Roman Holiday (1953) Dir. William Wyler

Roman Holiday (1953) dir. William Wyler

breaking down the texas chainsaw massacre: the beginning (2006) opening credits

as i promised, here's a post going through tcm 2006's beginning credits frame-by-frame. buckle up, this is pretty damn long.

[3:59] first shot is one of thomas’ baby photos, it’s in black-and-white and very blurry and there’s no date provided, but it looks like he has a unilateral cleft lip on the left side of his mouth (his left, our right).

remember to take this with a grain of salt due to the fact that the fucked-up cgi baby that luda mae picks up out of the dumpster doesn’t seem to have a cleft lip, and his face reveal in the 2003 movie seems to be lacking one too. so this is something that you can choose to include or exclude from your writing imo.

there seems to be a dark line going down from the left corner of his mouth and down his face??? but it could be something superficial on the photo itself.

[4:01] the same photo of thomas shown previously. here the cleft lip is shown in much better detail, and as you can see, it doesn’t extend up to his nostril. this implies that his particular birth defect isn’t all that extreme, which is why i headcanon him to have a unilateral incomplete cleft lip.

looks like he has his “skin disease” by this point, judging by the markings around his mouth. he looks to be merely an infant in this photo, maybe less than one year old.

that mysterious dark scar (?) remains.

[4:05] thomas’ first medical files are shown, unknown date. the text is partially cut off, but i can make out “deteriorating flesh” and “disfigurement” written with circles drawn around the lower left half of his face.

“disfigurement” can be referring to both his cleft lip and whatever birth defect his affecting his lower left jaw.

[4:09] a picture of an older thomas, i’d say between the ages of 3–5. his face is being covered completely by someone else. i’d argue that those are “man hands”, but honestly, it could go either way. i doubt it’s luda mae, due to her fondness towards thomas, but i do believe it’s a hewitt. this would imply that at least one hewitt was ashamed of thomas in his younger years, and didn’t want him to be visible in pictures.

[4:13] more medical files. roughly reads “patient: thomas hewitt, age: 3, [date of] examination: 7/20/??”

if thomas is three years old, it can be assumed that the year is 1942.

[4:15] another picture of thomas, but this time he’s hiding his face on his own. age is harder to discern here, but he’s definitely under 8–10 years old. he’s already learned to be ashamed of his face.

“age: 6” flashes on screen at [4:19], which can imply that thomas was six years old at the time that the previous photo was taken.

[4:20] first live action shot. thomas is touching his face, which looks to have an open, bleeding wound. initially, this shot looked like some sort of scrape or even bite to me (with the torn skin and all), but it may be psoriasis that’s been scratched at, causing the wounds to reopen over and over and become more severe. this would be the beginning of thomas’ self-harming behavior.

[4:24] yet another photo of thomas, older and with his face uncovered. cleft lip doesn’t look present but as i stated, the filmmakers seem to forget about that fact every now and again. he does, however, seem to have scarring on his left cheek from his skin condition. he’s looking away from the camera.

[4:26] more medical files. from what i can make out, they say “… boy suffers from a degenerative facial disease. … birth defect”

[4:29] shot of thomas picking up some sort of blade with the words “tedency towards self-mutilation” popping up on screen. this seems pretty self-explanatory.

[4:37] longer shot of thomas raising the blade to his face and slicing into the flesh of his cheek.

from [4:41] to [4:51], you can see thomas’ face being wrapped up in some sort of guaze/bandage. due to the bandages covering nearly his entire head, i believe that his wounds were far more extreme than the footage actually shows.

during this time, you can here a voice (presumably charlie’s, though r lee ermy also played what we can assume to be luda mae’s husband in the very beginning of the film) telling thomas “don’t worry about it, tommy. you don’t have to look pretty to work down at the slaughterhouse.” this tells me a couple of things: 1.) if this is charlie, this is the first instance of him comforting thomas, which he continues to do throughout the film (while still manipulating him). this shows that charlie, from at least this point on, is a kind older brother figure to thomas. 2.) it’s already being ingrained in thomas that he isn’t pretty, even if that fact is being delivered through reassurance. 3.) he’s already being set up to work at the slaughterhouse, somewhat implying that he drops out of school to start working. with the hewitts’ poverty, i wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.

[4:58] shot of an empty road. “age 9” is overlayed on top of this image, implying that thomas was no older than nine years old when he injured himself and presumably got drawn out of school.

[5:00] very very quick snapshot of a dog (?) carcass, looks like roadkill. thomas is then shown to take interest in the corpse, dragging it away by its tail.

from [5:07] to [5:26], you can see thomas going through the process of creating his first leather mask out of that roadkill. he moves with intention, he doesn’t seem to be skittish or queasy when it comes to corpses and death. there’s a shot of his reflection at [5:20], with only his nose and eyes being visible. they look pretty normal, and you can see that he’s out of his bandages by this point.

