Screen LibraryCinematic overtures : how to read opening scenes /
A great movie's first few minutes provide the key to the rest of the film. ..., they draw the viewer in, setting up the thematic concerns and stylistic approach that will be developed over the course of the narrative. [Some] sequences lead the viewer to trust the filmmakers. Other times, openin...
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| Main Authors: | |
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| Published: |
Columbia University Press,
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| Publisher Address: | New York,, NY : |
| Publication Dates: | [2017] |
| Literature type: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Series: |
University seminars/Leonard Hastings Schoff memorial lectures.
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| Subjects: | |
| Summary: |
A great movie's first few minutes provide the key to the rest of the film. ..., they draw the viewer in, setting up the thematic concerns and stylistic approach that will be developed over the course of the narrative. [Some] sequences lead the viewer to trust the filmmakers. Other times, opening shots are intentionally misleading....From Joe Gillis's voice-over in Sunset Boulevard as he lies dead in a swimming pool to the hallucinatory opening of Apocalypse Now, from the stream-of-consciousness montage as found in Hiroshima, Mon Amour to the slowly unfolding beginning of Schindler's List, [the book] analyzes opening shots from a range of Hollywood as well as international films. Including dozens of frame enlargements that illustrate the strategies of opening scenes,-- |
| Carrier Form: | xi, 188 pages, 2 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 22 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: |
9780231182249 0231182244 9780231182256 0231182252 |
| Index Number: | PN1994 |
| CLC: | J905 |
| Call Number: | J905/I591 |
| Contents: | 1. The Crafted Frame (Saul Bass, Talk to Her, Knife in the Water, Camouflage) -- 2. The Opening Translated from Literature (The Conformist, The Tin Drum, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, All the President's Men, Cabaret) -- 3. Narrative Within the Frame: Mise-en-Scene and the Long Take (Touch of Evil, The Player, Aguirre: The Wrath of God, The Piano, Bright Star, In Darkness) -- 4. Narrative Between the Frames: Montage (Z; Hiroshima, mon amour; Seven Beauties; Schindler's List; Three Colors: Red; The Shipping News; Shine) -- 5. Singular Point of View (The Graduate, Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now, Come and See, Lebanon, Good Kill) -- 6. The Collective Protagonist (La Ciudad, 3 Backyards, Little Miss Sunshine, Le Bal, Day for Night, A Separation, Where Do We Go Now?) -- 7. Misdirection/Visual Narration (The Hourglass Sanatorium, Before the Rain, Ajami, Under Fire, The Conversation, Rising Sun, Psycho, The Truman Show) -- 8. Voice-Over Narration/Flashback (Sunset Boulevard, American Beauty, Fight Club, Badlands). |