The Sixth Sense Analysis

Director: M Night Shyamalan
Year: 1999
Origin: United States



In the Opening sequence of "The Sixth Sense" we find the music begins immediately, it delivers this ominous and very dramatic feel to the audience, making them feel uneasy and is certainly relative to the film's genre. For the majority of the opening sequence we just see the titles which appear in this pale blue colour (similar to that of "Brick") and we get this cold feeling making us even more uncomfortable. But to aid this unease the credits linger on the screen, slowly fading away.

The first shot is faded into from a black screen and as the Close Up image of the light bulb because clearer to see the light shining from the bulb becomes stronger, bringing a light to the first scene of the film. Immediately questions of where we are spring to mind among others too!

The last moment on this bulb shot we hear a door opening (this is the moment where the non-diegetic sound stops and diegetic sound remains for the rest of the clip). A shot change to now behind a dusty shelf of some sort, the shelf is out of focus while what ever is visible is clear. From this shot alone we discover that we must be in a cellar/basement of some sort given by the stairs in the shot heading upwards. From it's appearance we establish that this cellar has faced neglect as it looks old, dusty and dingy, an uncomfortable environment for the audience to imagine themselves in.

Coming down the stairs is a woman in a brightly coloured dress, hair up and high heels and so therefore she seems very much out of place in this environment. Question now are who is she? Where is she? Where has she come from? The woman approaches the out of focus shelf and as she does there is a focus pull of it from its blurred state to then become focussed.
The woman searches what appears to be a wine rack of some sort and the camera cranes to follow her as she searches up and down until the wine she wants is found.

The camera begins a track here onto her face and a sense of fright appears to hit this character, it is as if something is with this woman, something sinister but it looks as if whatever it is remains off screen, out of the vision of the audience. However shots such as the one above and the one below suggest that this woman is somewhat trapped and we get this further sense of fright from this female character here.