A scholarship student at Oxford becomes obsessed with a beautiful, aristocratic classmate. He gets invited to spend the summer at the family's vast English country estate, where the full extent of his obsession comes out. Emerald Fennell's film is an extravagant psychological thriller about class envy, desire and the predator who acts like prey.
Saltburn is a 2023 thriller and drama film directed by Emerald Fennell. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (3 narrative and 1 cinematography), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, The Brutalist uses several of the same techniques.
Building the whole plot on one character's fixation with a person, goal or rival. Every scene ties back to it, and the obsession keeps feeding itself while it destroys them.
How this film uses it
Every scene in Saltburn is shaped by Oliver's obsession with Felix and the Catton family. Each gesture, lie and seduction comes out of a hunger the film hides from you until the final act.
Where to see it
Oliver watching Felix in the bath at Saltburn, then drinking the bathwater. The scene shows how far his obsession goes.
Saving a reveal for the climax that changes the meaning of every scene before it. You have to rebuild the whole film in your head with the new knowledge.
How this film uses it
Late in the summer, Felix visits Oliver's family home and learns that his sympathetic backstory was made up. The final act shows that his vulnerability was an act all along. You have been identifying with him, and this trick of structure turns that against you.
Where to see it
Felix at Oliver's family home in Prescot, where he finds out that the story of Oliver's troubled family was invented. Oliver stays calm like someone who has already won.
Using the full width of a very wide 2.35:1 frame to set small human figures against huge, empty landscapes. All that empty space makes the characters look isolated and insignificant.
How this film uses it
Linus Sandgren shot Saltburn on 35mm film in the boxy 1.33:1 frame. The format gives Saltburn the look of a classic English country house film: beautiful, sun-soaked and composed. Meanwhile, the story takes apart everything that visual tradition implies about class and belonging.
Where to see it
The summer party sequences at Saltburn. They are shot in golden light in the square 1.33:1 frame, so the estate looks like a painting. That beauty is deliberately set against the moral decay underneath.
Using a party or celebration as the place where normal rules are dropped and characters show who they really are. Afterwards, order often comes back down hard.
How this film uses it
The Catton family's summer parties and birthday celebrations are where class performance and erotic tension collide. Wealth makes a lot of things permissible, and Oliver adjusts his transgressions to fit.
Where to see it
Oliver's birthday party at the end of the summer. The rules of the estate briefly dissolve, and Felix is found dead the next morning.
Questions
Saltburn: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does Saltburn use?
CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in Saltburn (2023): Obsession as Structural Engine, Retroactive Reframing Revelation, Anamorphic Scope Composition and The Party as Transgression.
Who directed Saltburn?
Emerald Fennell directed Saltburn, released in 2023. CineCode also covers Promising Young Woman (2020).
What films are similar to Saltburn?
Films that share techniques with Saltburn include The Brutalist (2024), The Master (2012), Marnie (1964), The Hateful Eight (2015).
