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Joe Blevins 
"Don't I look handsome?"
Arlington Heights, IL USA
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 Posted - 24/09/2006 : 17:47:54
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Here's an interesting project, cataloguing the famous opening shots of certain movies:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/opening_shots_project/
Sadly, the project's creator Jim Emerson seems to have abandoned this project for the time being. I would have liked to see him transform this from a blog into a more organized site, searchable by title, but that seems unlikely now. Like FWFR, the OSP offers a new and unique way of looking at certain familiar movies. Plus it takes images from movies and presents them out of context as stand-alone works of art.
The site has pretty much mentioned all the obvious famous opening shots, but I like it when lesser-known shots get some recognition, too. That being said, are there any opening shots YOU have always particularly admired or found intriguing?
Some of my favorites not mentioned on the site:
* Blood For Dracula aka Andy Warhol's Dracula: A pale, colorless Dracula (Udo Kier) paints life into his face and hair with make-up and black lacquer. We watch as Udo Kier transforms himself into Dracula, casually showing us his fangs when he applies color to his lips. At the end, director Paul Morrissey turns the camera around to show us that Dracula's been primping in a mirror all this time -- even though he casts no reflection -- and we watch a seemingly empty chair push itself backwards.
* Shock Treatment: The much-maligned semi-sequel to Rocky Horror starts with a really intricate, unbroken shot which starts with a freeze frame of a mysterious man in the control booth of a TV studio. The shot unfreezes and pulls back to show the previously empty studio coming to life. We follow crew members as they prepare for the big opening number ("Denton USA"), then watch as the audience filters in. We focus on two members of the audience (Brad and Janet) as they take their seats in the audience risers, and the camera winds up right back at the mysterious control booth where it started. It must have been a nightmare to shoot -- all the more impressive when you consider the movie's budget had been slashed dramatically due to a writers strike.
* Desperate Living: What can be said here? It opens with an overhead shot of a fancy dinner table, and we watch as a maid serves her employer a sauteed rat, complete with garnish. How often can you describe a scene in a movie as disgusting yet elegant? Well, here it is. A dead rat, served as haute cuisine -- only in a John Waters film. (Though it is somewhat similar to the rat on a silver platter from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?) |
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GHcool
"Forever a curious character."
Los Angeles, CA, USA
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Posted - 24/09/2006 : 18:48:12
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I'd add:
* Forrest Gump - a CGI feather floats down from the sky through traffic and lands next to Forrest sitting at a bus stop where he picks it up and places it in his suitcase of mementos. The feather is propelled by the wind, or is it fate? Its a metaphor for the entire film.
* Psycho - after some great opening credits by Saul Bass, we see a panaramic shot of Phoenix that slowly pushes into the window of Marion Crane's apartment.
* The Godfather - the "I believe in America" plea to Don Corleone. The underlighting, the dolly out, the speech itself, and the delivery by the actor all make it exteremly memorable. |
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randall 
"I like to watch."
NYC, USA
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Posted - 24/09/2006 : 19:58:53
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All very good choices. I think STAR WARS rings my bell the loudest...as the critic said, it gives you the David-and-Goliath story in an instant, and it also says "we're gonna have some FUN today!"
Then there are the tour de forces like BOOGIE NIGHTS and THE PLAYER, which are mostly just showing off... |
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benj clews 
"...."
United Kingdom
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Posted - 24/09/2006 : 20:46:12
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I love Forrest Gump's opening shot, too (the pedant in me wants to point out it wasn't a cgi feather, mind- just a regular one filmed against greenscreen). Anyone notice the exact same trick pulled in Robert Zemeckis's recent production Monster House?
I'd also add Fight Club's camera panning backwards from the nerve centre of Edward Norton's brain, out of a pore, down his nose and up the length of a gun lodged in his mouth.
EDIT: Bollocks- just noticed it's already listed  |
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mampers11
"Lazy Lebowski Loses Rug"
U.K.
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Posted - 24/09/2006 : 20:55:58
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What about the opening shot of Raging Bull? The B/W of a man training and shadow boxing amongst one of the most recognisable soundtracks in film history?
