Psychological Thriller Research...

Research;

"Psychological thriller is a specific sub-genre of the wide-ranging thriller genre. However, this genre often incorporates elements from the mystery and drama genre in addition to the typical traits of the thriller genre. Also, occasionally this genre will border into the also wide-ranging Horror genre.
Generally, thrillers focus on plot over character, and thus emphasize intense, physical action over the character's psyche. Psychological thrillers tend to reverse this formula to a certain degree, emphasizing the characters just as much, if not more so, than the plot.
The suspense created by psychological thrillers often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the other's mental state.
Sometimes the suspense comes from within one solitary character where characters must resolve conflicts with their own minds. Usually, this conflict is an effort to understand something that has happened to them. These conflicts are made more vivid with physical expressions of the conflict in the means of either physical manifestations, or physical torsions of the characters at play."

The Definition;

Psychological – Elements that are related to the mind or processes of the mind; they are mental rather than physical in nature.
Thriller – A genre of fiction that attempts to "thrill" its audience by placing characters at great risk. This constant unease throughout the story makes the narrative suspenseful to the reader by creating a tense atmosphere.
Psychological + Thriller – By combining these two terms, the definition changes to a narrative that makes the characters exposed to danger on a mental level rather than a physical one. Characters are no longer reliant on physical strength to overcome their brutish enemies (which is often the case in typical action-thrillers), but rather are reliant on their mental resources, whether it be by battling wits with a formidable opponent or by battling for equilibrium in the character's own mind.

Themes;

Many psychological thrillers have emerged over the past years, all in various media (film, literature, radio, etc). Despite these very different forms of representation, general trends have appeared throughout the narratives. Some of these consistent themes include:
Reality – The quality of being real. Characters often try to determine what is true and what is not within the narrative.
Perception – A person's own interpretation of the world around him through his senses. Often characters misperceive the world around them, or their perceptions are altered by outside factors within the narrative (see Unreliable narrator).
Mind – The human consciousness; the location for personality, thought, reason, memory, intelligence and emotion. The mind is often used as a location for narrative conflict, where characters battle their own minds to reach a new level of understanding or perception.
Existence/Purpose - The object for which something exists; an aim or a goal humans strive towards to understand their reason for existence. Characters often try to discover what their purpose is in their lives and the narrative's conflict often is a way for the characters to discover this purpose.
Identity - The definition of one's self. Characters often are confused about or doubt who they are and try to discover their true identity.
Death - The cessation of life. Characters either fear or have a fascination with death.

Watching 'Se7en'...

In yesterday's lesson we watched the film 'Se7en'. Directed by David Fincher, starring Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey this thriller definitely gave us the shock of our lives!!

I loved the storyline and thought it was incredibly effective, but only due to the effects the producers used with the camera shots, sound and general mise-en-scene of the film.

(I have already written one post about the opening credits of the film and how much of an impact they have on the audience)

For example, when the first murder is discovered and the two detectives (Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman) go to investigate the death, the non-diegetic sound adds so much dramatic tension to the scene that without it, the audience would not have been very scared at all.

The lighting in this scene also builds on the dramatic tension as it is very dark in the room and the only light they have is the light from their torches. The way they keep flashing the torches around means that the audience only really gets to see tiny parts of the scene for a very short amounts of time which makes the audience want to see the whole thing, they are waiting in anticipation to see the full horrific image of what has really happened.

Right at the end of this scene one of the detectives lifts up the victim's head to reveal a close up of his face and his white eyes wide open with the torch light shining in his face.

The fact that the audience has not yet been shown the whole picture up until that moment means that it shocks them to be shown such a horrifying image at a moment when they least expect it.

Clever methods such as this are used throughout the film in order to scare the audience and another example of this is when the murderer kills his third victim; sloth. The audience is led to believe that the victim has been dead for a whole year and whilst the viewer is still reeling from the close up shot of a years worth of pictures of the victim on the bed, another close up shot appears of the supposedly dead man's face and he suddenly gasps for air and dust pours out of his mouth.

Our entire class jumped about 10 feet into the air and were still recovering ten minutes later! I couldn't believe how much it made me jump because in thriller/horror films, it is generally quite easy to tell when something out of the ordinary is going to happen because of the build up of scary music but in this scene I had absolutely no idea that was going to happen! This was probably because there was no music behind it, just the detectives talking over what seemed to be a corpse. This proved to be another clever way of catching the audience when they least expect it.

I think the film is very clever and the story line seems quite unique, but I wasn't completely persuaded by the ending. I thought it was very predictable that he would have killed Brad Pitt's wife and it seemed to be a bit of a tame way to end the film when you compare the ending to the graphic images shown nearer the beginning.

On the other hand, I can see how the ending could be more terrifying in some ways, because the audience doesn't get shown any horrific images, it's all implied so your imagination is left to run wild.

In those last few minutes of the film where the two detectives are driving John Doe to the location, I found myself getting really angry with the killers character for the obvious reasons but also because of what he says about why he kills these people. His character completely contradicts himself with his values/morals.

He thinks he's doing the world a favour by killing these people and that he has been called by God to carry out this awful killing spree but by doing so isn't he breaking one of the ten commandments himself?! The smug grin on his face really got to me as well and I felt myself empathize with Brad Pitt's character as he clearly wants to make him realise what a hypocrite he is.

Another interesting point about this car scene is the metal grid that seperates the killer from the detectives. When there is a shot of Brad Pitt or the killer, the grid covers their face. When there is a shot of Morgan Freeman there is no grid over his face. This is to represent the part the two characters play in the seven deadly sins murders and also to show Morgan Freeman's innocence in it all.

When the time came for Brad Pitt to find out his wife had been killed, as an audience member I responded to what was going on by hating the killer even more because he told Brad Pitt about his unborn baby and then went on to enjoy the fact that he had no idea that his wife had been pregnant.

The complete anguish on Brad Pitt's face leaves the audience feeling quite unsatisfied with the fact that he shot the killer, although they know that it had to be done. (Pitt's thoughts are confirmed by the extremely short flash of a picture of his wife just before he shoots).

I loved the effect that Morgan Freeman's voice over right at the end had on the audience too.

The techniques the producers/directors used were clearly very effective if they left me feeling so angry that the murderer only got killed, it didn't seem like justice to me and this is probably the desired effect on the audience that the producers were looking for.

Another significant part of the scene for our group in particular was when the detectives go into the murderer's flat and find his darkroom. We will be refering back to this scene for inspiration for our film opening.

Such a clever film with a great storyline, but I don't think I'll be rushing to watch it again any time soon...I'll wait till the nightmares subside hahaa!!