Discuss how editing and sound features create meaning and generate audience response in The Usual Suspects

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Stacey Humphries

Discuss how editing and sound features create meaning and generate audience response in The Usual Suspects.

‘The Usual Suspects’ was directed by Brian Singer and released in 1995. Singer has directed several films including ‘X-Men’ and (earlier) ‘Public Access’’. Although Public Access was his first film it did not receive significant recognition, which is why the explosive success of The Usual |Suspects established him as something of a maverick.

This film is predominantly a crime thriller which examines the mystery of a sinister crime-lord (Keyser Soze) and an explosion on a boat. This analysis will examine the concluding sequence of the film with particular focus on the use of editing and sound.

After Detective Kujan has finished his forceful, yet sympathetic interrogation, Kint leaves the office. At this point the camera is subjective; it is on Kujan’s side. This serves to accentuate Kujan’s powerful demeanor in contrast to the pitiful Kint. The sound here is only diegetic, as Kint leaves he looks reproachfully at Kujan and says “Fuckin’ cops” in a pathetic, broken voice. The audience feels pity for Verbal, as they have throughout the film. Not only is he physically crippled, he also appears to be weak-minded making him (in the eyes of the other criminals) the least important and least useful of the ‘Usual Suspects’.

Kujan watches Verbal leave and then the camera cuts to the other side of the door where it slowly zooms out from the office with Kujan stood in the doorway. The slow pace of the editing implies a sense of calm during this scene, suggesting to the audience that the film is about to end.

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The scene changes back to the hospital. This point in the film involves a lot of cross-cutting between locations. Earlier in the film a man in the hospital was describing what Keyser Soze looks like to an artist. Now, the camera follows the police officer to the desk where he asks the receptionist if he can use the fax machine. He has the drawing in his hands. This moment provokes excitement in the audience for it seems that at last, the true identity of the infamous Keyser Soze is to be revealed.

Back at the police station we ...

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