Gone Girl Title Analysis

Gone Girl
The movie begins with distinct eerie, droning music playing over the production company titles and throughout the opening title sequence, This use of non-diegetic sound captivates the movies suspicious atmosphere, leading the audience into a state of suspense. The opening close-up shot fades in from a black screen and is of the protagonist's hair being stroked. This action's tone is manipulated to seem somewhat sinister because the shot is from the perspective of the person stroking the hair, as if they are watching the woman and stroking her without her knowing. This follows the typical thriller narrative of being watched which makes the audience uncomfortable with the situation.

The non-diegetic voice over informs us it is her husband, which makes this scene more comforting and loving than creepy. Although during the voice over the husband explains how he imagines “cracking her skull [and] spooling her brains on the floor.” Our perception of the husband is now that he is psychotic because of the nature in which he described his wife’s death so calmly, as if it was normal. A sane person wouldn't do this and so we are led to believe he is psychotic and this conforms to the genre’s conventions, as psychos are common thriller characters. The effect of this on the audience is that it adds an element of danger and excites them. This psychotic line conveys death very graphically, this conforms to the thriller genre, as death is a typical narrative, however because the husband describes it with excruciating detail it is borderline horror as it is fairly gory imagery for the audience who will be tense at this moment. For this reason it develops the typical narrative of death, but does not challenge it because the overall effect is not conforming to the horror genre. During the shot the wife turns round in shock, as if she is unaware of who is stroking her. Although we’ve already established it is her husband stroking her hair, so she must be turning around because she is scared of her husband. This suggests there is a reason for her fear, which could be her husband’s unpredictability, and so this idea of him being psychotic is brought up again. The tension rises because something could happen any moment.

The editing of Gone Girl’s opening sequence has used a lot of fade transitions and animations to portray the vanishing of the protagonist. To begin with all the shots fade but once the main title has been shown all the shots have a much faster pace and just cut without any animated transition between them. This is when shots of the barren town are shown to suggest an unfortunate event has happened, which is most likely the death or disappearance of the girl. Constant shots of the town keep suggesting the idea of isolation, a key theme in the thriller genre. The husband is portrayed as isolated in the final scene of the opening sequence when he stands outside his house alone, confused and as if he’s looking for something or someone. This suggests to the audience that he may be more caring than previously portrayed, as he is worried about where his wife is. The fade animations on all the text in the opening sequence have a different meaning to the fading shots. All the text fades in and out except for the main title, which does fade in but disappears differently. When the title “Gone Girl” vanishes it doesn’t just fade it appears to be covered by a mist, then reappear before being covered by the mist again? This doesn’t just suggest the girl is gone or dead, it shows she has vanished but is still alive, just like the title. When the fog covered it that didn’t mean it no longer existed, it just meant it wasn’t visible. This idea could be the husband’s state of mind and hope that drives him to find his wife. This portrays the husband as a detective (another typical thriller character) trying to solve a mystery, another typical thriller narrative but more so puts the suggestion of a red herring in the film.  Earlier on the idea that the husband could be psychotic killer was brought up, so him trying to find her could all be one big diversion to the audience as it makes them believe he’s innocent and portraying the husband as even more unlawful.