The Machinist Opening

The Machinist- analysis of opening scene

 

This film is clearly a psychological thriller. This is shown through the first shot as the camera is filming from outside the apartment looking in on a man rolling up what we can presume to be a dead body. The psychological element in this first shot is the reflection of the streetlights from outside appear to be inside the apartment which can be inferred of the characters mental state.

 Within the first five minutes of the movie the camera work and the editing have given the audience an intriguing and conflicting narrative. This is done as the camera work depicts the main character Trevor as the villain, however through the editing we the audience can't help but sympathise with this character as we're constantly been shown shots of the character looking distressed and scared.

These two shots makes the audience empathise with the character as we are able to see the struggle in his face and his paranoia, as he believes he's being watched, suggesting that he could an unhinged character.

Thus making him appear to the audience to be a victim as it shows him to be weak and vulnerable, this could then make the audience  question whether or not he meant to really kill that person or was it just self defence and got scared so decided to dump the body. Through this shot alone, our interpretation and first impressions of him have been questioned.

This perception of him perhaps being a victim rather than villain is then heightened when he gets startled by a light coming towards him, he panics as he's just dumped a body into the water.

We feel like he is the victim when the light gets closer showing us another close-up of his reaction to the person whom he appears to know. However, the expression on his face could also suggest anger towards the person, perhaps suggesting he isn't as innocent as we thought.