[5:28] “12 yrs. old” flashes on screen, again implying that thomas was no older than twelve when he began wearing masks to cover his face.

the frames between [5:31] and [5:37] are hard for me to fully make out, but there looks to be a blade, some sort of flesh, and machinery.

i believe he’s already started working at the slaughterhouse by this point, as at [5:38], you can see thomas trace his fingers over the still blade of a chainsaw—something he later steals from his job in 1969.

his fingers look like they belong to his older self, but i can’t tell exactly when this takes place.

[5:43] thomas takes his apron off of a rack in what i can assume is the slaughterhouse. he’s in his older teens or beyond at this point, i think—his forearms are thick and hairy here, so it’s clear he’s aged significantly.

[5:47] newspaper dated friday, june 9, 1967 flashes on screen, followed by an outside shot of the lee bros meat plant. thomas would be 28 by this point in time.

the meat plant processes not only cows but poultry as well, and was established in 1929.

[5:50] friday, june 9, 1969. exactly two years after the last shot (though in reality, june 9th was a monday that year, but it’s a simple error). here’s what i can read:

MEAT PLANT CONDEMNED, HUNDREDS LEFT JOBLESS

lee bros. meats, fixture (?) of fuller for forty years

unemployment rate near 76% according to mayor clayton

devastating three-year drought has far reaching consequences. some proclaim “second dust bowl”

CLOSED FOR GOOD lee brothers processing plant was … by … on wednesday and forced to suspend all activity on thursday. drought related illness in cattle is sited as the cause of stomach ailments throughout west texas

note: travis county is closer to central-east texas than west texas, so that’s another inconsistency… at this point i don’t know where exactly fuller is.

from what i can understand, a drought had been affecting fuller since 1966. this drought brought sickness to the cattle and other livestock, likely due to undernourishment. this meant less business for the slaughterhouse, which meant less work for the people who worked there, which meant mass unemployment. by the time we reach 1969, there’s over 75% unemployment in fuller and the meat plant finally shuts down.

the article also mentions the meat plant being condemned, which implies that there were underlying safety issues within the building that contributed to its closure.

a dead cow flashes on screen shortly after the shot of the newspaper.

[5:54] okay, this is where the timeline starts jumping around and i don’t like it. according to the friday, march 9, 1968 article of “the fuller bee”, the meat plant is condemned and the town has offically DIED in big, capital letters. this doesn’t make sense, given the article shown literally seconds before and the fact that the audience knows thomas is dismissed from his job in 1969, so i’m choosing to believe this is merely a mistake.

[5:57] newspaper with no date provided, with the headline “DRAFT MORE TROOPS”, likely in reference to the war in vietnam.

shortly after, another headline flashes on screen: “REINSTATED FOR VIETNAM CONFLICT”. this article is dated saturday, december 1, 1969. this is a historical error, as i can’t find anything about the draft being reinstated in 1969. according to wikipedia, the deferment of married men ended suddenly on august 26th, 1965, but that’s the only big change to the draft that i know of around that time. also, if the article was accurate, then it would be reciting events after the film, which takes place in july 1969. you can see why this doesn’t make sense.

from [5:58] to [6:33], thomas can be seen slamming his fist against his baby photos before going on to burn them, with his diagnosis of mental deterioration flashing on screen. i believe this implies that he volunteered for the army, which i already wrote a whole post about here.

these shots are also spliced with scenes of thomas making what i assume to be a new mask. it’s very obviously raw flesh, which by now i know that’s not how leather is Made, but he’s a little freak so what can you expect. maybe this is meant to show thomas leaning in to his shame after being rejected from the army.

this is the longest “scene” by far, showing how the writers really wanted us to know just how much thomas hates himself.

and that’s the end of the opening credits, cutting to july, 1969.

OKAY SO, what have we learned??? here’s a rudimentary tl;dr—

thomas is born 1939 with a cleft lip and possibly an additional birthmark/defect. his “skin disease” looks to be present at birth/in his infancy.

he is diagnosed with “deteriorating flesh” and “disfigurement” by the time he is three years old.

by the age of six, thomas begins showing signs of self-consciousness and low self-esteem.

by the age of nine, thomas has begun engaging in self harm and cuts into his face with a blade, leading to him presumably dropping out of school to work at lee bros. meat processing plant.

by the age of twelve, thomas has begun to use the flesh of roadkill to craft leather masks for himself. i believe he’s also confirmed to be working at the slaughterhouse by this point in time.

a drought hits fuller in 1966 and lasts for at least three years. this drought causes the livestock to become ill, which leads to the closure of the slaughterhouse in 1969. other safety concerns also factor into this closure.

sometime between 1965–1969, thomas volunteers to fight in vietnam but is denied due to his “mental deterioration”. he burns his baby pictures in response.

as we all know, thomas is formally fired in july of 1969. he looks to be the last one left at the slaughterhouse, clinging to the job he’s had for almost twenty years.

i literally went through this fucking film frame-by-frame for this info. i hope this helps at least one of you in your writing!