DI - Opening Credits (Assessment) Flashcards
The opening credits are significant as they represent a pause in the narrative structure - that is they are outside of the time frame of the film but they none the less establish ___, expectations and a sense of forebodying
Mood
A male figure is seen walking on crutches towards the camera. His face is masked by his hat and an overcoat shrouds his body. Low-key ________ is used to create a silhouette and a shadow which grows to a monstrous size.
Lighting
Miklos Rozsa’s music combines a slow march, which reflects the figure’s ponderous movements, with a strident _____ section, creating a sense of melodrama and portentous doom
Brass
Even at this stage the sense of duplicity and false identity is inferred as we wonder who the figure is. Is it Dietrichson on his fateful journey to the car or Neff in imitation as he walks to the train carriage? Either way, this pause has successfully created a mood of ________.
Fatalism
Before the __________ narration can begin, the film begins with an action sequence captured through and omniscient perspective and largely visual means.
Subjective
The scene begins at night, or rather in the early hours of the morning. The camera fades into a downtown intersection. At the left and in the immediate foreground a traffic signal stands at go. A 1938 Dodge Coupe, a sporty rather brash car, approaches in an erratic manner. When the signal changes to stop, it makes no attempt to stop, causing a light newspaper truck to swerve and skip to avoid it. Already, the theme of lawlessness and ignoring the conventional _____ codes has been established.
Moral
The car careers down a small hill, and swerves to avoid the night workings of a team of workers for the ___ _______ railway, again a subtle allusion to Dietrichson’s death on the railway tracks.
Los Angeles
As a car pulls up outside the office building, the lights are turned off but for an instant nothing happens. A man eases himself out of the car and from his movements it is clear that something is wrong with him. He pulls the overcoat tight across his shoulders and walks towards the building. The title ‘_______ Building’ sits above the glass doors after knocking twice and thereby introducing a note of quiet desperation, the man is let in.
Pacific
As Neff walks to his office, he is seen from the back and in ______ - again framing and lighting devices which are archetypal features of film noir.
Shadow
The camera follows Neff’s gaze down to the interminable row of desks below where cleaners are tidying up after the working day. Even in this small shot and the wry smile that appears on Neff’s face, we can trace the ________ motives which lie behind his actions - his determination to rise above the mundanity of everyday working life by subverting the system which he serves
Economical
Neff is often viewed from the balcony, one step removed from the pen pushers below but still intrinsically part of their ______ and work ethic
System
It’s not until he sits down and lights both his desk light and then a cigarette that we get a clear view of Neff - a withholding of identity which itself mirrors the duplicity ________ in the murder itself.
Involved
The opening is an economic and highly effective piece of writing and directing, seamlessly moving use from the omniscient ______ to the subjective voice of Neff as he picks up the Dictaphone and begins the confessions which both determines and punctuates the film.
Camera
___- ___ lighting: The use of only the key and back lights to create the strong contrasts of light and dark, typical of film noir
Low-key
___________: A pointed distinction between light and dark areas of the frame achieved by the use of low-key lighting.
Chiaroscuro
