analysis of a film openings

This opening to 'Get Carter' is  narrative opening.

With sound as soon as the opening starts a non diegetic sound of a train as if it is heading to a collision is heard. The sound immediately makes me think that there is going to be a lot of action in this film. The sound of the train could indicate that a major scene in this movie is going to be shot on a train. But the main idea you get from the train sound is that the film is going to have a lot of action in it. After, non diegetic music is played for a pretty long time. The music played seems very suspicious and mysterious. The speed of the music is also key as it has a fast tempo to it, it sets the pace to the film meaning that the film is going to be full on and action packed. Both the train sound and music link in well together.

With mise en scene there is hardly any lighting creating again a suspicious atmosphere. Lighting can indicate whether the film is going to be happy or sad but this type of lighting indicates that the film is going to have a bit of both in it as there is a slight bit of natural lighting which is coming from the windows of the train. The dominance of the dark lighting makes the audience think that there is going to be a regular occurrence of bad/sad things in this film. The suit the character is wearing makes him look serious that he means business, but not ordinary business, because of the build of the man it makes it look like personal business. The dark sunglasses and car usually indicate that the person who owns them is a villain but the contrast of the suit drags away the 'he is definitely a villain' look.

There is only one character the camera films throughout the opening. The amount of face time he receives makes everyone clear that he is the main character. A close up on stallone when he is sitting on the train is to give the audience a clear view on who the character is and emphasise the seriousness the character poses. Most close ups re used to show the audience who the character is and then once the audience verify the actor they tend to find figure out what kind of film they are watching, with stallone most movies are action. There is a mid shot after when stallone is tapping on the window, it shows that he is getting frustrated with the long travel and the frustration shows that he just cant wait to get his hands on someone. When stallone gets of the train a low angle and slow motion is used, the low angle is used to show again his seriousness, while the slow motion and pan down, lets the audience get a good look at the character.

A constant edit on either side of the screen like bluryness shows and emphasises what importance stallone is in this movie, it more or less blocks out everything around him. Finally the way the title sequences come on and off the screen cleverly link in with the opening, everything seems serious and the title sequences come of and on the screen like they do on army console games. That seems to indicate that there will be violent scenes coming up in the movie.