Marathon Man (1976)

Detailed analysis of Thriller Clip analysed in class.
Whilst watching Marathon Man, look fo at least three examples of a suspenseful moment.

The Thriller Clip we analysed is class was 'Marathon Man'. There was a part in the movie when there was a close up shot of a black pram being pushed slowly down a busy street full of people. The suspense was created with the use of silence (no music) and the slow pace the man was pushing the pram. Also, in the shot, the pram filled 75% of the screen and the rest of the screen shows the man's legs walking slowly and other people's legs walking quickly around him. The silence in this shot plays a big part of creating suspense, alongside the slow movement as it corresponds with what is going on around his movement, noisy pedestrians rushing. Another scene in the movie that held the audience in suspense was outside the opera stadium when there was supposed to be a meeting with a man and a woman in a red coat. But the man warned the woman to keep on walking because it was unsafe. So the woman kept on walking into the darkness as it was late at night. The camera was locked onto the dark area the woman walked into then there wa a sudden noise hinting to us that something has hapened. At this point, it was quite engaging the audience as they wouldn't want to miss anything. Then, there was a football that was thrown towards the man which came from the darkness, still holding the audience in suspense as they might think it's a bomb. And with the man just standing there, scared, makes the auidiece scared for him. Once again, the use of silence in the night time creates and builds up the suspense beautifully as there is no music playing in the background which could distract them from what is actually happening in the scene. One final scene where it holds the most suspense is when the old man opperates on the main character's teeth. The setting straight away gives off that creepy mood because it looks like a deserted place where no one goes so if he shouts help, no one can hear him. It is just four grey, dull walls, a chair, a table with dentistry equipment on it, and a sink at the corner. There are big close ups to the main character's face so the audience knows what is going on and to capture his petrifyed emotion making the viewers sympathise for him. It was a successful shot because when the old man opperated on him, we could only see them from the back so we never got to see the actual torture but we heard a loud scream and the loud drilling noise which contrasted greatly with the silence.
Overall, in the three scenes analysed above all had one thing in common which was the silence. Silence contributes greatly with suspense and the build up of tension.