In what ways does Taking Lives conform to or subvert what you consider to be the forms and conversions of the thriller genre?
Taking Lives is set in Canada but with all American actors. This definitely conforms to the genre with this element as many thrillers are set in ‘exotic and not normal places’ (anywhere other than the obvious England or America) but seem to always have British or American actors.
The thriller conforms in many different ways, for example typical thrillers cause constant suspense and tension throughout. Taking lives covers this perfectly. Throughout the film, tension, anticipation, and suspense are caused by a mix of good quality music and acting. A good traditional thriller sends you on a rollercoaster of emotions. Going from very exciting, thrilling, and making you feel anticipation and fear and then brings you back down again to a calm level. This rollercoaster goes on throughout the film and makes a good and effective way of playing with the audience’s emotions and feelings.
Normally in thrillers, normality is changed by one person by a certain event, usually a crime, and then a race against time, solving puzzles and mysteries with twists and red herring to solve the crime. Taking Lives is full of misleading puzzles and red herrings. You are lead to believe one thing but then when that particular puzzle is solved, another one occurs. In Taking Lives, they notice a vague pattern in the killer’s victims, so it then becomes a race against time to catch the killer before the next victim is attacked. The race against time is a strong element is helping to create tension and anticipation. All the twists, misleading clues, cliff hangers and red-herrings are all very similar to ‘The Butterfly Effect’, directed by Eric Bress. This thriller is full of misleading clues, red-herrings and cliff hangers. This is a very well made and popular thriller, and it seems that this element of puzzles is very common and successful in the thriller genre.
The protagonists are the key element to telling the story and creating all these emotions we feel when watching the film. Usually in typical thrillers they are very intelligent but they also have weaknesses. We feel less inferior to them because it shows that even those classed as ‘heroes’ and the physically superior have faults and weaknesses like we do. This helps us to relate to them and feel empathy towards them. The characters need to be believable for any film to work, we need to be able to connect and relate to them in order to believe them.
One way in which Taking Lives subverts from the typical thriller genre is by having a female lead. She is unfeasibly attractive, independent a rebel and eccentric. She ends up too be the ‘hero’ and finds the courage we do not expect. Angelina plays the character so well, that you really relate to her and connect with her emotions. This allows us to feel the emotions she is, and feel the tension, anxiety, and sympathy for example. She shows to sides of character; a strong-willed, independent and intelligent woman, and then we are given glimpses of her softer and more feminine side. The way this is portrayed is very effective and allows us to connect with her more. All good thrillers have protagonists that are able to do this, however Taking Lives seems to take it to a higher level than the normal typical thriller due to the female lead.
Taking lives is based a lot on psychology and playing with the audience’s minds. A lot of thrillers use red herrings, cliff hangers and twists. Taking Lives has plenty of these, with extra unexpected twists at the end. You are taken into the minds of each character, you get a feel and insight into Angelina’s character and her confusion and feelings; but also get a feel of the character Martin. Martin has a usual but interesting way of thinking and we are able to explore this. Human nature plays a big role within the portrayal of the film. With Martin being a psychopath and sociopath, his thoughts are obviously completely different. Words such as, table, chair, rape, door and murder all carry the same weight and he feels no regret or remorse. This is a huge contrast to Angelina’s character; which is very strong minded, independent, and intelligent and we again see her more feminine side in context to human nature. Even though she is only acting to be pregnant, she shows signs of maternal instincts, and this is a great mix and contrast to her character that makes her so believable and relatable. The contrast of characters is something you see in many thrillers and gives it a very important element to the film.
The most important element to any thriller is the climax; where the ‘hero’ defeats the villain, not necessarily that the mystery is solved. Thrillers tend to be more about the climax than the actual solving of the crime. Taking lives seems to have this motif but also solves the reasons why he does what he does. Not all thrillers end up solving the crime, but 99% of the time, the villain in defeated.
Another obvious way in which the thriller subverts to the normal thriller genre is the lack of actions scenes. We are limited to the number of action sequences we see, Taking Lives is a thriller that affects you more mentally than physically. This is a nice touch that Caruso has added to the thriller as it deferintiates from the other thrillers that have been made. We do not have to see many action scenes for this thriller to work effectively.
Caruso also directed many thriller based TV series and a thriller called Disturbia. Disturbia has a very similar structure to Taking Lives, with the elements being the same. A serial killer is the main element of the plot and this causes the ‘hero’, in this case differs to Taking Lives as the hero is a boy, to have to solve misleading clues and in the end the villain gets defeated. Both of these thrillers work incredibly well, as Caruso has stuck to the traditional ways of the clichéd thriller genre but also added his own twists to make it defferinciate from others and put his mark on the film to make it his own.
In conclusion it is clear that Taking Lives conforms to the thriller genre very well, but with subtle hints of it subverting also, these subverting elements give Taking Lives its own take on the thriller genre but is still recognisable by the audience. The mixture that Caruso has created in both Taking Lives and Disturbia work very well and are very effective.
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