The opening titles of "The Fugitive" immediately set the tone and reveal the film's themes of pursuit and danger. The title is shown with a flashing flashlight, foreshadowing that the main character will be pursued. The blue font titles are accompanied by police sirens, signaling that police will play a major role. Establishing shots of Chicago give a sense of location and coincide with the implied narrative of searching for someone in the city. Violent black-and-white images of an attack, paired with diagetic police sirens, imply danger and suspense without revealing details. The film quickly introduces Helen Kimble as she is attacked, though the audience does not know who she is yet. Her brutal death

1. AndrewGoldman A-LEVELMEDIA STUDIES
The Fugitive opens with clever titles which immediately reveal the overall themes that run
throughout the film and the genre. A clever effect the film uses on the title ‘The Fugitive’ is
an accompanied flashlight over the words which foreshadow the films events and infer to
the audience that ‘The Fugitive’ will be pursued thus narrowing down and highlighting the
films genre – thriller.
The opening font titles which reveal the actors and filmtitle are significant as they are
coloured blue and are accompanied with diagetic police siren sounds. This is an interesting
feature as the audience can infer that police will play a significant role in the movies
narrative as their involvement is outlined in the beginning and with their presence
dominating the titles of the actors and ‘The Fugitive’ title. After this we see accompanying
shots of an attack and murder being shown with establishing shots of Chicago – which give
the audience a sense of location and also coincides with the implied narrative of the film
(looking for someone in this city). Black and white saturation of attack images suggests dark
events happening - this is shown also by the violent nature of the images paired with more
diagetic police sirens and synchronous sound, none of which imply anything other than
danger and suspense. This all implies dark events happening – done to again show the films
tone and genre and get the audience immediately involved in the story.
Another way in which we as the audience are thrust into the story is the quick introduction
of characters. We are immediately introduced to the character Helen Kimble as she is being
attacked however as a result of the movie being only one minute old we don’t know who
she is. Nonetheless the prominent close up shots of her being attacked give the audience
that this characters involvement in the film will not be one of positive features. We can infer
this down to the brutality of the scene, the eerie music and police sirens that accompany it
and the characters immediate death – which much like the opening graphics are dominated
by connotations of police influence as the shot of her dead connotes a crime scene
photograph.
Note here the prominence of the police, physical and immaterial