Thriller scene analysis: updated

The thriller I have chosen to analyse is the 1971 hit 'Dirty Harry' staring Clint Eastwood. 'Dirty Harry' is a franchise of five films and novels featuring a San Fransisco Police Department homicide  inspector Harry Callahan who is portrayed as a 'dirty', dangerous, violent policeman. Clint Eastwood plays the role of Harry Callahan in all five film. The films were very popular and made $36 million in the box office with a budge of $4 million per film. The film was nominated for an Edgar Allen Poe award for best motion picture in 1972.The creators of 'Dirty Harry' were Don Siegel and Harry Julian Fink.

'Dirty harry' was one of the first action thriller films, it sets the conventions for future action thrillers to come. Action thrillers in this era (1970's) usually involved guns and violence, the protagonists were predominately male. 'Dirty Harry' features plenty of guns and violence, in the clip I will be analysing strong violence is shown within seconds of the clip beginning. 

According to Steve Neale's theory of 'repetition and difference' a film most conform to the conventions to truly be a film of particular genre. However Neale says that a film and its genre are defined by two different things. 'Dirty Harry' applies to this film as it is a stereotypical action thriller however it was the first of its time therefore it could be viewed as though 'Dirty Harry' created the stereotype and conventions of the genre action thriller.

The scene that I have chosen to analyse uses fill light, diegetic lighting. The light is bright and is diegetic as you can see as the viewer that the light is coming from the sun, this is appropriate due to the setting, which is San Fransisco. This creates an image of the setting that it is a sunny place however the audience would already know this due to the scene being set. The audience responds to this as the light shines on the main character of 'Harry Callahan' which suggests that he is a good character however his name contradicts this as 'Dirty' portrays the impression that he doesn't play by the roles and is the stereotypical 'dirty cop'. Although the light foreshadows that all in all he is a good character.

 The character 'Harry Callahan' is shown throughout the scene with the sky behind him and the camera point upwards towards him, this suggests he is powerful as the camera angle makes him appear bigger than the rest of the characters, although having the sky in the background.

Here we can also see the sun shining on his face which suggests further that he is a good character.

The editing technique they have particularly used in this scene is action editing, as this is a point in the film where there is action and violence, predominantly between two characters, Harry and the only other character that has dialogue in this scene. The use of action editing makes the scene more appealing and emphasises the action in the scene.

The music used for Dirty Harry was written by Lalo Schrifin, he wrote the music for Mission Impossible and Bullitt, both iconic action thrillers as well. Schrifin has previously worked with the director Don Siegel before. However in this scene no music is used but women screaming, a constant bell ringing and the sound of people talking plays in the background, this is diegetic sound. All of this background noise reinforces the sense of chaos and danger in this scene. The bell ringing is consistent through out which creates an effect that there is something happening in the background too other than what the audience can obviously see, this also furtherers the effect of chaos by the high pitch of the bell. It also suggests to the audience that it is an alarm, for example a fire alarm. This tells the audience that this scene is extremely chaotic and the actions of the main characters violence have caused trouble within the background.