Why are film openings important?
Like when we meet new people, we want to leave an impression. Film openings are used to establish an overall tone of the film. Film openings are used to build curiosity and interest for the audience to finish the film. The audience also rely on the opening sequence on whether a movie will be mediocre and cliché because of common themes and elements that movie creators will use. Often, the audience can guess the overall narrative of the story if the creators give away too much spoilers in opening, thus, leading them to not finish the film and just assume what will happen.
Movie #2
Title: Black Swan
Distributor: Fox Searchlight Pictures
Productions Companies: Cross Creek Pictures, Protozoa Pictures, Phoenix Pictures, Dune Entertainment
Year of Release: 2010
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, and Winona Ryder.
The film opens with the introduction of the distributor and production companies. The background music will give an assumption and association that the distributor is 20th Century Fox. However, it's Fox Searchlight Pictures, a company originally owned by 20th Century Fox. The company is now one of the many acquired companies by Walt Disney, thus it's now known as “Searchlight Pictures” (adapted as of January 2020). It then fades to black and the logo of Cross creek pictures is shown. As the logo fades, a striking violin background music plays. This background is sustained and although their logos were not shown, the production companies of Protozoa Pictures and Phoenix Pictures are recognized by a simple font on a black background. Eventually, using another fade to black transition, the title “Black Swan” is revealed.
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The sound of the violin, with a hint of flute and cello, is sustained through the usage of L-cut. The scene transitions using a fade to black then a gradual cool light of a spotlight from the left frame. The filmmakers utilized this lighting to produce a dramatic entrance of the character, along with framing her in the center. Additionally, the reflection of the character creates a more dramatic effect as we can only see her body position, and her face is not seen clearly. The filmmakers establish a dramatic entrance by using the sustained sound of instruments and the way they composition the character in the scene’s frame.
A close-up shot is used to show the character’s feet. This is used to highlight that she is wearing pointe shoes, this type of shoes is specific to ballet dancers. This close-up shot is sustained for about 20 seconds, and she does the pointe technique. This action code (Barthes) helps the audience to establish a narrative that this character is knowledgeable in the field of ballet dancing because for a dancer to do the pointe technique it takes about 4 years of rigorous ballet lessons.
The face of the character is finally revealed when she sits down. Although the film heavily used a grainy, cool, low-key lighting, we can still distinguish that she has a soft and feminine face. She is also wearing a white tutu dress. The color white is a symbolic code (Barthes) of purity and innocence.
The scene quick cuts to her back, and the way they framed her implied isolation. Additionally, a handheld shot is used to create a feeling of disorientation, indicating that something eerie is about to take place.
True enough, a man appears on the stage. His face has a strong contour that makes him look a little frightening. It also creates multiple binary oppositions (Levi-Strauss) such as man-woman and innocent-evil. The black costume he is wearing symbolizes evil and despair. The man spins and his costume transforms into him wearing devil horns and black feathers.
The way they choreographed the man and woman’s dance establishes a feeling of unease for the woman. The dance is used as a semantic code (Barthes) to show how the man who represents evil is trying to dominate purity and innocence that is represented by the woman wearing white.
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The dance scene ends by using a fade to black transition. The scene fades to a close-up shot of the ballet dancer, she is lying on the bed and just woke up. The diegetic sound of the door creaking implied that someone opened her door. A warm lowkey lighting coming from the left is also utilized to imply that someone opened the door and light from outside her room illuminates her face.
She quickly sat down to stand. Another close-up shot of her feet is shown, along with a foley of her toes making a slight crack. With this, they establish a narrative that the movie will involve a lot of dancing elements. It then quick cuts to a wide-angle shot of her doing some stretching. Through this shot, we can see her physique which is a stereotypical (Representation; Stuart Hall) body of ballet dancers.
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By now, it is well established that the ballet dancer is the protagonist of the film. While a close-up shot of her stretching she finally gets her dialogue. She appears to talk with the person who opened her room. This is implied when this character crosses the camera and is reflected on the mirror that was in front of the ballerina. However, this creates an enigma (Barthes) because the face was not shown. The audience will now be curious who is the ballerina talking to?
Going back to her line, she said “I had the craziest dream last night... I was dancing the white swan”.This line from the protagonist serves as foreshadowing. The audience are given hint that later in the movie, she possibly will be dancing as the white swan. Although not specified, the context of her being a ballet dancer is enough to understand that she is not talking about a literal white swan. The protagonist being a ballet dancer is enough for us to have a cultural aka referential code (Barthes). She is referring toSwan Lake, one of the popular ballets of all time created by Tchaikovsky. Her dialogue is then followed by a lot of ballet choreography jargon. This strengthens the establishment of her character as a ballet dancer.
Finally, the scene jump cuts to a plate with half a grapefruit and one hardboiled egg. This implies that as a ballet dancer, the protagonist follows a strict diet to maintain her physique.
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