Analysis of a title sequence

The chosen title sequence I have chosen to analyse is a film named 'Girl interrupted'. I have chosen to look at this films opening title sequence due to the fact that it is a similar genre and storyline to our film 'Dazed'.

The storyline for 'girl, interrupted' is based on a 19 year old girl, from the 1960's, who feels like reality is becoming 'way too dense' and is soonly diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. The doctor suggests to her parents that she should be committed to the Claymore hospital and she should spend the upcoming eighteen months struggling with her troublesome psyche and bizarre world of the institution. She bonds with several other patients, named: Lisa, polly, and georgia. As she then realises Lisa is ispontentially a danger to her and genuinely does need help, she begins to work harder with her psychiatrist and the nurse on her ward. But she soon learns that getting out of the mental hospital isn't as simple as it was to get in. The whole title sequence basically shows the life of a cigarette, showing her sparking up, smoking it and stubbing it out. This could be personificated into the story of the girls life, Her life is normal, an outburst occurs and then the settle down or downfall of her life.

Sound: The sound used is a sad song named 'Bookends' by Simon and Garfunkel' , in which foreshadows the upcoming events in the story in which are going to take place.

Mise en scene: There are several aspects of mise en scene within 'girl, interrupted' title sequence, this is including things like her nails as she is smoking, as the title sequence is just a girl, smoking a cigarette. Her hand is grey, holding the cigarette, her nails are unpainted and plain, hinting that she is a simple, plain girl, She also has dirt down her nails in which could show she isn't a proper girly girl. As her nails are fairly long also, which could suggest she is girly, but her skin colour is grey which could foreshadow illness or age. She is also wearing a black and white striped t-shirt, which is long sleeved, this also could foreshadow confusion as two colours put together, which White is seen as a confusing colour, also bland and plain which could represent her life, black as it is a colour of death or the end of something. Both colours together I believe offer the viewer the perception of confusion and reality. The camera then zooms into her lips taking in the smoke from the cigarette her lips are chapped and sore looking, which could suggest she doesn't look after herself or she isn't well, as her face is grey and her lips are pale and chapped.
This is a screen shot of the girls hands holding the cigarette, showing the dark background and how the cigarette is the light and is white amongst the gloomy dark colours within the background.

This is a screen shot of the girls chapped lips taking in the cigarette and her dirty nails. The shadow of her hand is reflected on to her face around her mouth and chin, this could suggest she has a bad mouth, in terms of bad language possibly.

This shows the girl stubbing out the cigarette. Which shows the end, which could foreshadow death or ending of something which is enjoyable.





Lighting: The lighting in the title sequence is gloomy and pretty dark, showing the girls life is quite dark and adding the hint of mystery to it. The girls skin is also pale which blends in with the in-exposure of the light in the background as in the background are bland colours like: Brown, cream, black, white and beige.

Cinematography: The lens in the shots are blurred which i believe also adds confusion, as the scenes change or the shots change the transition is blurred and almost in a slow motion action.

Editing: The editing is adding the names of the directors, and people involved in the film. As it is a simple plain black background with normal white text and font with their names on. When the film title 'Girl, interrupted' is shown the interrupted part flickers as to give off an almost spooky or unhinged effect.