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ChocolateLady 
"Cecilia Tessieri, maître chocolatier"
Israel
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Posted - 25/09/2006 : 06:28:39
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Well, as far as editing goes, nothing beats the dance number at the opening of All That Jazz, especially the part where they have the dancers doing the spins. Amazing opening and the music - George Benson's version of "On Broadway" - is fantastic.
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thefoxboy
"Four your eyes only."
Eastern Suburbs, Melbourne, Australia
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Posted - 25/09/2006 : 06:59:44
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What about the great 'opening' shot in Basic Instinct? |
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GHcool
"Forever a curious character."
Los Angeles, CA, USA
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Posted - 25/09/2006 : 07:04:23
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quote:
Originally posted by thefoxboy
What about the great 'opening' shot in Basic Instinct?
LOL!  |
Edited by - GHcool on 25/09/2006 07:04:42 |
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ChocolateLady
"Cecilia Tessieri, maître chocolatier"
Israel
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Posted - 25/09/2006 : 07:47:02
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By the way, although the film was only so-so, I did enjoy the opening to Lemmony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events only because it was probably the best way to adapt the book's opening that I've ever seen.
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redPen
"Because I said so!"
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Posted - 25/09/2006 : 14:22:56
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Chocolate:
Saw "Jazz" in the theatre when I was (murmur murmur) years old, and George Benson's tune has forever reminded me of that chorus line. Coincidentally, I just watched it last night for the first time in over 5 years!
And by the way, Happy New Year from the goy next door!
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MM0rkeleb 
"Better than HBO."
Palo Alto, CA
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Posted - 25/09/2006 : 14:44:03
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I actually sent in a write-up to the Project (hasn't been used, unfortunately). I broke the rules a little - rather than talking about a great opening shot for a great film, I wrote about an opening shot for a mediocre film (Match Point) that encapsulates all the film's major problems.
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ChocolateLady
"Cecilia Tessieri, maître chocolatier"
Israel
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Posted - 25/09/2006 : 15:02:32
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quote:
Originally posted by redPen
Chocolate:
Saw "Jazz" in the theatre when I was (murmur murmur) years old, and George Benson's tune has forever reminded me of that chorus line. Coincidentally, I just watched it last night for the first time in over 5 years!
And its just as good today as it was then, isn't it!
quote:
And by the way, Happy New Year from the goy next door!
Why thank you!
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Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
Arlington Heights, IL USA
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Posted - 25/09/2006 : 17:08:28
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quote:
Originally posted by mampers
What about the opening shot of Raging Bull? The B/W of a man training and shadow boxing amongst one of the most recognisable soundtracks in film history?
Great choice. I love that shot -- Jake throws punches even when nobody's there to punch. Very succinct summary of his character.
A lot of the famous ones people have mentioned in this thread are already included in the blog -- Psycho, Star Wars, Boogie Nights, Fight Club, etc. I'm not sure if there's been a full write-up on all of them, but they've been mentioned.
I was just rewatching Walkabout last night. Great opening shot: a brick wall, then pan over to show a modern street. Sounds simple, but it's a very striking image. In this heavily allegorical film, the brick wall is the perfect symbol of the "civilized" modern world Roeg contrasts with the Australian outback. He has a couple of matching shots of brick walls at other points in the film, too.
Not long ago, TMC was rerunning Angels With Dirty Faces, and I was suprised at how ambitious the opening shot is, giving us a panoramic view of the tenement neighborhood which will provide the backdrop for the film, starting with a newspaper headline and ending (if I remember correctly) with people gathered on a street corner. |
Edited by - Joe Blevins on 25/09/2006 17:55:17 |
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BaftaBabe
"Human Cloning"
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Posted - 25/09/2006 : 18:29:06
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I can't get the OSP to open so am only assuming Orson Welles's seminal opening to
Touch of Evil is mentioned. Spike Lee's 1½ minute OS homage in Malcolm X is pretty impressive, too!
