Jim Emerson, the cinephile who runs rogerebert.com, has posed an interesting movie question:
What are your favorite opening shots?
It’s harder to answer than it sounds.
That’s because Emerson isn’t talking about credit sequences or opening montages; rather, he’s referring literally to the first shot of the movie. As part of Movies 101: Opening Shots Project (via), he has presented his own takes on the first shots of Touch of Evil, The Player, Boogie Nights, Birth, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Barry Lyndon. Now, he’s collecting favorites from readers, which he plans to post on his blog.
Emerson really wants us to discuss the first shot much as we would discuss a still photograph. It’s hard to do that from memory — unless you’ve got a photographic one. Rewatching at least the beginning of the film is pretty much a requirement of playing along.
But it’s a worthwhile exercise; you might find yourself surprised by the first shot in some of your favorite movies. Even if you remember the shot quite clearly, the experience of viewing it changes when you pause the frame and contemplate it as an opening shot.
The interpretative challenge is not only to describe what’s going on in the image, but also to show how it relates to the rest of the film. As Emerson writes, “the opening shot . . . can even be the whole movie in miniature.” An interesting side-question is whether or not it should be.
It’s hard to resist talking about opening sequences as a whole. In my first stab at this post, I succeeded only partially. The first eight reader comments were made before I edited this introduction heavily to make Emerson’s intent more clear. Those who described opening sequences, rather than opening shots, were following my erroneous lead.
Find some of my favorites after the jump. You are welcome to leave your own in the comments. If you want your words to be accompanied by the image you mention, please send me a screenshot.
Even if you comment here, please remember to send your favorite opening shots to Emerson through the email link on his post.
In no particular order:
1. Chinatown
What shot could better convey the debased life of the private dick? Think about it. Jake Gittes gets paid to take long-zoom shots of trysting lovers, only to suffer the spit, sweat, and tears of the man who paid him; and then he has to watch as the man goes on to punch his wall, paw his blinds, and squeal like a stuck pig. That’s no life for a man like Jake. But that ignominy is what the whiskey bottles in the cabinet are meant to salve.
“All right, Curly. Enough’s enough. You can’t eat the Venetian blinds. I just had them installed on Wednesday.”
Like another one of my favorite movies, Out of Sight, Fallen Angels begins with a scene whose meaning is clarified only later in the film. The opening shot makes a few things clear right away: the relationship between these two characters is strained — they can’t bring themselves to look at one another; they have just done, or are about to do, something they might regret; and both of them are better looking than you or I could ever hope to be.
At first, this shot seems gratuitous, until the next one is revealed:
And then we see that we have witnessed a vision of two people in a foreign environment, each very much alone and cocooned in private thoughts, as they hurtle towards a collision that will shake them out of their isolation and into each other’s arms.
Red begins with a phone call: a man picks up a receiver and dials a number. Next to the phone is an image of Irene Jacob, who plays the woman he’s calling. We also see what looks to be a glass of whiskey, a copy of the Economist, and possibly a book by Aldous Huxley.
As we hear the number being dialed, the camera follows the phone line into the wall, through the cable (displayed both literally and abstractly), under the sea, out of the sea, all the way to the switchboard at the other end, where it runs smack into the blinking red light of a busy line.
The sequence captures many themes of film: the missed connections; the play of chance and circumstance in determining the fates of the characters; the distances they maintain between themselves and those they love; and, of course, the color red.
Technically, this shot is part of the opening credits, but I hope you’ll give me a pass because it’s a favorite of mine. I love this shot because of its realness and its abstraction. On one hand, it’s a straightforward image of zither strings being plucked along to Anton Karas’ glorious score. At the same time, it’s an abstract visual composition of vibrating lines whose stark, formal beauty is breathtaking. Like Carol Reed’s film as a whole, its accomplished visual texture only enhances one’s visceral enjoyment of the film.
6. 8 1/2
The first shot of Fellini’s 8 1/2 demonstrates why the dream sequence that opens the film is so justifiably famous. The shot places us behind the back of Guido Anselmi, the lead character played by Marcello Mastroianni, as he’s stuck in a traffic jam. We want to see farther ahead, but his body, and the vehicles around him, obstruct our view. It’s an extraordinarily cluttered shot. The claustrophobia we feel as a result is only heightened as Anselmi looks around him:
Would you look at that?! What a spectacular vision! And it only gets better when Anselmi floats out of his car, only to find himself, in the end, resolutely tethered to the earth.
Well, that’s my opening shot. It’s up to you to complete the work.
