Research Into Thriller Conventions

Proppian character types:

The hero or victim/seeker hero

Reacts to the donor, weds the princess.

There appear to be common traits of the ‘hero’ in many thrillers – they are often middle aged men who are usually flawed (whether physically, mentally or emotionally). An example of this is John Travolta’s character in Face Off. He is emotionally flawed due to the grief caused after the death of his young son. This causes him to become set on revenge and concentrate too much on his job. Another example of a flawed hero is Bruce Wayne (a.k.a Batman), played by Christian Bale, in the Dark Knight. He is emotionally scarred due to the death of both of his parents.

The villain

Struggles against the hero

The villain is usually very similar to the hero in many ways, apart from the fact that they are immoral/’evil’/psychotic/etc. The villain is, like the hero, often a middle aged man with a flaw. In the film ‘Se7en’ the villain is a murderer who is very similar to the hero Detective Somerset. Both are organised, intelligent and obsessive men, but the killer is a psychopath whilst Somerset is definitely not.

The donor

Prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object

Jude Law’s character Dr. John Watson in ‘Sherlock Holmes’ could be seen as an example of a donor. After Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) is out of work for three months and seems to be going slowly out of his mind, Watson helps him to get himself together again and sends him on the trail of another case.

The (magical) helper

Helps the hero in the quest

Dr. John Watson is also a good example of a helper in a thriller. He assists Holmes in all of his cases and is a valuable asset for Holmes when it comes to finding evidence and solving cases. He is the same gender as the hero (Holmes) so as to prevent conflict between the hero and the ‘princess’

The princess and her father

Gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero, and marries the hero, often sought for during the narrative. Propp noted that functionally, the princess and the father cannot be clearly distinguished.

The dispatcher

Character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off.

False hero

Takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the princess.

Strauss’ binary opposition

Below are some examples of binary oppositions often associated with the thriller genre;

Hero and Villain	Sane and Psychopath	Love and Hate
Victim and Villain	Day and Night	Safety and Danger
Good and Evil	Light and Dark	Life and Death
Moral and Immoral	Known and Unknown

Obviously there would be multiple binary oppositions present in a film, and many of those listed above could overlap as they are similar. For example, where there is a villain/killer and a hero, there is most likely going to be the opposition of good and evil or moral and immoral.

In ‘Se7en’, one of the main binary oppositions is sane and psychopath, because the psychopathic killer and the sane Detective Somerset are extremely similar characters – both are intelligent, obsessive and organised – apart from the fact that the killer is a psychopath and Somerset is not. Also in the film there is the good/moral Detective Somerset and the rest of his team, and the bad/immoral killer.

In ‘Sixth Sense’ the plot of the film revolves largely around the binary opposition of life and death, due to the small boy in the film being able to see dead people. The film follows his struggle to learn not to be frightened, to cope with the things he sees, and deal with the contrast between the behaviour of the living and the dead.

In ‘Ils’ we see the binary opposition of light and dark, where light could be representing safety and dark representing danger. This is because the group or villains/killers only strike at night and during the day things seem fairly happy and ordinary. There is also the opposition of known and unknown, because we hardly see the killers at all during the film and we don’t see their faces. There is also the opposition of good (Clementine) and bad (the killers), and victim and villain, as Clementine and her home are attacked by the group but she doesn’t go down easily.

Todorov’s theory of narrative structure

Todorov’s theory of narrative structure states that the thriller should begin with an equilibrium, followed by a disruption which is later resolved, before a new equilibrium is established. This has been the case in most of the thrillers we have watched. However due to only seeing thriller openings, we only establish the equilibrium and the disruption. For example:

Face Off	Equilibrium – John Travolta and his son are spending time together on a carousel in a park. They are laughing and look very happy. Disruption – They are shot at and John Travolta’s son is killed. The resolution of the disruption in this case will not be directly related to the disruption, because Travolta’s son can’t be brought back to life. Instead he seeks revenge and works to find and punish the killer. This has turned Travolta’s character into a very work-orientated man.
Sixth Sense	Equilibrium – A man and his wife are spending an evening together at home, and they look happy. They discuss the man’s job and look through his university certificates, indicating to the viewer that he is a well-educated man who works in psychology, mainly child psychology.
	Disruption – A mentally disturbed ex-patient of the man breaks into the house, claiming that the man didn’t help him when he was a child like he was supposed to. He shoots the man before taking his own life in their bathroom.

Titles

The opening titles of thrillers share common traits which establish an eerie and ominous mood to begin the film. The use of black and white in the titles can be used to signify binary oppositions, and the text is often in an unusual, scratchy font to make it look harsh and eerie. Or if the film is aimed at a more mature, adult audience the font will often be a classy serif font. The text usually fades in and out with an effect on it to make it move in a strange way and look more ominous. Sometimes the titles are split so that the most important titles (such as the title, director and film company) come before the action, and the rest come afterwards. This allows the viewer to find out the main people who made the film without getting bored by lots of titles or distracted from the action by overlay titles. There will also be some eerie, ominous non-diegetic music to reflect the style of the titles and the thriller genre.

For ‘Se7en’ the titles come after the first bit of action to allow the viewer to start getting into the film and the storyline. They are represented in a montage, with unsettling, scratchy sounding non-diegetic music. The images are unsettling, with forensic images of bodies, cutting, razors and needles implying pain, violence and death. The text fades in and moves in a jerky manner which looks as though it has been scratched or cut into the screen, linking it with the images of razors and needles. There are picture of children with their eyes crossed through, implying they have been killed, and images of things such as tightly packed, hand sewn journals implying psychotic and obsessive behaviour. The colour scheme of black, white and red represents binary oppositions, danger, blood and death.