Opening Scenes in Movies
iView Author: Ratnakar Sadasyula (Bhubaneshwar, India)
Email: ratnakar.techie [at] gmail [dot] com
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Opening Scenes in Movies
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When the lights get switched off, the hall goes dark, and the curtain rises, its time for you to sit back and enjoy the movie. As a kid, i remembering watching Where Eagles Dare, on the big screen for the first time, and then the thunderous music in background, as the aeroplane flies over the Alps, and the credits flash on the screen. Or the gun shots and images, that make up the memorable opening of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, to the accompaniment of Ennio Morricone’s score. Over the years there have been opening scenes, that have defined the movie and have proved to be a part of movie lore itself. Here are some of my favorite ones, it is not an exhaustive list.
One of the best opening scenes i can recall is in the John Ford western, The Searchers. We are shown the shots of a log cabin, somewhere in the Wild West, and then the door opens out, to show the sprawling desert wilderness. In a way, contrasting the safety of the cabin, with the dangerous world outside, or metaphorically the clash between civilization and wilderness. And then in the horizon, we see a character coming in, just a small speck. The lady strains her eyes, to recognize him and we see John Wayne comming into the scene. And then as John Wayne is slowly riding towards the cabin, other members of the family, huddle around watching him. The significance of this opening shot is established later, when we come to know that Ethan Edwards( John Wayne) has been away for a very long time from his brother’s family, and none really knew what he had been up to. Though not an opening scene, David Lean would use the same kind of shot to introduce Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia, years later.
Apocalypse Now is another movie that has a terrific opening sequence. Contrary to the standard practice, the movie title is also not shown at the start. And no music either, all you hear is the chuk chuk sound of the helicopter blades as it flies over a Vietnam jungle, and then you see shots of the battle and flames rising as napalm as dropped. Jim Morrison’s track This is The End, plays over the scene, and then we have dust swirling, and napalm flames billowing up into the air. Slowly Capt Benjamin Willard( Martin Sheen) ’s inverted face is shown, and the camera pans over his belongings , as he lies in a dilapidated Saigon hotel room, totally weary, tired, and the sound of the fan blades, brings him back memories of the chopper, we find him voicing his thoughts.
Once Upon a Time in the West is vintage Sergio Leone. A lengthy 8 minute opening sequence, it has 3 bad guys, waiting at a remote station for the arrival of the train. No dialogue is spoken, no background music, just natural sounds here. A very squeaky windmill, and of the characters shooing off a fly that has been irritating him, the looks of boredom on the faces of the 3 guys.And then the sound of the train approaching and immediately cut to the train steaming into the station, from which the hero Charles Bronson alights.
Other opening scenes i can recall off hand
Bandini – The opening shot, where the female prisoners are called out by name and then we see the camera showcasing on Nutan’s face.
Black Friday- The day to day sounds of Mumbai, vendors calling out, vehicles moving around, noises, and then suddenly the bomb blasts shattering the peace.
Saving Private Ryan- The opening battle scene at Normandy.
2001: A Space Odyssey- The apes playing with a bone, tossing it up and we have the spacecraft, comming to the tune of Thus Spake Zarathushtra.
So what are your favorite opening scenes? Would love to have more thoughts on this?
Tags: 2001:Space Odyssey, Apocalypse Now, Bandini, Black Friday, Charles Bronson, David Lean, John Ford, John Wayne, Lawrence of Arabia, Martin Sheen, Once upon a Time, Saving Private Ryan, Sergio Leone, The Searchers, World Cinema
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Well my fav opening scene:
1. Company
2. Kaun
3. Seven
4. Pulp Fiction
5. A Wednesday
6. Rock On
7. Kaante
Ratnakar,
We have already discussed this topic here. Not saying you shouldn’t write another post on this. But you might be interested to read this post and all the accompanying comments here-
http://passionforcinema.com/7-inscuziflagejandable-opening-scenes-that-had-me-pumped/
these three comes to surface
1. bad guy – kim ki duk
2. rainy dog – takashi miike
3. waru – takashi miike
recent movies i have seen
Dark Knight(joker in bank robbing scene)
Good,Bad and ugly by Sergio Leone, no dialouges for the first 10 mins, introduction of Ugly and Bad.