19 Comments on "Movies: Favorite Opening Shots"
yoko:
The first movie that sprang to my mind was Touch of Evil, with that long tracking scene down the Mexican street.
upyernoz:
i know it’s a little geeky, but the first thing that popped into my mind was the opening of “the empire strikes back”–an imperial cruiser fills the screen as it flies by, and keeps filling the screen and filling the screen, portraying just how massive those things are supposed to be
actually, i don’t remember the opening scene for a lot of my favorite films. they set the tone for the film, but often subtly and don’t always stick in my head.
Shakespeare's Sister:
Lost in Translation was one of the first that came to my mind, even before I scrolled down to see you’d included it on your list.
I adore the opening of Garden State, in which Braff’s character is sitting silent and still among hysterical people on a descending plane.
I could go on endlessly listing favorites for various aesthetic reasons, but a particular sentimental favorite is the opening of Love, Actually, which is a series of people greeting one another at Heathrow Airport. I love watching people meet at airports, throwing arms around each other’s necks and stepping back to drink in the vision of someone they haven’t seen in ages. And having spent the first part of my relationship with my husband 4,000 miles apart, scenes of people meeting at airports (especially Heathrow) always makes me feel both nostalgic and relieved that we don’t have to do that anymore.
Matt from the Rant:
The opening shot from A Touch of Evil comes to mind as a kick ass, continuous shot that goes on forever.
Christian Slater explaining his fascination with Elvis to a hooker in a bar in True Romance is another favorite.
Memento’s opening shot, with the instant camera picture coming into focus also is brilliant.
Great idea for a list, Matt
Matt:
Thanks, Matt. But I can’t take credit for the idea –that goes to Emerson.
Eli:
I think there’s a bunch of stuff tickling the edge of my consciousness, but the first thing to break through is the opening death scene in Dario Argento’s Suspiria, which may be the best horror movie opening scene ever.
paige:
Wow, great idea. I’ll need to think about it.
eRobin:
Notorious, one of my favorite movies, has my favorite openings. (Wag the Dog has my favorite credit sequence.)
I like the Notorious opening because it’s echoed by the final shot. When the movie opens you get that tracking shot up to the open door of the US District Court room where Alicia’s father is making a final statement to the judge. In the last shot you have Sebastian walking up the stairs to his judgement and the door closes behind him. Hitchcock used doors and doorways throughout the film to signal twists and character. The great romance and the best cast - it’s a perfect film.
Eli:
I like the Notorious opening because it’s echoed by the final shot. When the movie opens you get that tracking shot up to the open door of the US District Court room where Alicia’s father is making a final statement to the judge. In the last shot you have Sebastian walking up the stairs to his judgement and the door closes behind him.
This reminds me slightly of something I almost mentioned earlier: That Big Night (one of my favorite movies) ends with a scene that is completely nonverbal. And Tucci’s next movie, The Impostors, *begins* with a scene that is completely nonverbal.
It’s not exactly on topic, but I thought it was kind of interesting, and presumably not coincidental.
yoko:
D’oh! That’s what I get for not following links.
Uh, I doubt this’ll be on anyone’s list, but I like the opening animated sequences in the Pink Panther movies– sometimes more so than the actual movies themselves.
Jimmy:
Hey Matt,
Ok, this is a tough one and I am going to show my genre prejudices these days; I think I am gonna have to offer up two here, both noirs. The first is The Killers, this one starts with an image David Lynch overused and abused in Lost Highway with none of the effectiveness, in my humble opinion.
This opening shot works as a sequence but it is in essence a single shot played again and again throughout the first 2 minutes or so. If you check out the movie you’ll see the first shot is through the windsheild of an automobile looking out onto the night with just the headlights to illuminate the darkness. Great metaphor simply done for the greatest of genres, so that gets my first vote.
A closely related second, and a nod to Aldrich’s brilliant sense of intertextuality, is the opening shot of Kiss Me, Deadly, which plays off The Killers.
This shot is of a horrified woman framed by headlights on a dark, deserted highway with her arms out-stretched wide. I also think of these two movies closely linked for their unrelenting violence and brutality that always seemed to me the darkest of American noirs, and these opening shots reinforce that logic simply and quite powerfully -no frupous aesthetics just sheer will and power!
I’ll send you links to the frames when I can sneak into Miles’ room and get my DVD stash …
thanks for letting me blab about movies, you know I love that!
Lance Mannion:
Great picks, Matt.
My favorite is the opening of MASH when the cameras pick up the helicopters skimming the hills and the one wounded solider’s arm is flopping out of the stretcher. The whole sequence that follows is great in the way it sets up the confusion and awfulness of triage and the desperate competence of the nurses and the doctors. All of it done in long shot and in silence except for the theme song, Suicide is Painless.
The opening sets the stage for Hawkeye’s entrance, strolling happily into the center of the screen. He’s an answer to the confusion, someone who is going to make sense of it, stand up to it, maybe do some good. But we also know what he’s about to become a part of —an ensemble, he’s one of a group of overwhelmed heroes and heroines. It’s practically Altman’s statement of purpose for all his future films: We’re all in this together, we’re all part of the ensemble, even the heroes, we all need help, and there’s a limit to the good we can do.
