Analysing the opening sequence of ‘Se7en'

Today in media we watched the opening sequence of ‘se7en’ created in 1995, directed by David Fincher, starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt. We looked at all the different areas including: the titles, shots, camera movement, generic themes, sound and mise-en-scene. The titles were very shaky, the font flickered and was un-settling, this lead into psychotic movement. The title sequence was very intense and eary and lots of different shots were used. The shot at the very beginning is a close up and identifies a man but not his face. They use a lot of close ups, point of view shot (which shows all of what the character needs), low angle shot to show the dominant character, two shot, panning and tracking shots which follow the actors and the story. Movement of the camera is steady and moves with the actors, the camera was always moving so it’s as if the story was moving along, The generic themes were that the characters were very numb and it was all very naturalistic and Morgan Freeman was an existentialist character which means he is an outsider and does everything on his own. It was easy to establish him as this as his flat was all precise with the single bed well made, and there was no homely feel as there were no pictures of any sort in his flat, this indicates he lives on his own and maybe has no family. As a character he was much more dominant and precise to the character of Brad Pitt who was more involved with the work asking if the children had seen the crime and he was always a bit being Morgan Freeman showing he isn’t as important and all his mannerisms were a bit scatty, as if he wasn’t fully concentrating. Their was a clear difference between the two characters and what positions they hold. There was no music; the whole opening was very hollow. The mise-en-scenes setting were very naturalistic and it’s a fact only natural light is used throughout the film. There was a lot of rain which we could establish as prophetic fallacy, this could reflect the mood of the city and how one crime get washed away then another happens. The costumes were very dull subdued colours, which mixed in with the setting; the main characters didn’t stand out from the setting or any other extras in the film. This as a viewer gave a very naturalistic theme to the movie, as if it was any day in a city somewhere where a crime had been committed.