Leon(Cleaner at work)
Run Lola Run
I know not many people will agree but i really like the opening scene of Mangal Pandey as a painting of a Ghaat is shown and then it transforms into a real scene followed by a decorated elephant’s roar.
I love Reservoir Dogs opening shot the whole conversation is hilarious.
The Inside Man not exactly the opening but after the credentials Clive Owen explains the plot.
The Matrix I mean we all remember that
Can I talk about some obscure or less talked about movies here:
1. Bhuvan Shome
2. Pati Patni aur Woh (hilarious)
3. Teesri Manzil – superb opening sequence – razor sharp edits
4. Dhuan – a copy of a Hitchcock film but nevertheless
5. Ghayal/ Arjun – I freaked out when I watched first time
6. New Delhi – the Jeetu starrer..redone from a MALAYALAM FILM
bad guy film
.
the uniqueness of any art form is that
there is something that can be represented only through that art form
.
if a painting can be replaced with an installation
painting is not of much worth
.
the worth of the painting is in that, what it is representing can not be represented in any other way
.
when it comes to cinema
the regal cinema would be the movie
that which can not be replaced with a book
or by any other medium
.
till now i have come across only one such movie
bad guy
.
if you try to replace it with book, it will be a treatise on love and psychology and many more things
and still something will be missing which only the movie could say
.
bad guy opening scene
.
our hero han-gi is taking a walk through the busy market road
chewing on his ice cream
and his eyes wandering here and there
fell upon our heroin
boom
love has happened
.
this is the truest depiction of love i have seen
and may be best possible also
because how can you better that
@Indraneel- Great list, though i wud not rate Bhuvan Shome, Pati,Patni Aur Woh or Teesri Manzil as obscure movies. Vijay Anand was a master of shot taking, IMHO.
The Mallu original of the Jeetu starrer was also New Delhi, and one of the best thrillers ever shot, though the basic plot was taken from Almighty.
@ Ankit- Yeah i feel the opening shot, of Mangal Pandey, was the only good thing about the movie.
One of the best ( for me ) was Cliffhanger
some notable opening scenes
The Untouchables: Robert De Niro at his Best
Scarface: The interrogation scene simply rocks
Omkara: has to be the best:
remember “Bewakuf aur chutiye main Dhaage bhar ka faraq hove hai” simply superb
Swordfish
Both Sarkar Movies
Goodfellas: No movie starts with a line better than this
“As far back as i can remember i always wanted to be a gangster”
Lagaan
Haazaron khwaishein Aisi…….
Opening scene starts with Nehru’s Independence Speech……
“At the stroke of mid-night when the world sleeps…….”
and then the narrative goes something like this….
“The thing is that at that time the world was not asleep ,america was alive and kicking………..”
simply brilliant…
Iruvar is what strikes me immediately for the best opening scene in Thamizh cinema.
@Vishrant….the opening in Kim Ki Duk’s Time was also pretty cool…
1) 8&1/2
2) 2001: A Space Odyssey
3) Pulp Fiction
4) Little Miss Sunshine
5) City of God
6) American Beauty
For me it was one film.. I entered in the cinema hall with no (low) expectations.. as soon as I found my seat, found something just thrown at me and dived deep into me.. the sound was “Rangeela Re”… infact that sound set me up for the film “Rangeela” and really liked the film.. but could never enjoy the same film ever…
1) The Fall – Tarsem
2) Dead or Alive – Miike
@kcp “One of the best ( for me ) was Cliffhanger”
I was going to say the same..ehehe
Roja anyone?
Ratnakar..on a side note…take any telugu films in recent..esp of Puri…they all have exceptional openings especially those which intro us to the villian..its all together a different matter that after that it takes a tangent..wink wink
All Bond movies…thats their specialty…the opening scenes…especially the parkour used in Casino Royale…
I think the opening scene of ‘Memories of Murder’…the Korean film…is brilliant…
Also…’Cronicas’…Spanish….awesomely creepy opening scene…
Loved the opening scene in Atonement…rather entire first 5-7 mins coz thats basically 1 scene with different POVs…brilliant…along with the background music using the type writer…
‘Kontroll’..Hungarian…opening scenes…one of my all time fav…
Aniruddha…you said it about Bond movies. My personal favourite is the parkour scene from CR closely followed by the
I also liked the opening scene(s) of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
The opening sequence of The Shining…the drive taken by Jack Nicholson to get to the hotel. The scenery is so eerie…it gives a good sample of what’s in store for the viewer.
