the usual suspects (1994): lighting & camera angles

• The opening scene of a film is extremely important for setting the tone of the story, and The Usual Suspects (1994) does not disappoint. The movie opens in extremely high-contrast, gritty lighting and color-- a trademark of dramatic, suspenseful movies. The flames contrasted with the dark atmosphere creates a hell-like environment. Keyser Sozë is filmed from below, creating a low-angle shot that contributes to his dominance and supremacy in the wreckage of the ship. The snakelike ropes all over the deck of the ship symbolize deceit and the devil, setting the stage for Keyser's debut.

• The film also uses the faces of the characters to maximize its lighting direction. In the scene where Verbal is first questioned, his head is lit from above like a skull. In art (i.e. vanitas skill lifes) and literature (for example, Yorick's skull in Shakespeare's Hamlet), skulls have served as a reminder of death and the fleetingness of mortality. This lighting ties Verbal to death and places him, in a sense, above the police officers and FBI agents questioning him-- in alignment, again, with the devil and with death, the collector of happiness and success. 

• As Verbal, Keaton, McManus, Fenster, and Hockney meet McManus's friend Redfoot at the isolated temple after he tricks them, the faces of McManus and his men are lit from underneath. This is used to make characters look gruesome and menacing. This, combined with the low-angle shot, asserts that they are angry, powerful, and seeking to gain control of the encounter.

• When Hockney opens the back of the truck full of money, he turns to glimpse the figure standing before him just after he is shot. The camera focuses on a big close-up shot of his face in which he revolves into a light, illuminating his face from right to left as he looks at the figure wide-eyed. This change in lighting symbolizes truth as it finally dawns on Hockney exactly who Keyser Sozë is-- literally "shedding some light" on the situation.