Analysis of a Thriller

The thriller clip that we looked at was SE7EN. We looked at the film from 7 minutes to about 10 minutes. The film SE7EN has both elements of a psychological thriller and a crime thriller.

Psychological because the towards the end the cop played by Brad Pitt is having an internal conflict about what he should do after the killer has taken them to the spot. Through out the film the cop is struggling internally with excitement but also with identity, he seems lost. At the end he resolves the struggle by completing the 7th sin of revenge and kills the killer in return for the killer cutting his wife's head off.

It also has part of a crime thriller because the homicide detectives are trying to catch a criminal but he keeps escaping and managing to kill. The killer is trying to do a killing for each of the seven deadly sins, hence why the film is called seven.

Mise-en-scene:
The clothing style is generally dark and natural tones with the Cops wearing dark colours such as beige, black and brown. The characters outfits often blend in with the scenery adding to the mystery. Inside the house they are investigating, it is dark and very little lighting. The viewer struggles to see whats inside the room and whats going on much like the characters in the film. It's like we are exploring along side the characters, it seems to involve you more. Most of the area we see is dirty and cluttered. We see stacks of soup on the sides which was used to kill the victim.

Editing:
In this scene the editing is generally slow paced because to build up tension because we are expecting something to happen but its being built up simply by the pace of the scene. If the scene had faster editing it would be harder to follow what's going on and get yourself with the moment. Having faster editing at the end, when the killer is finally killed and the internal conflict is being resolved, helps you stay with the movie because the slow editing has helped you get into the film more and feel more involved.

Camera:
As well as the editing being slow the camera is equally restricted. We don't have many complicated shots they're pretty basic and simple such as a medium two shot of the two detectives having a conversation inside the crime scene. If they had too many shots such as canted shots then the viewer wouldn't be able to get whats going on and focus so by using simple shots it helps to build up the tension and helps keep it thrilling. the camera when they follow the cops around is a tracking shot which probably had long editing.