Opening to The Usual Suspects

In preparation to when we have to film our very own thriller opening, we watched the opening to 'The Usual Suspects' to further research what needs to go into a opening.



The film opened with a sequence of credits identifying the actors, directors, producers etc involved with the film. However while this was going on the soundtrack was playing over the top and it created a rather tense atmosphere by a combination of the piano and a stringed orchestra. This set up the mood which the audience expect to be carried out through the film and it certainly was in the opening scene.

The opening scene began with a close up on a man, who appears to be injured as he is having to lean against a block to stand up, lighting up a cigarette. The close up was used so the audience can see the pain on his face and therefore feel sympathy for him. This is followed by when he drops the burning card onto the floor and it sets alight a oil path which reveals a man on the floor appearing to be either dead or asleep. However there is a strong emphasis on the fire aspect which implies danger and destruction which could be a main theme followed throughout the rest of the film.

After this, there is a long angled shot of a man (who we find out his name is "Keyser") dressed in a long black coat and a black trilby covering his face. This straight away creates a mysterious aura around the man (especially due to the low lighting used when filming him) and leaves the audience feeling weary of him. Also, the use of the high angle shot combined with the lower cutting rate gives the protagonist greater anonymity and makes his movements appear unnerving. The then quick cut rate back to a close up shot of the injured mans face shows his facial expression portraying sadness and almost as if he knows what's about to happen to him.

Throughout the entire opening Keyser is always filmed by using a low angled shot of his body but not revealing his face. The continues to build upon the mystery surrounding him as well as presenting him as a rather shadow like figure. The once the characters begin to exchange dialogue between them it comes across as a rather relaxed and almost friendly conversation as shown by how Keyser says to the injured man, "how you doing kid?". This also implies that the two are acquaintances and have met previously before but, like before, Keyser is still filmed with a low angle shot without revealing his face. This contrasts to the injured man who is filmed with a high angle shot to show that he has both less power and control over Keyser.However this atmosphere is then juxtaposed when Keyser supposedly shoots the other man after having a seemingly friendly chat with him, therefore this illustrates how the Keyser character is rather unpredictable making the audience become increasingly weary of him. But the audience are not certain if he does shoot the injured man as the camera uses a reverse zoom shot of the setting which is revealed to be a boat. This is followed by a close up of a fire on the boat which, yet again, increases the imagery of fire.