Textual analysis - Road to Perdition

Road to Perdition - Opening Sequence


- This film is also a neo noir although it focuses on gangsters and the world surrounding them.
- The film is set in the winter of 1931
- The first part of this sequence, the main titles are very simple visually, with light lettering on a black background. I do like the titles however as when the sound of the tide undulating is introduced the titles appear and fade away as each new wave comes in and goes back out.
- Like the last noir I looked at the opening to this film has very little noise and seems to embrace near silence as an effect for building tension.
- This film also opens with a voice over from one of the characters central to the plot line, the main character who the film follows.
- The gradual zoom of the camera towards the boy who has his back turned with the view of nothing but vast ocean in the background helps build the tension of what he is saying and shows him to be very much alone, perhaps meaning the character he is talking about has died.
- Instead of using low key lighting and a very black background this film has just the opposite, it is bright with a white, snowy backdrop.
- There is however still an element of contrast as I saw in the other film, this time with the people the boy is cycling past in their mainly black clothing contrasting with the white background.
- A tracking shot is used to follow the boy through the crowd as more titles appear smaller in the corner of the screen. Also some very traditional sounding non digetic music plays as the boy smoothly glides in the opposite direction to everybody else.
- The boy appears to have stolen for money, and is shown stealing in the scene however the tone of the scene makes this seem as though it is an average occurance and holds no real dramatic value.
- The tone seems very light hearted up until the car rolls up and the boy the film has been following hides his pipe and looks alertly at is, as if recognising an authority figure.
- The sound within the opening few minutes is mainly non-digetic which i am begining to think is a feature of alot of films.
- This film follows something that seems prevalent in most if not all noir films, in that in centers around one character and shows their inner workings in order to help the viewer understand them and perhaps even relate to or empathise with them. This kind of analysis also brings out the flaws in the character, making these films much more realistic than the action adventure alternatives. Such as the child being focused on here seems to be the black sheep of the family, he is shown stealing, smoking and he also appears to have some form of grudge against his father.
- The mise en scene here simply seems average for the time period it was set in, with no striking stylistic features
(I stopped analysing after where it cuts to inside the house)