Analysing Thriller/Mystery Opening Sequences - 'The Usual Suspects'

'The Usual Suspects'

• The scene starts off with a man lighting matches and a cigarette
• The lighting is very dark so it's difficult to see (hiding the man's identity) and when he throws the match box on the floor it sets fire along a line of flammable gas (we don't know who the man is or why he is there)
• The camera follows the fire up to a point where a mysterious man appears to urinate, putting the flame out
• Slow, mysterious non-diegetic music begins to play, typical of the genre
• The camera shows the man's silhouette by tilting it upwards, the low angle giving us the idea he is in power
• We are not able to see his face only his figure, because of the backlighting, which creates more mystery
• The editing is fast and shows us lots of different angles of the person walking towards the man sitting down. There is a quick shot of the camera behind some rope giving the impression that he is being watched. This creates lots of tension and makes the audience wonder what is happening and question their relationship
• The man speaks in a very low, deep and quiet tone (again hiding his true identity), trying to belittle the other man, who is sitting, injured
• The two men have a tense conversation in very quiet tones
• The person standing pulls out a gun, a typical prop of the thriller genre, and points it at the man sitting
• The director then cuts to the outside of the boat, and the shots are edited quickly to lots of different places around the boat every time we hear a gunshot
• As it is night time, and the lighting is low-key, it makes the scene look scarier and more mysterious
• After all the shots of the boat, the director cuts back to the man's shoe, he drops his cigarette in slow motion (a common technique in thrillers) and a line of fire starts spreading around
• We see a quick shot of the man running and climbing away before there is a big explosion
• The camera slowly zooms in on the rope (slow camera movement is typical of thrillers) with police cars wailing in the distance
• The last scene transitions into a man sitting with a bright light placed on him looking as if he is being interviewed by two other people (this makes the previous scene seem like a flashback, a common narrative device in thrillers)