Textual Analysis

Textual Analysis on a thriller Red Eye

This textual analysis is about the thriller film 'Red Eye', which is about a main protagonist Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams), and a main antagonist Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy). Rippner is a terrorist operative, which you find out later in the narrative, who is working alongside a group that are intending to assassinate the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Charles Keefe (Jack Scalia), as well as his family. This assassination is taking place in Miami, at a hotel Lisa is acting manager of, the Lux Atlantic Hotel, trying to prevent the assassination from taking place.

Characters
Clearly we see the acting role of Lisa Reisert, as a protagonist, the moment she boards her flight back to Miami, even though she is terrified of flying, and when Rippner reveals that he's a terrorist operative, working alongside a group of people wanting Keefe dead. She tries all she can to stop them, being careful not to get caught by Rippner, especially with the messages she tried to give to people, so that they know what is happening, but she failed. A clear antagonist is Rippner, who has been threatening Lisa to do his dirty work, one threat is a deal. If Lisa did what he asked her, then he wouldn't deploy a hitman to kill her father Joe (Brian Cox). But if she doesn't then her father will be killed. One other threat is the part in the bathroom, where Lisa made a message out of soap on the mirror. Rippner found out and well, pushed her back in and threatened her like you see in the picture. He also cleared the message from the mirror, and took her back in to where they are seated.

Narrative
The narrative of Red Eye is a straight flow of continuous events from start to finish. This is what helps the audience to understand what the film is going to be like, and the enigma that is set up is, How come Rippner is a bad guy? This would suddenly confuse the audience because, from the very beginning, you haven't a clue that Rippner is a bad guy because his actions are none other than a kind way to Lisa, when her flight is delayed. There is also suspense in the film, with the threats on Lisa, and the chase in her fathers house.

Cinematography
In terms of the use of cinematography, the director has decided to use quite a lot of medium shots, and a fair few medium close ups. These medium shots help to show the suspense and the reactions of some of the surroundings. The medium close ups help to give more of the suspense, and the facial and body expressions as well. An example of a medium shot is a part of a scene in Lisa's fathers home, where she is thrown down the stairs by Rippner, a hard stunt to pull through.












Location
The film Red Eye is a mixture of locations, from an airport to a plane, a hotel near a lake, Lisa's fathers home, and other places. This gives an idea of the thriller genre with these locations. These locations are realistic locations because many of us can understand what they are.

Enigma
The enigma is set up near the beginning of the film. It is basically when Lisa's flight is delayed until the next morning, and when she meets up with Rippner. To start with, you would think Rippner is a good guy, especially when he talks to Lisa and other things. Later in the story, when Lisa finally gets on her flight, she is glad to be seated next to Rippner. The only thing is, the moment the plane leaves the runway, Rippner reveals to her that he is a terrorist operator, working alongside a group who are going to assassinate Keefe, the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, and that he needs Lisa to help him with it, otherwise he'll deploy a hitman to kill her father. This is what the narrative of the film will flow from, start to finish.

(Some of this is taken from wikipedia.org)

Textual Analysis

Textual Analysis on a thriller Silent Witness

How does the thriller programme Silent Witness show similarities and differences between our 2 minute thriller The Legacy of Edward Wolfe/Deranged, through the use of Cinematography, Sound, Mise-en-scène, and Editing?

This Textual Analysis is about the thriller programme Silent Witness, and how it is compared with our film, The Legacy of Edward Wolfe/Deranged. It will show the similarities and differences between the two, talk about the Cinematography, (the camera shots, angles and movements), the Mise-en-scène, the Sound, and the Editing that's involved. Each point will be explained throughout this analysis.

Firstly, at the beginning of the episode 'Run', there is a scene with a 23 year old woman, Ruth Gardner. At first she is acting all mad, crying and stressing, pulling photos off the wall and chucking them on the floor in anger. She then picks up a tape and starts pulling that apart then chucking it on the floor, in a block of flats, on a rainy night. This explains that she is kind of deranged. There is also a cut to a man with a cigarette, walking and listening to music, outside on the concrete; who became shocked when this woman crashes on the concrete, dead. At the beginning of our opening 2 minutes, there is also a death, but this was done by butcher's knife, which is different to the beginning of Silent Witness. After this death, 2 characters run out of the room that it occurred in, shocked, and a chase occurs after the murderer comes out of the room. The chase is different to what happened to the 23 year old woman before she was murdered.

The cinematography shown at the beginning of Silent Witness, series 13, Run, part 1; includes a hand-held camera shot, at the point when Ruth is trying to find who it is she heard. The director would've decided that this cinematography is to be here, to make his target audience feel tension, and wanting to watch more. However, in our 2 minute thriller, there isn't a hand-held camera shot present, to try and get the audiences attention.
Also, there is a mixture of tracking and panning in the opening sequence of the programme, which the director would have also used to grab his audience's attention, and also to show the tension of his idea. There is also a high angle shot on Ruth Gardner, when she sits on her bed, reading her bible. This shows that something is going to happen to her, and that she is quite a weak character, which would have been carefully decided by the director, to help keep the narrative flowing. However, in our 2 minute opening, there is a tracking shot when Carla and Toby are running away from a deranged student. There is also a low angle shot on the deranged student, when Carla trips up. This low angle shot is seen through Carla's eyes, which shows the tension between the two characters.

Secondly, within 'Run' and our 2 minute thriller, there is the element of Mise-en-scène. There is the use of costume in each, but they both show something totally different. In 'Run', the opening of the episode, Ruth Gardner is seen wearing old clothing, a blue t-shirt, and a dull-green pair of trousers. This connotes her being poor, as she's squatting in a flat, and quite vulnerable to what's about to happen to her. However, in our 2 minute thriller, Alex is wearing casual clothing before he murders someone, as he has blood-stained clothing after the murder. This shows that he's like a psycho wanting revenge, but the characters he's after, are wearing their own casual clothes, connoting to the audience that they're teenagers and quite vulnerable to death. The make-up differs in each piece as well, where Ruth isn't wearing any make-up, just a dusty face, and where the teens in our 2 minute thriller are wearing either make-up or gel on their hair. This clearly shows the difference in how rich or poor these characters are.
Another difference is the location, where Ruth is set in a flat, but the teens are set in a college computer room. You can clearly see that the teens are working class, as they are using computers to do their work, but you can't see clearly what class Ruth is in, because she's not doing anything that can be used to disembowel the answer.