Thriller Openings Vertigo

Vertigo

The opening scene of vertigo is very interesting and rare scene. In my experience in watching film I have never come across such as opening to a thriller. Just the first two minutes alone have an impact and effect on the viewer. It makes them either confused or makes them wonder what lies ahead in the film and what they expected may not necessarily be what is about to happen. The woman’s face could portray danger as her eyes are moving side to side. This may be because there may be danger around. The director has intentionally made us as viewers think about that. He/she has purposely made the surrounding of the women pitch black to tell us that the only thing we should concentrate is on the women’s face, the director also place the credits on the women’s face just to keep our attention.

The camera angle the director used in this scene was a close up of the women  but the camera was zooming in more  to the extent that we were not able to see all of her face, till it became a extreme close up. I believe the reason the director did this is because he/she wanted us to concentrate completely on her eyes.

Towards the end of the scene the director suddenly changed the lighting to red. This draws more attention from the reader and the tension in the scene increases immensely. The colour red grabs everyone’s attention as it represents intense, passion, aggression. This is probably why the director used it. The colour red I think represents the danger the women sees. We also see that the women’s eyes become wide open as if she is shocked or surprised.