THELMA & LOUISE: Notes on Thriller Openings

Thelma & Louise

• Wide establishing shot of a baron field extending into the distance by a dirt track and framed with mountains in the distance – the black and white, blue tinted shot fades to a more purplish tint as the shot pans right to focus on the mountains and the approaching road that leads far into the distance
• The shot slowly gains colour, staying on the mountains for a significant while – the audience are quite fixated on it, as the country-western original score continues to play – the colour is changing slowly, gaining saturation and darkness before fading to black
• The general aesthetic of the shots has a warm, grainy, antique feel
• Credits font is a sandy colour, has the look of an old western
• This fades back into a long tracking shot in the diner – there is nothing to distinguish Louise from the other waitresses, other than that the shot follows her about her work, throwing the other actors into the more blurry background – we are not even particularly aware of her dialogue, though it can be heard (over a non-diegetic country-western ballad and the general bustle of movement and conversation in the diner)
• The diner is rich visually and the action, though mundane, is quick. We get a sense of her hurry as she serves two girls, from the quick changes between shots – she doesn’t wait for a response to her brief ‘you girls are a bit young to be smoking – ruins your sex drive’, of depleted expression
• Louise is again shown in a close up, smoking as she makes a phone call in the back. Other waitresses in identical black-adorned white dresses move and converse behind her but the audience’s attention is drawn to Louise in the foreground and in the smoky, steamy kitchen, the extras draw very little focus
• As Louise gets frustrated on the phone to Thelma she bangs through into a quieter room – drawing attention to the newly heightened importance of their conversation. We follow her through the door from behind before cutting to show Thelma enter the new room and move into an extreme close up (towards the stationary camera)
• Thelma’s husband is shown with darker lighting or at the edge of the shot to highlight his irrelevance and aggression
• The scene of Thelma’s kitchen is also full of background noise – the TV, the clatter as she does the dishes (both cross-cutting scenes establish a sense of speed and activity but also a restlessness from both the starring women)