Panic Room Analysis - Scene Four (DRAFT)

The Thriller movie that I will be watching and analysing will be Panic Room - starring Jared Leto, Kristen Stewart and Jodie Foster.

Panic Room
Director: David Fincher
2002
Company: Columbia Pictures Corporation
User Comment:

"The movie is fantastic, full of twists, turns and jolts. The performance of Jared Leto was awesome. His character was funny and seemed to hold the action together. Jodie Foster is great, as usual, and Kristen Stewart was very good as the Sarah."

User Rating: 6.9/10

Panic Room tells the story of a woman and her daughter that have recently moved into a new house. On their first night, the house becomes victim of a burglary forcing the two new residents (played by Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart) to take cover in the house’s panic room.

At the beginning of the scene (14.50 into the movie), we see a close up shot of a window in the house. There are diagetic sounds of the rain hitting the windows, which is the first sign of a generic thriller in the scene. Through the glass, we can see that there is a mist or fog outside, which connotates confusion and mystery – foreshadowing what begins to happen a few minutes later in the film.

As the film cuts to a mid shot of Meg (Jodie Foster) in bed, we notice that there is a shadow cast over her and the bed. This could be a warning that something bad is about to happen to them, which will take the ‘light’ out of moving house. Another significant fact here is that the costume Meg is wearing is a grey that blends in with the bed sheets and pillow, this could tell us that she is overwhelmed by the life change and seems to want to merge into the background or just settle down without a hassle.



There is then an amazing low angle shot (pictured above) of Meg’s wine glass that we have previously seen her drinking from in the film. In the foreground, the glass immediately grabs the attention of the audience – it follows the rule of thirds which means that our eyes are automatically drawn to the image where we then notice that the colour of the wine left is red – a colour that connotates danger and blood. A warning. Then, the audience notices the background – in which we see Meg’s arm hanging from the bed – however; it almost looks corpselike, which not only goes with the theme of the shot (the blood-coloured wine etc.) but again gives us more clues as to what will come later in the film.

The camera pans away from Meg and the bed, and the audience can notice that nothing has been unpacked. There seems to be an isolation, where she is the only thing in this huge room with nowhere to hide, this is another feature of the generic thriller movie. The floor of the bedroom (as stated earlier in the film) is wooden, and this fact – along with the fact nothing has been unpacked – makes the room seem cold. There is then the fact that almost everything in the scene is a beige or grey colour with even the radiators and the curtains merging with the rest of the scene. It makes the room look emotionless and it shows that she is a stranger to the room as she has not had time to add her own touches. It can make the audience feel that she could be in a lot of danger as she obviously wouldn’t know the house well enough to escape if something happened.


The camera pans further until we are looking at the sleeping figure of Meg through the doorway. This gives the audience the feeling that we are intruding or watching when they shouldn’t be – and a feeling that somebody else as well as them could be watching. It then pans even further to beyond the banister of the stairs (pictured). This gives the feeling that Meg is trapped in her house, and the fact we can still slightly see her could signify that she is being watched, and that she has a lack of control – almost like an animal in a cage. Throughout all of this, the only thing the audience can hear is the sound of the rain against the windows.



We then follow the camera as it pans down two flights of stairs (which illustrates to us the difficulty of escaping if needs be, which increases the tension). Again, this shot notifies us of how empty the house seems thanks to the fact nothing has been unpacked. The camera focuses on the window and a car pulls up outside – the first sound in the scene different to that of the rain. Tense music begins to play, and the audience begin to feel more suspicious and on edge about the situation. A man steps out of the car, and walks towards the window – closer to both the house and the audience. As he walks along the window, the camera begins to track him and the audience knows for definite that something is not right.



The tense music begins to get louder as there is an extreme close up of the lock on the door, and as the camera pans back to the window, we can see one of the burglars clearly for the first time as he leans up against it to try and see in (pictured.) He is wearing gloves, which many people will find suspicious as it means he cannot leave fingerprints – a fact that lets us know he is doing something against the law. The bars across the window also separates us from Junior (the burglar), and gives the audience connotations of jail. The mise-en-scene of this shot is crucial, as it gives the audience many hints about the personality of this character.

Overall, I believe that this film is a brilliant example of a generic thriller film as it holds many characteristics – such as noir lighting (used at the greatest when we meet the burglars), rain and isolation amongst many other signifiers.