In what way does ‘Taking Lives’ conform to or subvert what you consider to be the forms and conventions of thriller genre.
‘Taking Lives’ is a crime thriller set in recent years, investigating the crimes of a serial killer who steals his victim’s identities. Throughout the film certain techniques are used to build up suspense in order to grab the viewer and to keep them interested. Some of these techniques used in the film are typical of the thriller genre, however others are not.
One of the ways that ‘Taking Lives’ breaks the usual characteristics of a thriller is the choice of lead character, Angelina Jolie. Lead characters in thrillers are usually males, even if they are not necessarily the strong masculine type like in the ‘Bourne’ films. Females in the film industry especially in thriller are perceived as the weaker sex and unable to defend themselves or figure out what the problem is. Also, if the female role is intelligent, stereotypically they are often portrayed as unattractive. In ‘Taking Lives’ this perception is turned on its head; she acts out a role of an intelligent, capable and sexy FBI agent, who is more competent than the other male leads. This is done deliberately to shock the viewer. Also, in the film, there is a dramatic change in her competent sophisticated attitude into a mother figure makes the viewer be shocked to see by the end of the film where her character has completely switched.
Typically in thrillers they try to achieve a sense of realism to make it more authentic and connect to the viewer to a certain extent. Often to have this affect the director might state, “based on real events” such as in “Zodiac”. This has more of an impact on the viewer to make them believe that someone was capable of committing the crimes. ‘Taking Lives’ does conform to keeping it realistic by basing it around serial killer, as viewer we know that they exist, which in turn makes the film a lot more gripping. Even though it hasn’t been stated that it is a true story the sense of realism is still there. But in order to make the film more exciting a bit of the realism is lost. With ‘Taking Lives’ the majority of realism is lost through Angelina Jolie is an FBI agent.
An extremely important and almost mandatory part of thrillers is the use of mysteries and unsolved scenarios. Nearly every thriller has some unresolved situation or unknown person, which the lead character has to solve. ‘Taking lives’ is no different to any other thriller in this case. Although ‘Taking Lives’, rather than traditionally the main character discovering whom it is in an epic scene just before the climax of something is about to happen. In ‘Taking Lives’ the director stuns the audience by allowing them to realise before the lead character that the serial killer is. This is developed by seeing the lead characters reaction to enhance the shock of who the serial killer is.
The director continually adds twists in this film, majority of which are sudden shocks for the audience. It is not an uncommon technique in this genre. Usually, there is only one major twist at the end of the film, for example the end of “The Usual Suspects,” where the unsuspecting criminal turns out to be the mastermind of the whole incident. Instead ‘Taking Lives’ continually puts twists in the film from beginning to end. Thrillers, unlike action films are more plot driven rather than action. By continually putting twists in the film in helps maintain momentum on the films pace, keeping the audience interested.
Also, rather than having lots of action and fighting the director uses suspense to give the film a sense of danger. This is typical of thrillers. In ‘Taking Lives’ they do this through creating a false sense of security and then ambush there audience. Also, a sense of danger is created through the lighting, music and facial expressions. Often music is eerie and dark; lighting is dark and dim again adding to the atmostphere and tension. Facial expressions are often either paniced or wary.
In conclusion, ‘Taking Lives’ does on an overall stick to the conformities of thrillers, but rather than doing just the conformities the director edited these “rules” and making them their own. By making those adaptations has a large impact on the audience.
