The French Connection
Director: William Friedkin
Release Date: 9 October 1971
Genre: Action/crime/thriller
Awards: 5 oscars
Country: USA
I watched ‘The French Connection’ at home to get some ideas for our own thriller. Although I watched the whole film I mainly focused on the beginning (and made notes).
The beginning of ‘The French Connection’ is a black screen with opening credits. There is quite disturbing music with high pitched sounds, which may be an inter-textual reference to the beginning of Physco as they sound quite similar
Once the music stops, the audience sees a very unglamorous location. After the music stops there is only diagetic sound. The silence is very disturbing and adds towards suspense. Though the audience sees men talking they do not hear what they are saying, as it is from the point of view of the man watching them. The main sounds heard in this opening are cars and at one point a child wailing, both of which seem very background and unimportant. As the man walks down the street the silence is very unnerving even though he seems quite relaxed and care-free. Once the man enters a building, it is almost completely silent.
The audience then see a hand holding a gun pointed towards the man. There is then quite a long close up of the man’s face, giving the audience a chance to go from feeling shocked at the sight of the gun and then process this into what will happen next, causing even more tension. The camera then shows the man holding the gun’s face, and the gun’s trigger is pulled. There is a very brief but horrific shot of the man’s bloody face before he falls to the floor.
I found watching the beginning of this film quite useful as it helped me to see how our group could create more tension at the beginning of the film. Both the music and the silences were disturbing, and the contrast between the two also helped to emphasise the silence once the music had stopped. The close ups also gave me ideas on how we should shoot our film as we have also planned on using a lot of extreme close ups in our story boarding.
2 comments:
You must analyse the purpose and effect of the aspects of mise-en-scene that you've discussed in research into thriller films.
Avoid description
A good start but more detailed analysis required to achieve marks beyond Level 2 (E/D). Identify characters by name not "he" or "she" and explain the location: where? what are the cultural signifiers?"
How does this clip represent the USA. 1) point 2) illustrate with reference to an aspect of mise-en-scene 3)discuss.
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