Textual Analysis of Snatch

This is a textural analysis of the opening two minutes of the film Snatch. I chose to do this film as in the film there is a heist so it will share similar features to the film that I am making.

This is the first shot of the film Snatch. As you can see it is a close up of what appears to be a male head. The tittles are being the displayed on the screen as the camera angle rises.

The camera continues to rise and you hear the voice of the person on the left say “My name is Turkish, funny name for an Englishman, I know” however his lips do not move so your not aware that he is the one who is talking. The camera continues to pan upwards until the characters head that is in the foreground of the screen shot is no longer in the shot and this reveals the actor of the left fiddling with his thumbs and the character on the right chewing gum. 

 

The dialogue continues and the camera shot changes to a close up. In the dialogue the character explains how he got his “strange name for an Englishman”. We can see that he isn't clean shaven however he is wearing a suit but his top buttons are not done up and he isn't wearing a tie showing that he is a little rough around the edges but he also has a business and smart side.

Dialogue continues but the characters lips still aren't moving. He turns his head to the left to face the character that is sat on the chair next to him.

The next shot is of the character that was sat to the right in the previous shot. Turkish’s voice continues and introduces the character so we now know that he is called Tommy. Tommy is moving his tongue very fast from one side to the other as if he was licking his lips, he looks agitated and you cannot see all of his face due to the shadow that is caused by his hat.

This is the next shot, as you can see it has changed back to a medium distance shot and we can now see both of the characters. The dialogue still continues and Turkish is talking about his relationship with Tommy. He says that they are like brothers and that they have known each other for as long as they can both remember and that they are partners. Turkish then itches his ear with his right hand and then puts both hands on his lap and locks his fingers together. Whilst he is itching his ear, Tommy is looking around the room by moving his head and rolling around his eyes.

The shot type changes from a mid distance shot to a close up and Tommy continues to look around, the angle of his head is slightly raised and it looks as if he is looking at the ceiling of the room. He lo0oks on edge and like he is waiting/anticipating something to happen.

 

The shot then switches back to Turkish. The dialogue continues and he asked a rhetorical question as he is moving his head around and looks around the room. Then the screen fades until it goes completely black.

The screen remains black for about three seconds and during this time a slow tempo songs starts to play. When the image returns we can see five people. Two of the men appear to be security guards as they search the man on the right with the beard with a metal detector. During this time, the music continues to play. It seems that they are being watched on a CCTV camera as the image that we seen is through another monitor and there are monitors either side of the screen where our attention is centred

The man on the bottom left of the screen continues to walk until he is no longer visible

The man with the beard and black jacket is getting searched with a metal detector and he is spinning around in co-operation with the security guard. As he spins around the metal detector alerts the guard and there is some speech which is spoken over the music which is still playing in the background.

The camera pans to the left to another monitor where again, there are more tittles and the characters appear moving from the right to the left and the character that you can see in the screen shot calls for the elevator by pressing the button to the right of the door with his right hand. He is then followed by three other characters that are dressed similarly.