JC Analysis Of The Opening Sequence To Pulp Fiction

The opening starts with a black screen with nothing but a white font in the centre of the screen. It gives the definition of the word 'Pulp' And is written in the style of what it would be in a dictionary.

A sound bridge skips from the writting to a CU of the television, all that is in shot is the screen. On the screen is a child's cartoon hence connoting a child i watching it which gives us the view of a POV that we are like the child watching the television. It stays in this for a good 10 Seconds which is enough time for the view to become curious of what is going on , and a slight tension of what is happening .

This is followed by a sound bridge of a women voice. Followed by a LS ad establishing shot in which we see his mother and the ''special visitor''. It then cuts to a mid POV shot of the mum looking at her son sitting down watching the tele we saw earlier in the scene. He then turns off the television and turns to face the visitor, this connotes a god obediant child. There is also the non-digetic sound of birds 'tweeting' setting a happy ,friendly enviroment.

When she introduces him as '' He worked with daddy'' We realise or are lead to believe that for some reason his dad is no longer with us. When introduced we still see him from this long shot in the POV of the little boy, the man is standing on a step which automatically gives him a sense of importance.

The camera stays in the POV shot , as the man walks closer towards the boy with an older the shoulder shot of the mum in the background but slightly out of focus. We are positioned to clearly be taking notice of the man. He begins to tell a story of or about the boys father which seems to be a quite sad story. This could be seen a a quite subtle 'wildtrack' or asynchronous soundtrack.

It then cuts to a reaction shot and close up of the boys face. We see his confusion which gives the viewer a reason to start thinking and looking for clues to what this man's significance actually is.

What I Have Learnt:
From this i have learnt that despite this film being a very good thriller, this begining does not connote the expectations of a Thriller. It has very few cuts and therefore doesnt give much tension to the viewer. However another perspective or view could be that the story is something that doesnt quite seem right and it seems a bit to wierd or ''perfect'' to be true. The birds singing and the perfect American house and Childs behaviour is almost something to be suspicious of. Despite this maybe not being the best opening to a Thriller I feel that the sense of leaving the viewer guesing that something isn't quite right and therefor aiding the viewer to do most of the work in their head rather than on screen is a clever technique the group should look into possibly using for our Film Begining.