Sixth Sense Analysis

Sixth Sense

The film title ‘Sixth Sense’ refers to the additional sense the boy possesses that enables him to see dead people. Before the audience even watch this film, they can begin to ask questions as a standard person only has 5 senses, which makes the audience guess what the sixth one could be.

The opening sequence I watched opens in the basement of the main family’s house. From the camera angle used, the audience are made to feel as though they are spying on the character as she removes a bottle of wine from the rack. We immediately realise that this woman’s house a large house, purely due to the fact that she has a whole cellar for wine to be stored. This is soon reinforced when we are shown the rest of the house.

The next thing we notice is the costumes of the characters. The costumes are shown as very typical modern, expensive and posh meaning that the people are potentially rich and smart. However we then see that they may not be very comfortable wearing such smart clothes, as they soon changed into a comfier outfit.

In the opening sequence, there are a large number of close ups of the characters which help to show their emotion and allow the audience to see that something isn’t right with the characters. There are also numerous mid shots, which let the audience see a larger part of the characters, revealing body language in order to give a more detailed idea of how they’­re feeling.

At the beginning of the opening sequence, the titles roll onto the screen in a light blue coloured font, on top of a black background. This is a lot like how ‘Memento’ had their titles rolling, which maybe suggests a similar kind of – scary – genre. The titles are also all in capital letters, which make them very dominant and striking, and the font is serif to create an edgy feel.

The sequence in general sets up the film very well. Throughout the sequence, the suspense constantly builds up until the moment of climax. The event which occurs towards the end of the opening sequence sets the rest of the film up to grab the audience’s attention, and makes them focus on what could possibly happen.