Friday, January 18, 2013

Analysing Lord of War opening sequence


This is my fourth analysis of opening sequences. I am almost at the stage of understanding how to produce a good opening sequence, including the different aspects I need to include like the way the titles should be presented, and not giving away too much of the story but still giving the general feel.

Genre
The opening sequence follows the life of a bullet connoting a war genre. The song being played has a very political meaning connoting a political genre.


Narrative
The opening sequence follows the life of a bullet suggesting that there is one main character that has a lot of events that contribute to who the person is as a person. The factory setting suggests that the main character has no choice in the circumstances they are brought up in and suggests the film will contain a life story of the main character. The fact that the bullet is gold suggests that the main character is very good at their job and the following of the life of the bullet suggests that someone is watching him. The clip in which the bullet is knocked out of the box suggests that the main character tries to escape from their life only to be dragged back into it. The bullet being placed in the gun and feeling other bullets going off connotes the main character watches as other people fall and the final gun shot to the head suggests that the main character does massive damage without meaning to but isn't actually their fault as they didn't decide to fire the gun.

Character
The opening sequence suggests the film revolves around the action of one character. The different rankings of people throughout the opening sequence suggests that many different types of people will be included in the film including workers and high ranking officers.
Atmosphere
The atmosphere is oddly upbeat for the asthetics of the opening sequence. The beat of the music creates an almost country feel to the clip which is actually the opposite. This suggests that the guns are too normalised for everyday life and people don't see them how they should which is as a murder weapon which shows the political genre.
Themes
The war ground in suggests the main theme would be war. The bullet suggests destruction and death.
Setting
The many areas in which the bullet is sent to/travels across suggests the film will be set in many different areas. The Factory suggests a lower life quality area, the navel ships suggest that there will be some scenes on a ship and the different county in which the bullet is fired suggests that some foriegn scenes will be used.
Sound
The song being played as an absolutly massive impact on the opening sequence and the feeling it creates. without the song the political aspect of the film would not be shown. The lyrics to the non-diagetic sound contained "stop, whats that sound everybody look whats going down" suggesting that the public need to open their eyes to what is happening in the world especially with guns and "nobodys right if everybodys wrong" showing connitations of the American goverment of being wrong and the public not understanding or realising this giving the film a stronger political side.
Titles
The titles are not intergrated into the film. This makes them stand out. The formal font suggests a formal meaning behind the movie.

Evaluation
This opening sequence is very strong in how it shows you the story and the meaning behind it without revealing much about the characters. It is very well made and the scences flow and really show the audiences the genres of the film through some very clever editing and ideas. The only thing I didn't like about the clip was the fact the titles were not intergrated into the movie which would have made the audience see that they have to really look to find the truth in the film not just be presented with it.  

You can find Lord of War opening sequence below

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