Textual Analysis of the opening scene of Se7en (1995)
Within the opening scene a sense of modern day Film Noir is created through the pre title/opening credits. This sort of opening is unconventional to typical Thrillers, of which the film first appears to be but through the use of this specific opening the film is given a more Film Noir aspect. The pre title establishes the tone & narrative of what were going to see by foreboding the events of which are going to unfold during the film and also gives us, as the audience, a slight expectation of what the film withholds.
The title "Se7ven" is a representative of both the Seven sins, incorporating the biblical representation also mirrored in the opening scene, as well as being a representative of the time the film consists of e.g. a period of Seven days. By already forming these ideas of a lack of time and a biblical incorporation the opening title then begins to play and create emphasis on this.
The opening scene consists of extreme close up shots of a unknown and mysterious character whom undergoes complex and precise activities, of which appear to be completely unordinary. The emphasis is put onto the characters hands and the attention focused to wait he is creating yet hiding his identity through the predominate use of the extreme close ups. These shots however also appear to be disjointed and frantic. 
This conveys the idea of the pressure and intense emotions felt by the character when undergoing the activities. The inconsistent and disjointed shots and sense of pressure and intensity is mirrored through the subtitling during the scene. The subtitling has a sense of corruption as displayed through the constant jumping and the reappearing in various areas of the page. This creates the idea of someone whom is corrupt whom constantly is on the move, reappearing when believed to be safe as well as the idea of this person being hidden. The subtitles are edited to purposely appear backwards to the audience, making it unable to be read. This gives the impression of a storyline of which contains secrecy, a storyline of which is unable to be interpreted, mirroring the subtitles of which are illegible and need to be "worked out" and thought about in order to be understood.
As the scene progresses and shows different shots of the character doing various things the lighting is fluently non existent and merely faint. There is even a lack of any natural light, this is suggestive of the setting being somewhere of which is hidden away from the light e.g. a basement or underground therefore is hidden away from reality, through the suggestion of the setting being hidden we then interpret the undergoing's to be something secretive and criminal. The idea of the undergoing's being criminal is reinforced by the mise-en-scene of the way in which the body language of the hands is portrayed. The character seems to have a steady and precise hand, of which seems almost confident within these particulate and unordinary activities therefore giving the impression of someone whom is highly intelligent criminal as well as complex individual. We see that the character isn't unfamiliar to crime through the way in which he uses a razor blade to shred any evidence of fingerprints from his hands, this suggests that he is actively committing crimes of which he is experienced in due to the fact he has the understanding of preventions of which allow him to not to be caught.
The opening scene also provides emphasis to the biblical metaphor of the film title, the character is shown to be "blacking out" all anti-biblical terms from a piece of texts, words such as "transsexual". This is a resemblance of Christian Extremism, the character clearly demonstrates strong views and a want for change.
The character is also shown to be cutting the word "God" out of a dollar bill, the idea of money and wealth within a film often has connotations of someone with high status and power, possibly governmental powers. This shows that the strong beliefs the character has e.g. the suggestive belief of God not being associated with money, goes against those of high power.
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