White of the eye

White of the eye (1987)

When looking at the opening scene of this film, you can see that there are many techniques used to create a sense of tension.
Firstly the use of high pitch music in the opening credits gives the audience a sense of eeriness and a feeling of suspense, the sound also does a great job of setting an extremely creepy mood which lets the audience know early on that something is going to happen. By setting the scene during the day, the director (Donald Cammel) gives the audience a false sense of security as most people feel safest in broad daylight. When the audience See's the shot of the eye and then the shot of the women walking up to the house they now know that they are watching the women through the eyes of the murderer (POV). When the camera follows the women through the house the audience starts to feel as if they are the murderer himself as you are peeking round the corner spying on the women.The colour red is also used multiple times during the scene for a range of different reasons. the most obvious is its use to symbolise blood, death and violence. But the use of the rose flower can be interpreted in many ways. Firstly it could have been used by the director to show the imperfections and pain of love. As rose's are commonly associated with love the shot of the vase of rose's smashing on the floor could symbolise the fact that rose's having thorns, and the thorns can sting and hurt you. Going back to the use of sound, we can see that the director uses many techniques building up to and during the murder scene. when we as an audience are introduced to the house, the music is still upbeat as the person with the gloves lifts up the bowl of meat. But as soon as we realise the women is not the person in the house as she is still walking, the music slowly changes to a quiet high pitch squeal which is uncomfortable to listen to. when the murderer is following the women into the kitchen we hear a much deeper beat which gets louder as the murderer approaches. The deep thuds continue throughout the murder scene with high pitched noises fading in and out. the scene ends with a series of longer deeper sounding thuds which slowly fade out, symbolising the end of the murder and the end of the scene