Sound-Image and Image-Image Relationships

This scene is from the film The Usual Suspects where Kevin Spacey's character, Verbal, recounts the mysterious and deadly tale of Keyzer Soze's beginnings as a mob boss. It starts with  a closeup of Verbal in the interrogator's office, and the camera slowly zooms out and then circles around Verbal so the audience sees the back of his head and the interrogator's desk. While the camera is circling Verbal, he is saying "the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist." This became one of the most famous and often quoted lines from the film, [spoiler] and was shot perfectly to fit the fact that Verbal is indeed Keyzer Soze. The fact that the viewer is being taken around Verbal with the spinning footage can signify his fluid and changing identity. The clip then cuts to a front shot of Verbal again and flashes to another scene of a depiction of Keyzer Soze coming to find a Hungarian mob attacking his family. The editing until then is very smooth and fluid, yet when the flash back starts the clip is much more choppy and other-worldly. The lighting is much brighter and more mysterious and doesn't ever allow for the audience to see clearly see someone's full face. This fits along with the film, as Verbal is telling a story about a controversial figure that people don't necessarily believe actually exists.

The film cuts from the flashbacks to Keyzer Soze to Verbal's story in the police station, with Verbal's narration behind the visuals. The flashbacks don't have any dialogue, just sound effects that mostly consist of gunshots and a woman screaming. The shots of Keyzer Soze are all very mysteriously composed, with either side shots or dark lighting that don't allow the viewer to see his face. This approach supports the overall goal of the filmmakers to maintain a mysterious aura around this figure and for the viewer to be able to see Verbal as completely innocent the first time and obviously guilty every time afterwards.