Film clip analysis

Movie clip - Dirty Harry (1971)

'Dirty Harry' is a 1971 action thriller by Director Don Siegal, following detective Harry Calahan on the hunt for notorious serial killer 'Scorpio'. The scene takes place near the beginning of the film and sequences the shootout between Harry and escaping bank robbers.
The scene engages the audience by utilising quick cuts between close-ups of the protagonist in shooting position, mid shots of the escaping robbers returning fire and wide shots of the chaos on the street, Which emphasise the speed of the action occuring.
 One particular wide shot in this sequence from above (shown above) shows an over-turned car across a street strewn with rubble. The shot uses non-digetic lighting, although as this scene is set in broad daylight, we can assume this primarily comes from the sun. The mise-en-scene of this shot is uncluttered, although the sparse scattering of rubble implies chaos, our eyes are drawn to the focus of the shot being the over-turned car. The scene also engages the audience through digetic sound of Harry's revolver in shot and the non-digetic sound of people screaming and uncrontrolled sirens adds to the feeling of chaos in the scene. 
 In another shot, we see a close up of Harry's shoulders and head pointing the revolver at the camera. The look of seriousness and anger on his face shows the character of 'Dirty Harry' to be determined and willfully powerful. this shot utilises high key lighting but still shows shadows on one half of his face, showing his character to be an independant anti-hero despite being a the police detective.