Se7en opening analysis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEq-4fua3lM 

The opening to the film Se7en is a very good and successful opening to a thriller film. It shows the antagonist preparing for one of his murders; however the audience do not know this on the first time of watching. On the first time of watching the audience don’t know what they are watching, it is only once they have watched the whole film and find out what John Doe does to prepare for his murders (slicing the ends of his fingers etc.) that the audience realise that they have already been shown him doing this at the very beginning of the film, in the opening credits this is very successful as the audience only know what it is about until they watch it for the second time. 

The first scene in the opening sequence shows John Doe flicking through a book whilst flickering text is being shown. The fact that John is reading a book illustrates that he is very intelligent and may be more intelligent than the people trying to catch him. The book may also display that he is very methodical and isn’t a normal psychopath who kills people randomly without any reason.  This scene is not alone showing John being methodical in his work as there are various other shots of him also doing things that you wouldn’t expect a killer to do, including him writing, picking up and reading more books and binding paper together . All of this together conveys that he is possibly investigating the detectors and knows more about them than they know about him, which is the case of the film. 

The lighting in this title sequence is very dark and looks as if the light source is a single desk lamp. This adds to the atmosphere and as it makes the whole scene a lot more serious as the dark lighting gives connotations of danger and somebody in a dark setting should be scary and untrustworthy.

Other props are also used in this opening sequence are also used however the other props aren’t used to display intelligence or method but to keep the audience on edge by the use of having props such as razor, slicing fingertips, and the character handling with nail etc. The use of these make the audience feel uncomfortable watching, as they are ordinary household objects that the audience will own, however using them in a way that is dangerous and showing he is using them in the wrong and dangerous way. 

The credits shown are in a handwriting font which again looks like John Doe has written out the credits. The credits are also flickering which also makes them look more creepy than they would otherwise look. This could convey insecurity. 

The use of the camera shots is also significant in the opening to this film. The whole opening sequence consists of lots of extreme close ups. This doesn’t allow the audience to take a good look at anything, location, character or anything the character is doing properly.