How is suspense created in the film you watched in class?

Marathon Man

Marathon Man (1976) was a successful film, made in America by one of the 'Big Six' production companies in Paramount Pictures. Director William Goldman dictates film proceedings whereas Actor Dustin Hoffman takes lead role portraying his character Thomas 'Babe' Levy. There are many scenes in Marathon man with heightened stages of suspense, the director uses all methods and techniques to get the audience imminently in suspense. When using mise-en-scene, camera, sound and editing the suspense scenes bring anxiety and tension. I have chosen three prominent and significant scenes in Marathon Man in which the director uses a plethora of techniques ending in immense anxiety making it a classic thriller to be remembered.

Although there are many scenes that involve suspence the first scene which truly brings suspense to the audience would be the bathroom scene. After having had his brother murdered, the scene begins and we find the main character Babe laying in his bath tub, we are able to see he is in a very vulnerable position, it then becomes evident to us that he gets to a stage of fear when the camera goes into a close up which establishes his facial expression of despair. The camera is at Babes height as he stares at the door, this brings the effect of putting us right in his situation, the director then uses diegetic sound only that of what we see in the scene. As we can only hear the sounds in the scene in diegetic sound we are brought to focus on what is happening, for exampple as Babe breathes heavily we understand his stage of anxt, also as the door is being cracked open the sound almost looms in the audiences ears as we become tense as to what is going to happen.

Another significant scene is the attempted assassination of the agent with the use of a dolly in a pram, the scene is entirely focused on portraying negativity, the simple use of making the pram black means that it depicts death. The sound in this scenes lingers, the wheels from the pram forces the audience into full concentration with an escalating sense of foreboding tension. The usual image of a doll has been eliminated, by selecting a sinister image for the doll the image portrays a bad message, when reaching the top of the climax in suspense the buggy then explodes.

The next scene involving suspense is the scene in the room where Babe is clearly in masses of pain, slowly as we see the guard looking towards babe the camera is on focus only on him, we then realise a figure behind him getting closer, this brings curiosoty later helping towards suspense. The director this time uses non diegetic sound, as the detective approaches slowly the audience knowing the minimalist sounds could blow his cover the director uses pulses of sound acting almost as a heartbeat creating tension. When the detective enters the room there is a track of computerised piano sound which sounds strange and creepy.

Overall the director uses a plethora of techniques to keep the audience in suspense throughout the whole film, in different scenes we see different types of effects used to keep the audience tense.