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Goodfellas Opening Sequence Analysis

1) The trailer begins with a low-lit shot of a black car at night, building tension through the dark and unsaturated imagery. 2) It cuts to inside the car, showing three angry men in suits, conforming to gangster film conventions. The scene remains dark and tense. 3) The men investigate a strange sound from the car trunk. When they open it, a man is discovered tied up inside, and he is brutally stabbed and shot by the gangsters, showing the violent nature of the film.

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427 views

Goodfellas Opening Sequence Analysis

1) The trailer begins with a low-lit shot of a black car at night, building tension through the dark and unsaturated imagery. 2) It cuts to inside the car, showing three angry men in suits, conforming to gangster film conventions. The scene remains dark and tense. 3) The men investigate a strange sound from the car trunk. When they open it, a man is discovered tied up inside, and he is brutally stabbed and shot by the gangsters, showing the violent nature of the film.

Uploaded by

harry
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Opening sequence analysis of goodfellas.

The film trailer begins with a medium shot on a track following a car. The car is
black and the lighting is very low key. The denotation of all this Unsaturated light
connotes tension, the darkness makes the audience believe that something bad
is going early on in this film therefore adverting Todorovs theory of narrative as
they think there will be no equilibrium. There is no sound at this point other than
the diagetic sound coming from the car engine. This also creates tension as all of
the audiences senses are expecting something bad to happen and are focusing
100% of this car and weather it is significant to the film.
A jump shot is then used and the scene changes to a medium close up of inside
the car. Inside the car is three men each of them wearing suits looking
reasonably angry. This conforms both the conventions of a typical gangster film
and Lauren Mulveys theory in which was influenced by fraud and lucan as this
film is clearly male dominated. The scene is still very saturated and dark
connoting that the main danger is still yet to come. The first piece of diagetic
sound follows as the three men discuss a rather peculiar sound in which is
coming from the boot of the car. There is still no non diagetic sound at this point
in the trailer.
The three men then get out of the car and surround around the boot. The red
light from shines on them. This high key lighting shinning on the low key ,
saturated characters is a very interesting and useful filming technique used by
the directors. The red light informs the audience that this is where and when the
danger is going to happen. The red lighting is shinning on the three characters
connoting they are the three in which posses the most danger.
The camera then zooms into two of the characters. One character is carrying a
pole and the other one pulls out a knife. All the sound effects are synchronous
this is because they are being played at the same time as the banging in the
boot and a owl sound coming from the forest. There is particular pattern used in
the diagetic sound as it goes , footstep, bang, owl and this is continued until the
knife is pulled out of the gangsters pocket.
As expected the brutal part of the opening sequence then follows. After
unlocking the boot the camera then zooms in and then out of a poor man tied up
in the car. One of the characters violently stabs the man numerous times
followed by 3 shots from another man who had a gun. This conforms that the film
will have a similar narrative to most gangster films as it doesnt start with any
form of equilibrium and it is connoting many of the typical gangster film
conventions such as guns and knives.
The trailer then finishes with a frozen close up of the main character who says
the non diagetic lines of a voice over. This connotes that this film is using a
anachronic narrative as this part of the film was the main character telling the
story of when he killed this man. The first non diagetic music then follows the

voice over . The music is very strange is it contrapuntal sound as does not match
what just happened in any way, shape or form . The music is very funky and
calm even though the last two minutes of the film have been about three
gangsters brutally kidnapping and then stabbing and shooting him numerous
times. The denotation of this happy music could connote that the main character
is not happy because he is for filling his dream of becoming a feared and well
respected gangster. This is more strongly signified after the character says the
line as far back as i can remember, iv always wanted to be a gangster this
piece of diagetic sound connotes that this is the characters dream and therefore
does justify the use of funky music. It could also be argued that this piece of
sound is in fact parallel as it matches the images inside the characters head.

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