inferno study - scene analysis

Scene Analysis

Shot 1 Shot 1 (1") A fixed shot shows the hallway of Sara's flat. It is still unknown that the door at the end is to the cellar, the room in which Carlo and Sara will eventually die. It is a sort of establishing shot, but its true importance will become clear only at the end, foretold by two repetitions of the same part of the flat, taken form the same point of view (shots 30 and 41).

Shot 2 Shot 2 (7", l-r travelling, with, at the end a short forward travelling) The characters take the positions that will be kept for a long time: Carlo next to the couch, Sara at the opposite side of the room.

Shot 4 Shot 4 (1") Carlo's position: it is a sort of reverse shot of the previous one.

Shot 5 Shot 5 (3") Sara's position.

Shot 15 (34", fixed, then short pan shot to the l., hor.) Here begins the music that will last all of the sequence: its importance is marked also by the length and fixedness of the shot. Shot 15

Shots 16, 17, 18 (5" each) It is the first time we see something outside the house. The first shot of the series could be a subjective shot of Sara (who is turned to the window); the others are axis junctions, edited in synch with the strings of Va' pensiero. This kind of junction is used also in shots 44 and 45. Shot 16

Shot 17 Shot 18

Shot 19 (16", short pan shot l-r then forward zoom) Sara enters her bedroom: this is the position she will keep until the beginning of the last part of the sequence, when she will go through the hallway shown at the beginning and she will enter the cellar's door. Shot 19a

Shot 19b Shot 19c

Shot 20 (2") Subjective shot of Sara, who see's, through her room's half-closed door, Carlo sat on the couch. If we consider shot 16 as subjective, it is the second time that we see through the girl's eyes. Shot 20

Shot 22
Shot 23 Shots 22 (9"), 23 (2"), 25 (2"), 27 (3") Again we see something happening outside the house, although we have no clue about where these things exactly happen. The last shot of the series brings us back to the place of action, even if from an external point of view: from this moment everything happens inside Sara's flat.

Shot 25 Shot 27

Shot 28 Shot 28 (5") The lights go out: the tension begins to increase, underlined by an alternation of light and dark, music and silence.

Shot 31 Shot 31 (3") Carlo is seen from another angle: there is a search for a misplacement of the beholder, not only by changing the point of view (a solution already used in the sequence), but also using the actor's expressions, which show something between evil and astonishment.

Shot 38 (12", fixed, horizontal, then short dolly upward, trav. l-r, and following trav) This camera movement unites the two parts of the flat: the one comprehensive of the bedroom and the living room, and the other with the hallway and the cellar. Carlo is followed while going through these spaces...
Shot 38a Shot 38b

Shot 39 Shot 39 (15", forward travelling) … and the importance of this path is underlined by the subjective shot of Carlo going through the hallway.

Shot 43 (2", pan shot l-r, horizontal) Sara moves from her previous position. In doing that she hits something that breaks on the floor. This is another camera movement that unifies the parts of the ambient, preparing for Sara's passage through the hallway. Shot 43

Shots 44 and 45 (1" each) We have again some axis conjunctions, which stress the public's attention on a particular, eventually meaningless. That demonstrates that these shots have the mere function of increasing the tension. Shot 44
Shot 45

Shot 46 (9", following hand camera) This time the character is nor followed by a travelling shot nor is it a subjective shot. A hand camera follows Sara and that makes the tension increase more and more. The audience is perfectly aware that something is going to happen, and it knows where it is going to happen. Shot 46

Shot 47 (5", preceding hand camera) By a movement junction the cellar is shown for the first time: the point of view is from inside. Shot 47a
Shot 47b

Shot 48 Shot 48 (3") The surprise of Carlo's appearance, with a knife in his neck, is underlined by the forte of the choir.

Shot 49 Shot 49 (1") It is a sort of counter shot of the previous one, that succeeds in giving the idea of the little space in which Carlo and Sara will "move".

Shot 52 Shot 52 (2") It is the first shot taken from above, which suggests the possibility that Carlo, although attacked by someone else, could hurt Sara. Here begins a series of very short shots, very close to the characters: by this way the feeling of constriction and suffocation given by the situation and the ambience is increased.

Shot 53 Shot 53 (1") It can be considered a subjective shot of Sara, overwhelmed by Carlo. It can be seen also as a counter shot of the previous one. This peculiar series of shots and counter shots is repeated also in shots 54 and 55.

Shot 59 Shot 59 (1") Carlo looks at his upward left: the hand that will extract the knife from his neck comes from there. This glance of Carlo's will be reprised in shots 68 and 70.

Shot 65 Shot 65 (1")

Shot 66 (1") The attention is still focused on the knife, that goes off the screen and that, in shot 67, comes in again. The camera keeps very close to the characters and the objects, with details, close-ups and ultra close ups. Shot 66

Shot 71 (2") Sara is shot from behind: our point of view is more or less the killer's one, but it is impossible, obviously, to talk about subjective (as shot 74 demonstrates). Shot 71

Shot 74 (1") Sara is stabbed too. The camera keeps being very close to the body: this closeness has the effect of making the beholder completely lose the spatial co-ordinates. In this "second place" (the hallway before and the cellar now) the vectors and the sense of verticality disappear (indeed, only in this second part of the sequence does the camera take angled positions). Shot 74

Shot 75 (2") This close up gives us the last chance of seeing Sara's face. It will be seen again only when Mark, entering the flat, will see her body ripping a curtain and falling through to the floor. These two shots are very similar, for the lighting and for the point of view. It is as if Sara's death has been extended in time. Shot 75

Shot 76 Shot 76 (12") This long shot slightly from above shows us the useless and desperate efforts Sara makes to take the knife out of her back. We have a half figure: the camera distances from the bodies, giving the sense of where Sara is, lying on the cellar's entrance stairs.

Shot 77 Shot 77 (1") Carlo's agony ended, and he is shown, as usual in a close up.

Shot 78 Shot 78 (2") The last shot of the sequence shows the gloved hands closing a not-well-identified door. We can see only ever see this detail of the "killer". The closure of the door is, perhaps, the beginning of the choreographic discovery of Sara's body that Mark subsequently beholds in the following "sub-sequence" that ideally closes the one just analysed.

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