The colours of the scene are still quite dull, but now we can see there is a lot we can see there is a lot of grey and white, which give the station a sterile feel.
To aid the build up of heightened tension and suspense the director juxtaposes a selection of shots of people, and the diegetic sounds come from the slamming of the entrance door at the station. Each time the door slams as someone enters the station, we see Ness looks towards the door we expect to see the long awaited entrance of the ‘Book keeper’. From the perspective of Ness this is the directors way of allowing the audience to pre-empt what is to come in the nearing action scene as the juxtaposing images may play an important part. We see Ness’s facial expressions, and notice he is very anxious and alert, as his eyes seem to miss nothing as he observes the station. His expressions and body language are effective in making the viewer every bit as anxious and tense of the ‘Book keeper’s’ arrival as Ness is.
There is a lot of focus on the station clock which symbolises time, also informing us of the ‘book keepers’ arrival, as the station loudspeaker announces the near arrival of the next rain, this also adds to the building tension of the action scene near to come. To further highlight the little time left the director uses the stylistic tension building background music of elongated string chord. This effectively contrasts with the naturalistic diegetic sound of the young lady at the bottom of the stairs struggling with the crying baby in the pram.
In the successive scene, we see that a mother and a baby have entered the station. Firstly we are shown a high angle shot of the mother, as she pulls a pram, which holds her baby. The struggling mother is to play a significant role in the upcoming action scene, so to draw the audience’s attention to her the director allows us to hear the mother cooing at the baby to calm it down. Other shots in this scene are of Ness peering down at them from the balcony, the high angle and birds eyes view shots are effective in making the mother and her baby look vulnerable and exposed in the station. Also this shot is used for the viewers to be able to see what the baby looks like. We can see the baby, who is a boy, with blonde curly hair, and big, blue eyes, with rosy cheeks. This would be referred as a ‘cute’ baby, and they may start to care about the fate of the baby, and be more interested and curious about the end of the sequence. To further add suspense the director has chosen to make the red colour of the woman’s coat evidently visual, this is to allow the contrast and therefore be highlighted against the monochrome style lighting. This could have been subconsciously be interpreted as a warning of danger ahead, as red is associated with danger. The tension building background music is the only stylistic sound effect, and the high angle shot ensures the struggling mother exhibits to the audience an obstruction to Ness in her vulnerable state.
As Ness looks at them, there is a close up shot of his face, which is in juxtaposition with the close up of the clock. This increases the suspense as the audience are once again reminded that time is passing and the ‘Book keeper’ will be arriving in a matter of minutes. We see a shot of a man walking with a newspaper down the stairs, and when he reaches the bottom of the stairs, we see a mid ranged shot of him leaning against a pillar reading his newspaper. All the while, Ness watches him, scanning his every move.
This is because the man looks like a gangster and would fit the description of one perfectly, as he is wearing a dark suit, with shoes complete with toecaps. There is again another red herring is created leading us to believe he is the ‘Book keeper’ but as a young woman embraces him at the bottom of the stairs and walks away we find that this is untrue. This is successful in creating more suspense and anticipation in the wait of the ‘Book keeper’.
This scene has the diegetic sound of the baby crying and his mother who tries but fails to comfort him. She says “ Don’t worry darling, we’ll be home soon. Everything will be alright”. This is quite ironic as obviously everything will not be all right, as we can tell by the size of the role of the mother and the baby that they play a large role in the end. Her words show how oblivious of the pending situation she is, and how vulnerable she and her child are. This builds tension and we feel aware that if anything dangerous is to happen it will happen now and include the baby and the mother. Diegetic sounds come from the tannoy, which announces the arrival of the 12:00 train will be arriving in a couple of minutes.
The non-diegetic sound comes from a musical box, which is a very ice cream van style tune, happy and immediately makes us think of babies. This is used to mirror what the baby represents in the sequence, which is innocence and purity. Then there is the high-pitched stringed instrument, which gives a very unsettling atmosphere representing the gangsters who are ‘bad’.
Ness’s facial expressions tell us as he spots the baby and mother his face becomes agitated at once, and he becomes more and more anxious to get the mother out of the way. The extreme close up on Ness’s face emphasises the frustration of being unable to decide whether to help the struggling mother without alarming the mobsters. He resorts to help the mother up the stairs himself, and there are mid ranged shots as he helps them up the stairs. There is also a close up of the baby who we then realise is not a baby but old enough to be at least one or two years old. As Ness is looking down at the mother is expression clearly conveys he wants the mother and baby out of the way. When a flock of people enter the station his expression slightly relaxes, as he thinks surely someone will help her, but people simply walk past her. As this happens we see Ness in what seems to be a mental struggle in which he looks at the clock and the mother.
