Tuesday 14 December 2010

Textual Analysis - Conviction

Just before anything appears on screen we hear the sound of a police siren. Instantly after we have a close up of a man's legs. He is running really fast as the ground is almost blurring beneath his feet. We then move to a close up of his body, his arms are pumping in shot. The audience wonders why the man is running but assume it is away from the police due to the siren we heard at the start of the film. We receive as long shot of a church at the bottom of the road in the direction the man is running. The camera zooms into the stained glass window depicting Jesus. Inside the church we see numerous extreme close ups on people's eyes, ears, mouths, books, crucifixes, guns and glasses. All are significant to this film. This series of extreme close up shots builds tension in the audience as they they are expecting something big to happen next. We are then brought back outside with the running man. We have a series of point of view shots where the audience are put in his shoes. Everything is blurry. This is connoting his exhaustion. Back inside the church once more we watch as more extreme close ups are shot. We are brought to focus on a man's lap where he is holding a pair of glasses. As he unfolds each leg of the glasses we hear the sound of a gun loading. Once they have opened all hell is let loose. People are shooting each other inside the church walls, people are falling injured in the aisle. This scene seems to have been shot in slow motion as to induce more excitement (commonly used in an action film). As guns are firing a bullet is shot through the stained glass window of Jesus, with this we watch as a jump cut follows straight after to see a man in bed having suddenly woken up from this nightmare. This may have been the man's flashback haunting him from the past. The man is of black ethnicity and we can see in the background the 80s styled curtains of his bedroom setting the era this was filmed. The man looks at the clock on his bedside table and lights himself a cigarette as he walks into the bathroom. It is in here we see him look in the mirror and down at his scar under his chest, a war wound perhaps gotten from his flashback or in a gang fight. The editing in this film opening thought was very fast paced building tension for the audience, this was made further effective by the use of the extreme close ups of the characters. I think this film starts fairly conventional for a drama film as you witness the drama straight away with the shootings in the church. It almost feels as if it starts already part way through the story which is common of this genre to do and is narrated to the audience to keep them up to date which I'm sure this one will do a little further in. link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU6eS2GzPDA

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