The introduction of the main characters in Blake Edwards’ The Great Race. Jack Lemmon was absolutely awesome.
“Chuita aur baikoof me daage bhar ka farak hota hai…”
1-Omkara…One of the best opening scens of recent years.
2- Pyaasa by guru dutt…most unusual opening scene of hindi cinema.
3- Gunda
No body has named it but i think opening scene of GADAR was one of the best in which father gave poison to his doughter to eat if somebody tried to rape them and my other favourites are from- company, ghayal, maachis
The opening 10 minutes or so in ‘There will be blood’. Very unusual for the fact that there was no dialogue. Got me a little restless and then I realized that that actually was the foundation of the film – for the story and for us to understand the character of DDL…..
There are many more but this came to my head now…
Best opening shot in my opinion is Mission Kashmir. A beautiful silent valley with a boat, frame stills for some time and then the boat explodes to pieces. Depicted the beauty of Kasmir and the situation there in seconds.
Lagaan too had good opening shots.
Yes Pavan. “Rangeela Re” is definitely one of the best in HFM for me too. I remember seeing the film in Rahul-Talkies on the first day. We went in the hall when the song started. Loved it. So went in the immediately next show , only to see the complete song. Then next day went all 3 shows. All the time buying in tickets in “black” !! Poora ka poora movie by-heart….all friends in the evenings vomitting dialogues after dialogues !! Ahhhh Those were the days !!
Roja and Kaakha Kaakha had the best opening shots in a Tamil movie, in my opinion.
funny i was listening to Iggy Pop – Lust for Life and thinking has any movie started better than “Trainspotting” ever?
Dark Knight – it was just perfect
1. Pulp Fiction
2. Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2
3. Reservoir Dogs
4. Memento
5. Taxi Driver
6. Raging Bull
7. The Prestige
8. Gangs of New York
9. The Aviator
.. and many many more…
Requiem For a Dream
City of God
The Godfather
No Country For Old Men
Following
Goodfellas
Little Miss Sunshine
Sarkar (1 and 2)
Black Friday
More later…cant think of now…
A very long engagement – photogenic scenes.
No country for old men – sets the tone of the film.
Gunjan:Good list of scenes there. Seven and Pulp Fiction would always be my favorites.
Dazed: Yeah did check that post, thanks for the link.
Kcp: Well i did like the opening shot of Cliffhanger too, and in fact i found the movie enjoyable as well.
Ashwin: Loved the opening scenes of both Untouchables and Scarfaces, both of them establish their characters well.
Vineet: Yeah that scene from HKA, was a class act for sure.
OM: most of Puri’s recent movies, have become predictable, the last movie i really enjoyed from his stable was Pokiri.
Aniruddha: Well i watch the Bond movies just for their opening scenes, and for me my favorite as of now would be Thunderball.
The Narcissist: Thanks for mentioning about The Great Race, it is one of my favorite comedies. Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis are just brilliant in that movie.
Arthi: There will be Blood opening scene, was somewhat of Sergio Leone style, minmal dialog.
Parth: I am with you, Trainspotting’s opening scene is just fabulous.
We see a duck in the close up; cut to a few ducks wandering and a person walking; when the camers pans back, we realize that it is a hut in the slum and then a jeep literally flies through the hut, followed by Sethupathi in his bike. It was action never seen before in Tamil films. I was spellbound and I immediately KNEW that this is going to be a classic: Apoorva Sahodharargal Or Appu Raja in Hindi.
1) The traditional gun-barrel opening of any James Bond movie.
2)SATYA – The Mumbai introductory scene narrated by Aditya Srivastava. Brilliant editing by Apoorva Asrani.
3) STAR WARS – The scrolling prologue, accompanied by the rousing score by John Williams, still gives me goose-bumps.