as seen from the sky. This period of "peace" builds up suspense in thriller fashion, where the audience is expecting the suspense to be broken with action (in this case, Kowalski shooting Holden).
The camera makes its final zoom into the room the man is standing in (where it becomes obvious that they have used CGI), giving us a sense of scale as to how small he is compared to the monolithic might of Tyrell.
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