In this scene, there is only one diegetic sound at the beginning spoken by the mother as she thanks Ness for helping her in an exaggerated way, as she talks Ness pays hardly no attention to her, and nods in her direction. In the middle of the scene, a group of people who look like gangsters enter the station, and as they do we see Ness visibly tense. As they walk past we see Ness looking at each of them, as he does the camera shots from his perspective, dart back and forth between faces. This build suspense, as Ness is not sure if they are gangsters and his uncertainty and confusion are transferred to the viewers, making us empathise with Ness.
There is a non-diegetic sound of a double drumbeat, which imitates Ness’s heartbeat, beating faster than normal. This creates more tension for the audience, and the tension builds further up further in the last scene.
We see a suspicious man who enters the scene, and the audience is to lead to believe he is part of the mobster’s gang. The mans unpleasant appearance; dark features and hair, stern and solid facial expression with a plaster underneath his eye could give a connotation that he is frequently involved in violence. The audience becomes visually aware of the nearing mobsters because of the low/mid angle shot the director has chosen to use to make them seem threatening against the high angled shot used on the mother. Also once again the mother and the child act as a warning sign to the audience as the director increases the volume of the baby’s cry when the mobsters near to them and Ness. The director shoots a very low angle shot of Ness with a gun resting in his arm. This shot makes Ness once again seem visually very much in authority over his surroundings and seem to have an advantage over the mobsters. Ness and the gangster pull out their guns and there is a shoot out.
As Ness looks at the man, there is a zoom in shot from his perspective from which we see the gangsters face head on in a close up shot. From this shot the audience know that there will be a fight, which again creates more tension. Next there is an extreme close up of shot of Ness’s fingers on the pram handle letting go in order to shoot. Through out the shoot out scene there is only diegetic sound of shattering glass and of gunshots. Now the music of Ness’s heartbeat builds up to a crescendo, and is successful in letting the viewers know the major event about to take place. As the pram is falling down we see a close up shot of the mother who screams ‘my baby’! But the scream is soundless which indicates the mother’s insignificance at that point in the scene. With the scream being soundless and the gunshots, it stresses how the baby going down is not that important and the fact that only diegetic sounds have been used, makes the scene more realistic as if the audience are also there.
This scene contains a lot of editing, when shots are cut together to form one continuous action scene, the editing results in the scene look more chaotic and fast. In this scene we see shots filmed in slow motion, the pram rolling down the stairs is in slow motion and when the gangsters are being shot. This allows the audience to see the gangsters dying in extreme detail.
The pram that Ness had unsuccessfully placed at the top of the stairs tumbles down slowly to the bottom heading for the enormous pillar below. Here the sounds of the gunshots are lowered and the action scene ultimately anti-climaxed as the director chooses to draw all the attention now to the tumbling pram. He does this by extensively increasing the volume of the pram hitting the stairs to sound like a heart pounding thud. This is creating suspense and the audience who saw the ‘cute’ baby earlier get curious to see if the baby lives, or the gangsters?
As Ness notices the pram going down the stairs he moves to save it. As he does this he shoots the gangsters and miraculously does not get shot once, at this point the expression on Ness’s face is of complete determination. This also builds suspense, as the viewers want to see if his hard work gets paid off and if the baby is saved. As the pram is going down and about to reach the bottom, Ness’s bullets run out and he is left with an empty gun, but then we see Ness’s partner Stone who jumps in and throws a gun at him. Tension increases to see if Ness catches it when he successfully does, he shoots the last gangster, and Stone slides underneath the pram just in time to stop it hitting the floor.
The resolution was reached once the shooting is over and its mother retrieves the baby. The director chooses to use an extreme close up of the smiling blue eyed baby, to once again symbolise triumph for the good: Blue eyes, and fair hair and innocence of babies symbolising purity which will win over the bad despite of the chaotic surrounding. The music that accompanies this shot is again the non-diegetic music of the lullaby music, and assures the audience that everything is all right again.
When I first watched this sequence I felt the apprehension in the atmosphere because of the setting and the way the shots were devised. Having viewed and analysed this moving image it is clear suspense is created in a detailed and sustained way.
