Jordan's Textual Analysis of 'The Usual Suspects'

In the opening scene for 'The Usual Suspects' convections of a thriller are shown through, sound editing camerawork and mise en scene.


Camera Work - Camera work is used in the opening to construct a thriller, for example there is a moment where the camera pans up on the mysterious shadowed man and just as his face nearly comes into frame, the camera stops and we only see the bottom of his neck, which helps create enigma and the feel for a thriller.


Mise en Scene - Mise en Scene is used to portray a thriller by having the character we can't see wear a long black coat, a fedora and all black suit, this helps portray a thriller because the idea of darkness gives off another idea of the unknown and mystery which we tend to shy away from, making us feel uncomfortable when the character is around.


Editing - The editing is used to create the feeling of a thriller by having slow paced editing that builds up to a fast paced, because the first three minutes build up and get faster cuts for example when the gas gets set alight at first the cuts are slow while its burns up the gas and then after the other characters puts out the fire and then re alights it the cuts start to build up and begin to be a faster pace leaving us on the edge of our seat as intensity rises.


Sound - Sound is used to create a thriller by slowly building up from the beginning to the gunshot fired by the shaded out character, and the after that it all really kicks in and starts to get more intense with more instruments like drums and violins being played in the background to create crescendo and have us lead on to suspect something bad is going to happen until he finally blows up the ship and we see it go up in flames.