Criteria for Selecting Movies with Brilliant, Revelatory Opening Scenes
Is there any value in trying to evaluate or judge films based on their opening scenes, or first sequences.
Such analysis must begin with decoding the movie’s very first real scene. If the movie opens with credits or titles, the focus should be on the first scene after the opening titles.
Some of these movies openings are actually composed of a few scenes compiled together into the arrival of an outsider, or a heist, or a gathering, like reunions, weddings, and birthday parties or something.
Selected metrics are:
Attention Factor: Did the scene grab or at least draw and intrigue my attention?
Memorability: Does the scene instantly come to mind when the film’s title is mentioned?
Setting the Locale, Issue, or Tone: How well does it work for the movie? Is it part of a bigger picture?
Trainspotting (1996), Directed by Danny Boyle
Choose Life • Famous Opening Scenes
“Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?” This is a question most viewers cannot fully relate to.
But the Trainspotting opening scene helps understand the contexts in which above question is posed.
The camera depicts a group of friends in the rough-and-tumble world, the film’s setting. They are injected with a shot of energy, much like the heroin they will consume.
“Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television.”
Danny Boyle catapults the viewers into the Edinburgh drug scene effortlessly, setting up the allure and excitement, but also the squalor that they protagonist will try to escape from, only few of them will succeed.
The 1996 movie is a predecessor to other anti-corporation, anarchist-type films, like David Fincher’s 1999 cult classic, TheFight Club.
Film Theory: Movie Beginnings–Brilliant Opening Scenes (“Trainspotting”)
Criteria for Selecting Movies with Brilliant, Revelatory Opening Scenes
Is there any value in trying to evaluate or judge films based on their opening scenes, or first sequences.
Such analysis must begin with decoding the movie’s very first real scene. If the movie opens with credits or titles, the focus should be on the first scene after the opening titles.
Some of these movies openings are actually composed of a few scenes compiled together into the arrival of an outsider, or a heist, or a gathering, like reunions, weddings, and birthday parties or something.
Selected metrics are:
Attention Factor: Did the scene grab or at least draw and intrigue my attention?
Memorability: Does the scene instantly come to mind when the film’s title is mentioned?
Setting the Locale, Issue, or Tone: How well does it work for the movie? Is it part of a bigger picture?
Trainspotting (1996), Directed by Danny Boyle
“Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?” This is a question most viewers cannot fully relate to.
But the Trainspotting opening scene helps understand the contexts in which above question is posed.
The camera depicts a group of friends in the rough-and-tumble world, the film’s setting. They are injected with a shot of energy, much like the heroin they will consume.
“Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television.”
Danny Boyle catapults the viewers into the Edinburgh drug scene effortlessly, setting up the allure and excitement, but also the squalor that they protagonist will try to escape from, only few of them will succeed.
The 1996 movie is a predecessor to other anti-corporation, anarchist-type films, like David Fincher’s 1999 cult classic, The Fight Club.
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