Analysis of Enemy Of The State

Enemy of the State analysis

The opening sequence begins with the production and “Film By” titles shown on a black screen, with some slow, quiet music in the background. The music then fades out as an establishing shot of a lake front is shown. The words “Occuquan Park, Maryland 0645 hrs” scroll on over the shot, as if written by a typewriter, accompanied by a Morse Code sound effect. There is a medium shot of both of the minor characters who are placed around the area, one stood and one sat on a bench, and this introduces the characters and shows us that these characters are going to be significant in the sequence.
The diegatic sound is the car door slamming shut and the dog barking, as the other character gets out of his car with his dog. There is a long shot from behind as he gets out, showing him in his current surroundings and setting the scene.
There is then a close up of the character in the other car, who is dressed in black, which seems to suggest that he is not a good character, and his hair is slicked back, suggesting a very formal, professional character. Also, the car window obscures half of his face, making his character more mysterious.
The first character, who stepped out of the car, is dressed in casual clothes, beiges and light colours, which do not suggest much about his character, he also looks older and more vulnerable and is smaller than the character in black. This makes the character in black seem intimidating.
There is another establishing shot of both characters stood at the lake front, and there is a conversation between both characters. The lighting in this scene is high in contrast, the lighting is high key, but the shadows on the character's faces are very dark. Shot/reverse shot is used as the characters are talking, and music slowly builds up from the point where the character in black takes hold of the other character's arm, and there is tension between the two characters. The music then continues to build up, and there is diegetic sound as the two men from the beginning inject the older character, and push him and his car into the lake, such as the sound of his body hitting the car, and the dog barking as it runs alongside the car. There is a tracking shot as the car rolls down the hill into the lake.
After this point, the music then changes pace suddenly, and becomes a lot louder and faster. The image of the lake front cuts to a high angle shot, a panoramic view of a city with a lens flare. The rest of the opening sequence consists of fast edits of surveillance shots, clips seemingly taken from CCTV cameras and bird's eye view shots of cities, roads and car chases. The surveillance shots are all quite unclear and fuzzy, and some are tinted blue or shown in only black and white. Some of the shots are not steady, but this adds to the effect created by the fast edits. The music fits in with the pace of the shots, as the music is now quite fast and built up by this point in the sequence. The diegetic sound during this part of the opening sequence are sirens, helicopter noises, shouts and the sound of car chases. During the fast edits of chase scenes, there are some low angle shots of security cameras, and a low angle shot of a man sat in a chair in a CCTV control room full on television screens. There is also the occasional panoramic view of a city or building, and these strong, clear images are a contrast to the unclear images of the surveillance. The opening sequence then ends on one of these clear, high angle city shots.

Becky Fox