Analysis of Opening Scenes (Saw 1)

The film begins with a close up shot showing a character under water breathing heavily as he comes up for air and then screaming. The picture then goes to complete darkness for about 40 seconds and all the audience can hear for this period is dialogue between two characters that are yet to be revealed. They sound panicked and worried about the situation; bright lights are then switched on to show two men at either side of what looks to be a rusty old bathroom. The camera pans around after showing the two men and reveals that there is a corpse in the middle of the bathroom floor holding a revolver. As the two men try to move it is revealed that they are chained up to pipes at opposite end of the bathroom and cannot escape, one of them seems a lot more panicked and worried than the other at this point and begins to scream for help. The audience are only introduced to these two characters, Adam and Lawrence, the two men who are chained in the bathroom. The characters are constructed in contrasting ways with Adam seen to be very worried about where he is and what’s going on whereas Lawrence is acting very calm considering the situation he finds himself in. The audience are probably positioned to like Adam and Lawrence in this short opening sequence as they are trapped in a horrible room being challenged to escape, Adam is represented as quite a vulnerable character and maybe this is a way to get the audience to feel sorry for him and want him to escape.

The opening sequence reveals only one setting – the bathroom in which the characters are trapped in, at first it is blacked out and you expect the film to be dark but bright lights a switched on to reveal the whole room. The bathroom appears to be very rusty and old and the corpse being shown on the floor in the middle of the room may give the audience a fright early in the film – this already suggests the film is going to be of the Horror genre. The significant camera shots used in the opening sequence include the first close up of Adam to show the worry on his face, the master shot of the bathroom after the lights are switched on – this reveals to the audience the whereabouts of the characters and emphasises the bad situation the characters find themselves in. The camera pans around to the corpse and is then cut to a bird’s eye view of the corpse lying in the middle of the floor – these are the first shots to reveal there is a corpse in the room as well as the main characters.

Editing is used well in the opening scene of Saw to add suspense and tension to the film, a shot reverse shot is used when the two characters look across at each other once the lights are switched on – this shows their reaction to the situation and the worried look on Adams face. One other significant piece of editing in the opening scene is when the camera cuts quickly to the birds eye view shot of the corpse – the sound of Adams screaming reaction is timed perfectly here as the corpse is shown. The sound in the scene is mostly dialogue between the two characters and Adams screaming scared reaction, a slow non-diegetic piece of music is played throughout the start whilst the scene is in darkness – this builds up tension and adds to the audiences suspense as they do not yet know what is about to be revealed. When the lights are switched on they make a loud noise and this with the slow music and darkness just before creates a contrast and may give the watching audience a scare.

The opening credits have been presented with the sound of a saw chopping as they appear on screen, as the super-imposed title “Twisted Pictures” appears on screen animated barbed wire starts to wrap around the text and shortly after a saw falls down through the middle of it – this gives a scary effect and relates to what is going to happen in the film. The screen then goes dark and the title “Saw” appears in the centre of the screen and gradually fades away in silence.