Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

86
expectation for the “Part III” to stop at the same distance, the continued movement
of both titles is meant to be a surprise to the viewer. The rest of the titles come
toward the viewer, and then recede to make way for another set of titles, creating a
consistent rhythm of expectation which is not subverted for the rest of the opening
credit sequence.
The first scene centres on a couple, Harold and Edna, who run a convenience
store and live in the same building. This is established first through a crane shot that
descends on the convenience store and then moves to the side of the building where
there is laundry drying on clotheslines, flapping in the wind, the corners of bed
sheets coming within close proximity to the viewer. Harold walks through the
laundry and knocks over a supporting pole, and Edna immediately yells at him for
being clumsy. He picks up the pole and in the process of re-positioning it
conspicuously points the end of the pole toward the viewer, which comes out at the
spectator. As this is not an eye/camera shot, nor does it code itself similarly, it
creates an audience awareness of its positioning in relation to the film. There is no
narrative significance for this shot, and its superfluous nature coupled with the
obvious usage of the 3-D technology for the benefit of the viewer can create an
emotional distance from the characters in the text, as opposed to the text being a
spatial extension of the viewer’s universe, even if imagined. Despite this emotional
distancing, this shot does create a visceral effect designed to make the viewer flinch
at the illusion of the pole’s close proximity to the viewer. In a similar shot, Edna,
while watching news reports of the deaths that occurred in the previous film, turns
the aerial antenna on top of the television for a better reception, stopping it in a
position close to the audience. Other shots in this opening scene are similar in effect,
despite the fact that they are specifically eye/camera shots, such as a snake striking at