After Hours (Martin Scorsese) Title Sequence Analysis

 After Hours (Martin Scorsese) Title Sequence Analysis

A New York office worker finds himself in somewhat farcical and unbelievable circumstances when he partakes on a date with a beautiful woman. It is a comedy movie, going under the genre of Black Comedy. 

The first scene in this title sequence is of a man, standing in front of two wide gates, slowly opening up while a bell loudly chimes in the background. This gives the viewer the impression that the man is an early bird, who likes to get into work early. However, this is no ordinary man. The man is dressed well in a suit however, is covered in this white unknown white powder smothered all over himself. This lets the audiences mind run free as to wondering what this white powder could be and why he hasn’t cleaned himself up. He then arrives in the office through an elevator, casually as if he isn’t covered in white powder. This makes the man look mentally challenged, or possibly clinically insane as he is attempting to completely play off the fact that he looks extremely dirty and scruffy. Even inside the building the bell is still chiming. This further reinforces the fact that he is somewhat insane, through the possibility that he is hearing things. 

When the man sits down at his desk, the words “good morning Paul” come up on his computer, and this is the first time the viewer knows what this man is called. Fast, classical styled music starts to fade in as the camera zooms out from Paul and does a 360 around his sitting position. This gives the viewer more of an idea where Paul is and what the working condition is like. It also makes Paul look like a number in a system as all the desks are exactly the same with no personalisation. This represents the strict and expressionless nature of Paul’s job. The camera continues to move, however, now through the gap of these desks, showing the scale of how many workers there are in this company. There are people around Paul and they are not batting an eye to the condition he is currently in, making it seem as if it is a regular occurrence that someone comes in, in a bad condition. Throughout this scene, the names of the actors and other key staff members are presented. The classical music in this scene is a large juxtaposition as it is not the typical music you would put in an office environment such as this. This makes the scene feel eery, and as if there is something afoot in the office.