RESEARCH: Art of the Title - American Psycho
As soon
as the title sequence begins you are presented with a grey screen and silence,
this silence is broken with a short yet prominent, sharp violin sound. a
synchronous sound device is used in the beginning of the sequence as when this
sharp violin plays, a drop of a red substance falls down the screen,
immediately this strikes the viewer as blood as this would fit the horror like
soundtrack, this continues forward creating an eerie tone, which as a viewer
made me feel uncomfortable which I believe proves the effectiveness of the
opening as the film is a psychological thriller and often making the audience
feel appropriately uncomfortable is a goal for this genre.
The short
yet sharp violin sounds begin to happen more frequently until a piano joins in
to create a recognisable soundtrack reminiscent of the classical genre which
still remains fitting of the same eerie tone creating in the first five
seconds, the classical music is fitted with visual codes one would associate
with the horror genre, for example a person is shown holding a large butchers
knife slowly moving downwards, immediately this has connotations of someone
being stabbed however in replacement of this we are greeted with a mysterious
hand cutting a piece of meat, followed by the red substance, mentioned earlier,
becoming recognisable as raspberry falling. The setting seamlessly goes from a
murder scene to a kitchen. This even further relishes this feeling of
discomfort as the viewer clearly can see that a murder is happening through the
music however it tries to make you rethink what you saw, an appropriate
metaphor for the murders that happen in the American Psycho film that make the
audience question whether the killings actually happened.
The montage
of clips we have just seen then seamlessly come together when we see all the
ingredients in said montage having been made into a complete dish, the camera
follows in a bird’s eye view angle as the waiter brings the dish to the table
where our focus is brought to the scene of the movie. When making the title
sequence to my creation it would be very important that I would incorporate similarly
transition techniques that make it very appealing to watch.
The
audience are now aware of the; themes of murder, the genre being psychological
thriller and are now introduced with the setting through the visuals, an upper-class
world of first class dishes with nicely presented salmon, fine wines and very
well dressed guests. We are then introduced to the main plot where we see three
very well dressed men in suits discussing exactly what you’d expect of them,
everything seems completely natural of men in their status however the scene
moves into a club when the main character, Patrick Bateman, is talking to the
bar tender to try and get drinks and just as we aren’t expecting it, the man
who has been presented as totally normal lashes out and starts to aggressively shout
at this bar tender, however she doesn’t appear to be fazed by his comments.
This engages the audience because how could a man so normal be so aggressive and
finally, get away with it.
You write in a lot of detail; sometimes a topic sentence to launch a paragraph helps to create an overview, such as : " The opening minute deliberately sets out to shock the audience with what appears to be dripping blood and predictable horror tropes like knives, only to deflate the growing alarm with the big reveal that the red liquid is raspberry coulis and the venue is an exquisite restaurant."
ReplyDeleteYou note how the themes of murder and thriller are introduced and how the opening montage shots segue into more conventional narrative introducing the three protagonists around a dining table.How is the sense of lavishness and excess created through the mise-en-scene? Where else does the sense of threat come from? How are the protagonists created as unsympathetic?