Monday 5 December 2011

Analysis of the opening of Cape Fear

The film begins with a medium shot of a river/ocean oscillating and creating various ripples. The steady flowing of the water is accompanied with a mellow yet uneasy background violin music. There appears to be a considerable amount of light being reflected from the ripples to start off with, which is then gradually replaced with darkness. It is as though the sky is being reflected and the darkness represents the shadows of the gloomy clouds overtaking the sun or even an indication of the transition from day to night. An owl also flys by which emphasises the ambiguity of the opening, leaving the audience with little information to go by. The frame is still focused on the ripples and the audience will notice that the reflections are continually changing eventually into a dark liquid similar to crude oil. This shot blends into the image of an extreme close up of an eye. The eye is dominating, wide open and the remaining blending of the ripples from the previous shots creates a dramatic bulging effect of the eye, grabbing the attention of the audience. Likewise as this scene appears there is a change in the background music from a calmer melody to a sudden, sharp, loud, almost threatening orchestra. This intensifies the expression of the eye and builds up the expectation of trouble. Following this, the eye fades back out into the dark crude oil looking reflection from the water and a very vague, quick shot of lower teeth emerges then disappears.

The next shot is a quick faded, close up shot of a mans face looking up in distress followed shortly by an unclear medium shot of a radpidly moving head significantly distorted due to the rippling water faded throughout the scene. This disturbing motion of the head is resemblent of an individual experiencing psychosis or severe psychological impact adding to the genre at hand. The subsequent 30 seconds are disorientated with medium shots of water flowing in different currents and directions along with a 3 second shot of a mans silhouette, which conveys a very suspicious, mysterious context. The water scene continues but this time the reflection of a droplet is shown and the colour is overshadowed by a blood red. The connotations of this are blood, maybe even a murder scene. An extreme close up shot of a childs eyes in this same red followed by nightvision view is displayed. The eyes are an important aspect of emotion and this is directly linked to the mental state of a person adding to the psychological thriller genre.

The camera then zooms out of the eyes into a medium shot of the girl standing and all this happens at the same time as the girl begins to speak. It almost looks as though the camera is now steadily revealing information to the audience. Then the audience are taken to a scene of a room which begings with a medium shot slowly moving down and slighlty zooming out then panning to the left and revealing a male working out with his back to the camera, followed by a continuation of the camera zooming out. It seems as though the movement of the camera and the male working out are simultaneous as the camera stops zooming once the man has stopped working out. This effect makes the audience feel as though they are part of the scene. The following scene shows the man leaving his cell and this is captured by the camera almost following the man leave via a combination of long shots, pans and zooms. The final scene shows the man is being freed and the whole prison is viewable through this long shot while the man is walking towards the camera.

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