Film Opening Research #1 - Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient Express 

There is only one title in the opening sequences to the film. The movie starts with the title, “Murder on the Orient Express” and then cuts straight to a scene in Jerusalem. Images prioritized in the opening sequence include a large portion of the scenery in Jerusalem as well as the Wailing Wall. The opening scene also includes a young boy running with a box of eggs to a man in a bog house, possible a castle. He gives the cooked eggs to a man and he closely observes them. These images have underlying meanings such as the fact that the man wants perfect eggs for breakfast imply that he is a perfectionist, and the detective in the case that comes about later in the movie. He will stop at nothing to get to the perfect reasonable answer. The genre is reinforced through technical codes such as the filming of the movie. The lighting is almost always dark and gloomy which is the perfect setting for a murder case. The music is often fast when the detective is close to figuring something out but at other times slow and loud to build suspense. A few symbolic clues include the justice behind the case. In a normal jury there are 12 justices that decide the fate of the accused. In “Murder on the Orient Express”, there are 12 murderers, which represent the 12 jury members. Although the passengers break the law, Poirot treats them like a valid jury that in the context of the story made a legal determination. The film establishes the enigma by introducing the detective and the case at hand. After Ratchett was murdered, everyone on the train became a suspect and therefore an enigma to the detective who needed to find out everyone’s story in order to solve the mystery. The film appeals to a teen/adult audience and the strategies used includes the plot, a child isn’t going to understand a murder mystery. Also, a lot of the jokes and comments mentioned are for older kids or and adult audience. Technology has been used effectively to create a mysterious and scary setting aboard the train. For instance, the camera angles are usually back and forth between people talking or level with the main character in the scene so that if something jumps out at or surprises them, it has the same effect on the audience. As well as this the editor uses various cuts to transition between scenes and make the film more confusing and mysterious to the audience. It doesn’t always flow smoothly because solving a case hardly ever flows smoothly.