An opening shot of a film is not always the most memorable. Audiences usually take away with them an astounding line of dialogue, an action sequence unmatched by any film before, or a few notes of the score. However, opening shots are sometimes the forgotten masterpieces of the film itself. Not only does the opening shot lay the foundation and set the tone for a film, it may, in fact, reveal key plot points, themes, and character arches audiences only come to find in the latter portion of the cinematic experience.
Now You See It hones in and dissects four examples of the opening shot and what audiences can infer from our first view into the world audiences are about to fall into. Diverse in genre, the opening shots deconstructed come from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Silver Linings Playbook,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” and “Silence of the Lambs.” Each film has acclaim in its own right. What makes the films similar is what audiences can understand with a simple few seconds.
In “2001: A Space Odyssey,” the audience is place in a varied position in space, noting that this is not a film about humans, but humanity as a whole. With “Silver Linings Playbook” audiences are introduced to the protagonist by the back of his head and a monologue that is neither directed toward them nor anyone else. Similarly in “Little Miss Sunshine,” we have close ups of a young girl’s glasses with reflections of a beauty pageant coinciding, telling audiences that this a film about dreams although those dreams may come off superficial at first, we only find later in the film what it truly means. “The Silence of the Lambs” takes the opening shot further to mediate for the audience a metaphor that will carry throughout the film.
Opening shots can be an afterthought for the average film-goer. The movies that are memorable often set the tone in the first few seconds the film is onscreen. No time should ever be wasted in cinema; the opening shot only goes to prove that.