The link above analyses the film, but here's an excerpt dealing solely with the amazing 3-minute OS:
"The film opens with its most famous sequence. It's an audacious, incredible, breathtaking, three-minute, uninterrupted crane tracking shot under the credits (appearing superimposed on the left of the screen). The entire tracking shot covers four blocks from start to finish. In a close-up, hands set an explosive, timed device. A shadowy figure runs and places it in the trunk of a parked convertible. The pounding of bongo drums and blare of brass instruments are heard (Henry Mancini's score), accompanied by the ticking-tocking of the mechanism on the soundtrack. The camera pulls away sharply, identifying the car's location - it is parked on a street in a seedy Mexican border town. An unsuspecting, wealthy American man - Rudi Linnekar (the boss of the town) and his giggling, blonde floozy, mistress/girlfriend [later, we learn she is a striptease dancer named Zita] emerge out of the background darkness and get into the car, driving off through the streets toward the US-Mexican border about four blocks away."
From high above, the camera tracks the movement of the doomed pair in the shiny car through the squalid-looking town. It is a dark night as they drive through the town, the setting for the rest of the film. In the border town, there are flashing neon and electric signs, tawdry hotels and stripjoint nightclubs ("The Paradise"), crumbling arches, dark roofs, winding streets and twisting alleys with peeling posters on sides of walls and houses, heaps of trash, and vendors pushing carts. The black-and-white visuals emphasize the seedy atmosphere and the moral decadence, decay, and nightmarish dirtiness of the scene.
As the convertible moves along and then turns a corner and stops at a traffic light, the camera descends and picks up another cheerful couple, Ramon Miguel "Mike" Vargas (Charlton Heston), a handsome, Mexico City narcotics investigator (of the Pan-American Narcotics Commission) with his voluptuous blonde, honeymooning American bride Susan Vargas (Janet Leigh). They are walking down the street, moving across the road where the car has stopped at the traffic light. (The rigged car and the Vargas couple are both on their way through the town to the US/Mexican border.) Each group arrives at the border checkpoint at the same time. The walking couple must answer a few formal questions. Susan Vargas identifies herself as a newly married "Mrs." born in Philadelphia [it is a racially-mixed marriage]. Her husband downplays his reputation when recognized - he is only "on the trail of a chocolate soda for my wife." As he leaves the border area, the officials compliment him on his recent success in catching a druglord (named Grandi) in a drug case - "the Grandi business."
The blonde floozy in the car complains to the border guards about the ticking noise she hears in the back of the vehicle, but she is ignored by the border official and her companion. The car moves past the checkpoint across the border after clearance, driving out of the frame. As Vargas and his wife walk into the US (this is the first time they've crossed the border together), they exchange intimacies:
Susan: Mike, do you realize this is the very first time we've been together in my country?
Mike Vargas: Do you realize I haven't kissed you in over an hour?
Just then, as the newlyweds kiss, the sound of the explosion of the detonated car overlaps on the soundtrack, and they turn their faces toward the blast - the "very bad" incident violently disrupts and fragments their relationship.
The film makes its first cut (after almost three minutes) to a quick-zoom view (accomplished with skipped frames) of the exploding, flaming body of the car in midair.
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Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
Arlington Heights, IL USA
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Posted - 25/09/2006 : 18:31:25
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And here's sort of the opposite. From opening shots to last lines:
http://crm114.tripod.com/hear/rem.html
To this collection, I'd like to add the final monologue from A Christmas Story, really a lovely piece of writing. And Raging Bull: "I'm the boss, I'm the boss, I'm the boss, I'm the boss!"
Looking through this list, it's interesting to note which characters get that coveted final line of dialogue. Turns out Carrie Fisher gets the last word in edgewise for the entire "Star Wars" saga. It's also interesting to note the overall tenor of the last line. Does the movie end with a joke (Some Like It Hot)? Irony (A Clockwork Orange)? Ponderous narration (Ben-Hur)? Or is it just some offhand line (The Blues Brothers)? Sometimes, the last line of dialogue isn't even the end of the movie. It just means that there won't be any talking from that point on (2001: A Space Odyssey). |
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Downtown
"Welcome back, Billy Buck"
The Hub of the Universe
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Posted - 25/09/2006 : 18:56:40
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You're all nuts. I can't believe nobody mentioned The Gunbarrel shot from the James Bond films (Casino Royale will put an interesting twist on it).
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