The first title we see appear are the presenters of the film, written in light yellow on a black background, immediately creating a stark contrast. The colour yellow is usually associated with joy, happiness, intellect, and energy, the opposite of the depressing, deathly, evil, and mysterious black, giving the audience insight about what the film may be about; energy and life surrounded by evil and death. The letters are in capitals and in an easy to read font, perhaps Arial, making it easier for the audience to read it before an 'event' takes place. The titles do not fill the space, making them look isolated, hinting to the audience the feelings that the characters may have within the narrative. The non-diegetic music accompanying the credits is slow, foreboding but tense, pitching and leading into a climax as a explosion shatters the glass of the screen. This effect is brilliant and unpredictable, as the audience was prepared for the credits to fade in as done previously to the sinister music.
In this shot, a different explosion has shattered the glass, with the credits still visibly painted on the glass in silver. To create tension, high violin/string music has been used to overlay the action. The speed of the glass exploding has been altered. It is very fast to begin with and then suddenly slowed down, allowing the audience to see the wonderful, fiery explosion that shatters the glass. Also, the fire, particularly if seen on a large cinema screen, would be very bright, again contrasting with black background, suggesting danger yet again.
Here, the shattering of the glass has been reversed, so that it pieces itself back together to form the whole screen. This is unusual and not what the audience was expecting as they were assuming the same to happen to this title as had occurred to all the other titles, namely the glass to explode towards them. Furthermore, one sees the object that shattered the glass, namely scissors, which is rather fitting when one notices that the credit is for the costume designer. After that sequence, we see what the breaking of the glass by the scissors looked like for no apart reason at all. Perhaps to extent the time of a rather tedious film or maybe to increase its pretentiousness. The same dramatic, non-diegetic music accompanies the scene, with a slight suction noise as the shattered glass reverts back into the screen.
As the titles list the actors, objects shatter the glass, specifically the ones that kill them in the film. Here, it is, ironically, a window. If one looks carefully, one can see that the window is in fact on fire, which is an impressive feat. During this sequence, the music has, surprisingly, changed. It punctuates the sequence with a series of stresses that shifted from beat one and four, to one and three, very similar to the ‘melody’ used for Hitchcock’s “Psycho".
In the final shot that I will be analyzing, the audience, in an unusual move from the director, are shown the ending of the film. An aeroplane explodes and various objects of debris break the glass. Again, the smashing of the glass is sped up and then slowed down for extra impact and amazement. The music in the segment begins to pick up, slowly striving for a climax, even though the ending for the film has been revealed. Curiously, the space here has been used differently. In the other sequences, the objects breaking the glass were in close proximity. Here, the main object, the aeroplane is far above the audience and the titles, giving the impression the dark background is in fact a night sky. In addition, the explosion of the plane lights up the screen and later reflects in the pieces of broken glass.
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