Split textual analysis

Split textual analysis

• 1.
  SPLIT TEXTUAL ANALYSIS Farheen Rahman
• 2.
  Opening credits  Thefilm starts off with the ‘Universal’ logo being presented in the usual way it is in most film.The music starts to get eerie as the next company ‘Blinding edge pictures’ and ‘Blumhouse productions’ logos are shown. Blinding edge pictures is known for producing mainly horror/thriller films and Blumhouse productions is popular also for its horror films. Showing these popular companies sets an expectation for the films quality.
• 3.
  First scene In thefirst scene we see a young girl sitting at the end of a table and at the other end we see a group of girls very happy while she’s dozed off.The music starts quite mysterious but morphs into cheerful restaurant music as the background chatter becomes louder. As the scene progresses we hear a father and daughter talk about how the girl is strange and ‘gets detentions a lot’ it almost makes the audience seem that she might be the antagonist because of her weird nature or she’s just a quirky protagonist.
• 4.
  First scene  Asthe three girls are in the car the ‘strange’ one sits at the front while the other two sit at the back distracted by their phones, the girl at the front hears a thud and looks through the rear view mirror and sees nothing but it already sparks some mystery on the audience. As someone slips into the car the girl glances at the rear view mirror again but this time she sees food in the floor that the dad was loading into the trunk, and she slowly turns her head in confusion to the drivers seat.The diegetic music playing juxtaposes to the situation as it’s a cheerful song but the three girls are in a predicament. As the strange man in the car is tidying it up the camera shots are hand held as they are very shaky and they represent how scared and confused the girls are.  As he goes to spray the two girls in the back the camera shot slightly slows down along with the music which could represent the girls heart skipping a beat and her seeing everything in a blur.We can occasionally hear her deep breaths as she contemplates what to do. Heavy breathing is exaggerated often in horror films to connote the characters anxiety.
• 5.
  First scene  Asshe reaches to open the car door she does this very slowly and it builds up anxiety in both the characters and in the audiences as we hope she can make it out.The diegetic cheerful music starts to slow down and decrease in volume while there’s a hint of non- diegetic eerie music.This all abruptly stops when she unlatches the door but the safety bells goes off and he stares at her, we hear her shaky breath and the camera also shakes slightly as it’s a POV shot from her POV.  As he lunges towards her in a fast manner the camera cuts off and it displays more credits. This is a sort of cliff- hanger moment as it builds up anticipation in the audience but they don’t see the outcome straight away.
• 6.
  Following credits The followingcredits are shown like this to represent how many personalities the protagonist, Kevin has. The music is very loud and low pitched. It creates an unsettling atmosphere. In between the credits it shows snippets of the film, there are extremely short clips that create an enigma code.The clips shown are currently unknown to the audience so it creates more mystery. We see a short clip of one of the girls being dragged down the hallway looking slightly dazed and confused and we also see another one of the girls being laid across a bed.This correlates to the previous scene as they were all drugged and clearly being taken elsewhere but the question is where and by whom. This also confirms that this film has a non-linear narrative.
• 7.
  Ending  Near theend we hear a news reporter talking about Kevin and how he is being referred to as ‘the horde’ due to his many personalities.  The film also pays homage to a previous film by Shyamalan, ‘Mr Glass’ which is the nickname of Samuel L. Jacksons character in ‘Unbreakable’.  We also hear the composer James Newton Howards dark, lush score to ‘Unbreakable’ playing the last scene involving Kevin.  The end credits are similar to the opening credits as we see the clever portrayal of names in 24 different split screens to represent Kevin’s multiple personalities.