Thriller Film Analysis

In today's lesson, we watched some extracts from Die Hard 4.0, The Interpreter and The Usual Suspects and analysed what we saw with a view to glean some inspiration and ideas that we could include in our own work.

While watching Die Hard 4.0, I was looking at the characters and their characteristics. For example, the hackers were young, as in early-twenties, as this generation is seen as being more technology-fluent. Another character that was interesting was the oriental woman. It was clear from the beginning that she was the main antagonist. She was very calm and controlled which was shown by the way she dismissed the sexual comment from the coffee-drinking character. She was also very cold as she showed no emotion even when  'Deactivated' appeared on her screen and it became clear that she had killed this huge list of people.

In The Interpreter, it was clear that the blonde woman was innocent and had been caught up in something much bigger. This was shown by her sharp intake of breath and scared facial expressions when she overheard the conversation on the phone. The audience are also unable to hear what was said which creates an enigma as we wonder what was so shocking. The repeated motif in the music also created tension while the fact that low-key lighting was used could suggest that she's in the dark about what is happening. It was also interesting the way that they used her turning the light on to reveal her location to whoever else is in that building. In terms of camerawork, a close-up was used of her swiping her entry card which shows that she's entering a secure location but that she also has a high enough position to gain entry.

In The Usual Suspects, the audience are unable to see the killer's face which creates an enigma as we wonder who he is and what the relationship between these characters is. The use of low-key lighting, again, created an ominous atmosphere - something we incorporated into our preliminary work. It was interesting to see that the killer was so relaxed, shown by him smoking a cigarette despite being about to kill a man, while the protagonist was equally relaxed even though he knew what was coming. This suggested that these characters possibly knew each other before. I also thought it was effective the way that instead of showing the man being killed, they cut to a wide shot of the area and just used a hyperbolic sound of a gunshot.