Identity Intro Analysis

Identity

At the start of the film the Columbia Pictures credits comes up and there is a sound bridge of a man talking, the shot fades and words Columbia Pictures Presents show. The words disappear except for the letter I from pictures stays in the shot on its own, it cuts away to a close up of a tape playing with the name Malcolm Rivers. Another voice in the sound bridge says, “Where did you learn that? Where did you learn that poem” and the voice replies “I made it up, when I was a kid”. Someone presses a button on the tape recorder and a rewinding noise plays and there is a quick flash montage of images, including some documents, black and white mug shots of a bald man and a drawing of some stick figures with red around there necks which may suggest death. The voice over conversation continues and there is mysterious non-diegetic music being played by violins, there’s a close up of more stick figure drawings. In the next shot there’s a table with the tape recorder on it and a collection of drawings and cuts outs of people made with maps. Someone throws a file on the table with some documents, fingerprints and mug shots of a woman. The man in the voice angry and starts shouting “Don’t beat around the bush! Don’t beat around the bush Doc!”. This suggests that these conversations are going on between a doctor and a patient, possible the man in the black and white mug shots. The doctor’s voice says “Tell me what you remember about your mother?”. It quickly cuts to the mug shots of the woman holding a sign saying Rivers, C. The camera pans across the details of the woman in a file, the camera looks up at the man who has been listening to the recordings and looking over the documents. Next to the mans face, letters form the word Identity and the mysterious music plays again. There’s a close up of all the mug shots of the woman and the man in the voice over says, “I remember my mother was a whore”. The shot cuts away to the man looking at the table, there’s an eye line match and we see that the man is flicking through some newspaper articles. There’s a sharp noise as the camera zooms into a picture in the newspaper of a child in the back of a car, the picture isn’t very clear of who the child is. There’s another quick montage of the man looking through some documents in a file. The shot cuts away to see the man looking down at the files and he’s in some kind of office, there are certificates in photo frames up on the wall. We can hear ambient noise from the rain and lightning outside the window. The man looks over some news paper articles and there’s a close up of the headlines, one reads Mountain Nightmare, and another reads Mass Murder and says the name Malcolm Rivers underneath it. In the next shot we find out who Malcolm Rivers is as the camera cuts to the man holding a file with mug shots of the bald man from the start holding a sign saying M. Rivers. The doctors voice in the voice over says “Do you remember the murders?”. The shot cuts away to a picture of a woman lying on the floor covered in blood, it quickly cuts to the man holding another photo and in it is a man lying on the floor covered in blood. There’s a montage of the man going through more murder victims, documents on an autopsy of the stab wounds and newspaper articles. The man quickly drops the pictures on the table, the man presses a button on the tape recorder and a rewinding noise is played, at the same time there is a quick montage of all the documents the he’s looked through. The man looks down at the table and begins to write something, there’s a close up of the word evil. He begins drawing some kind of diagram, there’s another cut to a newspaper article, and another article reads Insanity Plead Denied. The doctor says in the voice over “Who am ii speaking to right now? What should I call you?”. The voice replies “Call me what ever you like”. The shot cuts to another article, which talks about someone being sent to death.