Opening Film Analysis 1

Vertigo

Vertigo’s opening title is very unique. It shows a lot of suspension in the opening title from the music, the camera angle and the images. The first camera angle you see is a extreme close up of a woman’s left side face with a black background. The camera then slowly moves around to her lip zooming in more. As the camera stops at these point the names of the actors appear in white. The whole picture is in black and white throughout. When the names appear the music of the piano and string instruments get higher. The black and white theme of the colour could suggest murder and mystery.

The camera then goes along the woman’s face capturing the two eyes which the woman moves from left to right. This can suggest she’s scared as she’s looking around with her eyes. Her right eye is then captured and the screen goes all red suggesting murder or death and the woman’s eyes widen. The music suddenly get more louder and higher and continues throughout.

Spiral images start to appear from her eyes spinning around getting bigger and then the back ground goes pitch black with just the spirals spinning around going from large too small. The spirals show a sort of confusion as its spinning which could suggest its building up suspension as its continuing to spin. The end is the opposite to the beginning as the spirals zoom back in to the woman’s eye and the screen is still red colour.

The opening engages the audience by making them wonder how why the camera is shooting a woman’s face and what is her part in the film is. It gets the audiences thinking more so that they are interested in watching the film to find out who this character is. The only character which is established in this opening title is the woman and it is done by capturing her face showing her features which could have been done to also show her emotions, like in one point when her eyes roll around which can suggest her being scared.

The opening introduces a theme of mystery because the mystery woman’s face in the opening makes people think who is she and what’s her part in the film and creates suspension of what will happen with the woman. The story isn’t very clear in the opening but it does suggest murder by the colours it shows, the black, the white and the red. The opening titles are displayed in white bold writing. The titles appear when the music strikes higher. Also the writing appear around the sides of the opening.