Black Swan Opening Sequence Analysis

Black Swan is an American psychological thriller/horror film starring Nateille Portman and directed by Darren Aronofsky. This opening in ways is similar to the beginning of the film ‘Se7en’ however I feel this sequence appears as a strong and powerful opening due to the use of camerawork, sound, mise en scene and editing. The main focus of this opening sequence is the drawing of an unknown picture which appears to be drawn with the use of black charcoal.

The camerawork used in this scene is a strong element which I feel making the opening sequence successful. Primarily close up and extreme close ups are used in this scene; these shots capture the detail and movement of each shot, although every shot appears as similar it doesn’t seem to get tedious as the positioning of the camera is slightly different in each shot changing the layout of the shot. There is little movement from the camera throughout the duration of the scene which focuses the viewer’s attention merely on the hand movement of the actor; there are a few tracking shots featured which follow the movements of the hand slowly. This particular movement of the camera is slow which co works among side of the music as the music appears as elegant and graceful. The sound in this scene ordinarily appears to be the same pace and tempo throughout. The use of the sound track (non-diegetic sound) is the only sound that appears in the scene as no diegetic sound is featured such as dialogue or ambience sound. This music continuously plays throughout the clip creating a sound bridge as it carries over from shot to shot emphasising continuity in the scene. This sound is well selected for the scene as it is related to the genre of the film, in addition this specific type of music could be considered as a convention of a thriller film as it creates a contrast between the imagery shown and the sound overplayed. When there is a change in the music in the scene the performance of the actress appears to become as more aggressive, we can detect this as the speed of her actions increase and the pressure applied seems to increase as flakes of the charcoal are appearing on the page. The change in pace and tempo of the music supports the change in actors performance.

A number of shots in this opening sequence appear as overplayed this could be to keep the viewers’ attention fixed as otherwise they could begin to lose interest as many of shots appear as similar. The cuts at first appear as slow and steady however when there is a change in the music and performance of the actress the speed of the cuts increases. The titles which are featured in this scene are written in black serif font to support the theme of this thriller. They gradually fade in and out layered over the camera shots. This sequence follows aspects of ‘Barthes Cultural Code’. The Hermeneutic includes the entire sequence as it avoids giving away any vital information to the audience for example who this mysterious character is and what is drawing. We aren’t given clues either as the camerawork is close up so we never see the full outcome of the image created. The Semantic Code indicates to the viewer that the film may be mystery based due to the fact there is a mystery created in the opening sequence which is only a small snippet of the film.