Jimmy:
Matt,
I actually left Virginia in a whirlwind on Sunday morning and have only been able to find the first shot fromKiss, Me Deadly!, which I found on Alain Silver’s website. You can see it here.
As for The Killers opening shot, I just didn’t have the time to get it, and now I am in NYC away from my collection. Do you know anyone who has that DVD and might be self-sacrificing enough to take a screen shot ? (Hint, wink, wakka wakka!)
This whole thing started me thinking about another thread we could throw out there: “Who are your favorite Film Thugs of all time?”:
Mine are definitely the two killers in the opening sequence of the 1946 version of the The Killers; Max (Willian Conrad) and Al (Charles McGraw) -”hey, smart boy!” The Coen Bros. definitely refashion these characters again and again in their films; I am thinking Barton Fink and Miller’s Crossing for starters.
Now, if I were to be lucky enough, and you indulgent enough, to choose another film thug, well, then Ronnie Reagan in the the 1964 version of the same film would be a close second. Not only because he is a far cry from the Gipper, but because this role for him was more than just acting, it was a window onto the future of the nation 20 years hence!
History is strange, but movies are even stranger because they capture it in some ineffable way.
Matt:
Screenshots added, Jimmy.
Having a regular cinema thread seems like a good thing to do. It will be a fun thing to do on Fridays . . . I’ve been looking for something to replace the random ten. Film thugs will be first — great topic.
I love all of these opening shot comments — thanks, everyone for contributing. And keep ‘em coming!
But please don’t forget to submit your thoughts to the Scanners site, as well.
Lizzy:
This first shot is taken from a relatively unknown movie titled Harrison’s Flowers. The shot begins with us viewing the travelling bag of Harrison and then we see his camera. The way the camera is placed on the backpack is repeated later in the movie. While the character is fictious, the movie is based on the real events that took play in former Yugoslavia in 1991. The world watched Dubrovnik burn but not many photos were taken in Vukovar by photojournalists because it was impossible to get in there. 48 photojournalists died during 1991-1995 in Yugoslavia trying to capture the reality.
Mark Drewe:
A real quick correction on Matt’s Memento opening shot: It doesn’t come into focus, it actually plays in reverse and goes from showing (spoiler, but honestly, if you haven’t seen this movie, shame on you) Teddy/Jon Gamble’s body on the basement floor to just starting to go in focus. Given how the whole movie plays in 10 minutes backwards, it gives that away, easy.
But it also shows the kind of difficulty that Leonard Shelby has with life, basically reliving his wife’s death every 20 minutes and trying to piece together the current by photos from the past. No idea of where he is, what he’s done, how long it’s been. All he has is the past to develop the future… the photo just looks like a murder at first, but when it fades away, it symbolizes how, as Leonard says to Natalie, and the hotel clerk, “everything just fades.” Brilliance. (This is also my absolute favourite movie of all time, and I know basically everything their is to know, cinematics-wise. So go ahead.. quiz me, haha)
I also have to add a smaller, not really well known film by Pitof (For those who don’t know who Pitof is, he directed the train wreck that is Catwoman.. but don’t let that discourage you from watching his first directed film), called Vidocq. It’s all in french, and although the story isn’t particularly memorable on it’s own, the film’s cinematics (Pitof’s speciality) are beyond any doubt, the best I’ve ever seen in a film. The opening shot of this film has a reflection of the glassworks, where the film starts and ends - a CU shot, where you can see a worker crafting the object in focus in an orb-like shape.
Given the mask that the film is set around, I feel like this symbolizes all the “two sides to everyone” that the whole film emphasizes.
By the way, if you haven’t seen it, it’s an EXCELLENT mystery film.
Anyway, there’s more, but I’ll abstain for now.
Mark
Matt:
oh, don’t hold back, Mark. Hit us with the knowledge! And if you want screenies up there with your comments, send ‘em along.
@Lizzy: so happy you’ve contributed!
dan lokey:
Dont know where I am. I liked the opening of Omega Man, with Charlton Heston. Anyway, what I really want to know: Its always been my theory that the opening of True Romance was actually the end & that Alabama was killed in the hotel shootout. This just makes more sense to me. You cant have a happy ending to a movie whose main charachter gets his best friend , his dad killed and his girlfriend almost killed because of his own vanity?? Also… is the hooker in the opening Katherine Delish. a two time vegas showgirl award winner ? I only ask cuz in nineteen 87 I spilled coke on her in a strip club a decade before she won any prizes.
J. Swift:
God I love 8 1/2.
Lovely screen grabs you’ve thrown up too. The opening dream sequence is amazing.
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