Group 14 AMAZING media blog: Analysis of Title Sequence (Se7en)

In the title sequence for Se7en, the director helps to establish the genre of the film so that the audience knows what to expect before watching the film.

The title sequence isn’t important from a narrative point of view, but it is essential in developing the character. Although the audience is unaware of who the subject is, it is clear in showing him to be extremely disturbed.

The introduction isn’t shot in a continuity editing style – highlighting the disturbing nature of the film.

The title credit’s text is written in a ‘grungy / distorted’ style. It also flickers and moves in and out of focus. Because the text is always moving – it suggests that the film isn’t necessarily calm.

Throughout the sequence, there is a lack of colours shown, with most of it being in black and white. However, there are occasional shots of red – creating connotations of blood.

The subject of the title sequences isn’t known, although we see him blanking out certain words in a book. Although the audience can’t see what words were being blanked out because of the fast paced editing, it creates a sense of intriugment in the viewer making them want to know what the person was hiding.

The music is essential in creating the eerie atmosphere, with weird music being played throughout the intro. You hear screeching noises – something which is conventional in making the viewer feel uncomfortable.

In addition to the creepy, disturbing music, we hear the lyrics ‘You got me closer to God’ at the end of the intro – linking the sequence to religion.

The theme of religion is also repeated in the sequence when the character cuts out the word ‘God’ from a piece of paper – although it is upside down which helps to illustrate the point that something isn’t right with the character.

Extreme close ups are used all the way through the sequence which hides the character’s identity. It also creates a mysterious atmosphere where the viewer feels intrigued - wanting to know who the character is and what he is doing.

In addition to extreme close ups, double shots of the character writing in a book helps to illustrate the deranged personality of the character – making him appear insane. The incorrect vision could also symbolize how he sees things in a different way.

Throughout the sequence, a variety of tools are shown, such as razors, scissors and needles. This could show how he is dangerous because the camera shows the way in which he handles the tools to be quite aggressive. As well as this, because he is doing everything himself, it could symbolize his lonesome, independent personality.

Shots of pictures are shown, although it is frequently unclear what they are. A few times, however, they are recognisable as being corpses or bodies. This links the film to death. Also, corpses are paradigms of the Neo-Noire’ film genre.