Turn of the screw opening analysis.

In class today we were also shown the opening 40 seconds of BBC 1's 'The turn of the screw'.
The opening is very effective in creating a sense of something going wrong psychologically within her. Here are some of the things we liked:

• Starting with a Mid shot of a pale looking young woman gazing into nothingness. We see a book on the windowsill which appears to be the Bible.
• Lighting is used effectively to light only half of her face.
• Slow, long shots followed by frantic, fast shots and cuts creates the sense that she is not in control.
• The camera cuts to two close up shots of her face and as this happens we hear non-diegetic rumbling of voices which appear to be coming from inside her head as she looks in a lot of discomfort.
• She blinks and just before this the rumbling speeds up and as she blinks we cut to quich shots of the sunlight coming through trees and leaves. Peaceful non diegetic music is being played.
• We hear the diegetic sound of a bird fluttering it's wings and this changes the mood as the music quickens and the shots become faster.
• We see a close up of a fake toy doll which is followed by the sound of a little girl singing. Another shot with a doll like young blond haired girl is then showed playing with the toy doll.
• We see a close up of a rocking horse moving back on forth, appears to be moving of its own accord. Shots continue to quicken in pace and the shots moving between the trees and up into the sky are slightly distorted and overlayed and this indicates that there may be something in the air edging closer and closer at an uncontrollable pace.
• We hear diegetic panting and the use of a handheld camera as someone anonymous runs towards an empty grave. They look down and scream horrificly.
• We see close ups of dirty maggots representing death and rot.
• The camera then cuts back to the young woman from the start opening her eyes and taking a deep breath. Camera cuts from close up from side to close up from front. In reverse from the first few close ups.

We decided to have a look and deconstruct some meanings in this opening because we thought it was so good at representing the psychological thriller genre and we think it could help us in creating our own opening.