This is a textual analysis of the First episode of the TV Series ‘Luther’, it is the style of film that My group and I will be going for. So I decided to analyse this specific episode because it has everything in it to draw in its audience.

In the first scene we have a crane shot of a man running away from someone, making it difficult to tell who is the Villain is. When they get to the top of the stairs the look into each other’s eyes, only showing the eyes of Luther, as he looks very angry. It makes it look like he is the bad guy in all of this then when Henry falls Luther seems to be looking for a child that has gone missing, revealing that he is not the Villain and in fact the hero if the situation. But being a Police officer as it is revealed he should be helping this man to save him from falling, but with it being a touchy matter about children it plays with the audience’s minds and makes them unaware if Luther is doing the right thing by letting him fall. This is the kind of thing that drawn the audience in by making them doubt themselves, and after Henry falls Luther does the exact same thing. He doesn’t know if it was right.

As soon as that scene finishes, there is an establishing shot of London. Which makes the idea of it being very real for people leaving in cities and suburban areas, as the majority of the show is shot in the centre of London. Making the audience recognise the setting and in a way makes the think it is a real life issue that happens in local areas.

When Luther and his ‘Side kick’ Ripley first meet they go to the scene of another crime, the camera work and sounds(dialogue) allows us to see that Luther is in charge of this man. The camera always puts Luther above Ripley in all of the shots and makes him taller, showing authority. Also the way Luther speaks to him in the dialogue, he tells him what to do and clearly shows him that he is the boss. But also at the same time as Ripley is clearly on the same page and understands this, we notice an instant connection between them both which immediately makes the audience be on their side.

Further sound that implicated a heroic state in Luther is when he notices that the supposed Victim in this instance is actually the Villain, as soon as he realises there is some heroic music that clears up that we should be on the side of the Luther, this is exactly the kind of idea that I like within a film/tv. When at the beginning you are unsure whether the hero is the hero, and it unveils later. Bit by bit in the first 30 minutes of the first episode it draws audience evidence that Luther is the good guy.

After realising that Luther is the hero we are then introduced to the issues he has with his wife where she has met somebody else, and she is in the middle of telling Luther that she has. The editing and camera work allows us to see the change in mood of Luther and the potential of an anger outburst that he has inside of him, that there is a side to him that nobody wants to mess with, we realise this when he is smashing the house up. It is cleverly edited to show close ups and long shots of Luther, to display his anger and sadness.

Although I feel it helps for the audience to empathise with him, but it also allows them to see there is a darkside to him that we will see later on possibly in a bad way, it draws us in more.

At the end of the episode we see the villain roaming free, and she goes to visit the original villain that Luther let fall in hospital, revealing that she is going to be a villain throughout more than just this episode, lending on a cliff hanger that draws the audience to watch more. This is a clever aspect that we plan to use in our film possibly.