Once Upon a Time in America - Intertextual references

When recently watching a clip of the crime thriller Once Upon a Time in America, I noticed particular shots that are used which connote suspense and tension perfectly. This is a powerful film where the characters hide behind their tough exteriors and only show repressed emotions. Sergio Leone establishes the genre of the film with brute force, due to powerful close up shots and tilt shots.For example this worm's eye tilt shot of Noodles taken from point of view of Joe enables the audience to be positioned with the character, leading them to feel vulnerable. As it includes the audience into what's happening they would feel more afraid of the dominant character as they are beneath him. This gives the male character in the shot more power as not only is he highest and biggest part of the shot, you also see him holding a gun towards another direction meaning he is dominating the whole scene. We could incorporate a shot like this one in our thriller as during it there is a victim who is being dragged across the ground, so therefore the camera could be at the position of the victim looking up at it's assailant. This would entice fear as the audience would be put in the position of the victim leaving them feeling as vulnerable as the victim is. The worms eye point of view shot could also be used to show a identifiable object on the victim's assailant so the audience can identify with that character. As, in this shot you notice the character wearing a black trilby hat which is also shown in the classic thriller The Third Man This shows that the character of Noodles is trying to disguise himself, this is because the crime of deviant act that they committed should be kept secret. This connotes mystery and could make them the enigma because they  do not want their real identity to be found out.

The use of close ups in this film are very important as in this particular shot they engage the audience to the horror of what's happening.Also, this close up shot enables the audience to notice the characters emotions, and also allows them to clearly see how awfully hurt he is meaning that who done it to him must be menacing violent people. So therefore a representation of violence is shown here. Close ups like this would be good to use in our thriller because there is a shot where the victim is laying either unconscious or dead on the ground, so a close up shot of her face could be shown to engage the audience into what's happening.