2016 is here, and it's our first episode of the year,
so let's talk about beginnings.
These are our picks for the top ten opening shots of all time.
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Kickings off in number 10, let's take to look at the book end opening.
This is the opening shot that it isn't necessarily notable in it's own right, but
in its symmetry with the final shot.
Perfectly sandwiching the film, underlying the extent of it's journey.
These are opening shots like the distorted mirror from Caberet,
the look from Gone Girl, the inverted eyes from Cape Fear, and
the flag from Saving Private Ryan.
And those openers from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, the Godfather II, and
Castaway.
However, if there's an opening shot that stands in perfect
harmony with it's denouement, it's gotta be the one from the searches.
This shot beautifully captures the classic dilemma of the western hero.
He is too wild to come home and yet too civilized to stay fully in the wild,
thus he is confined to the threshold.
Stuck in the frontier, a necessary human tool of American imperialism.
He resolves our border conflicts for us, both physically and spiritually, and yet
he lives on the border.
And in that way the searcher's opening shot pushes through the doorway
into the wild capturing the frontier man as he approaches from afar.
Until finally, by the end of the film he lives in that very same shot,
the door closing behind him.
He is just a guest passing through and we are just spectators looking out.
For our next two slots, we've got to take some time to soak in the beauty.
When it comes to straight up esthetics,
we're pretty partial to shots like the openers from Bladerunner,
The Untouchables, A Clockwork Orange and Melancholia.
We love Le Samourai and Shane, and we certainly would be giving us spots of
Fanny and Alexander, if we were counting second shots.
But for our number eight pick, we got to give it to Raging Bull.
God, is this gorgeous.
The operatic shadow boxing of a hooded pugilist bouncing in slow motion,
glowing in the occasional snap of a flash bulb, completely at home in the ring.
It is the perfect introduction to the character, the story and the style,
all while making us breath a little shallower.
But just in case that isn't enough, we've also got our number 8,
the napalm tree line from Apocalypse Now.
Sure, taken together our two beauty picks make a compelling case that
we're slightly biased toward epic music and slow motion, but who isn't?
Apocalypse Now has a different kind of operatic violence in its serene ballet of
smoke, fire and helicopters.
It's as hallucinogenic and surreal as we needed to be in order to not flinch from
the ugliness beneath it's image.
Those are people burning beneath those tree, but
there is a gorgeous hit noses to both this shot, which is exactly why we pick them.
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Next up at number 7, we're looking at some of those kick-off images that throw
us right in the middle of the action without a moment to catch our breath.
A Hard Day's Night plops us down mid Beatles fanfare, and buried's
brilliantly brief first shot at all of one frame blinks us inside a leaky coffin.
However for in mediar es,
there's no movie that did it better than the original Star Wars, A New Hope.
Panning down from those iconic scrolling titles into an empty star scape,
a rebel ship screams into frame throwing us into the middle of a chase we know
nothing about.
But it doesn't matter, we're caught up in it anyways.
We watch mouths agape at what exactly it's running from,
the biggest spaceship you could ever conceive of and then some.
There's no time for poetry, thematics or beauty here,
just an intergalactic David and Goliath kick in the crotch that says, shut up and
pay attention, something's happening here.
While we're on the topic of Star Wars, we noticed a crazy pattern of kick ass
first shots that all seem to take place in space.
It's like any filmmaker with a movie even vaguely related to the universe at large,
gets all giddy and wants to show off their new star studded visual effects as soon
as humanly possible.
Check it out. In addition to Star Wars,
the first shots from Tree of Life, Gravity, and
Superman all go ham on that outer space.
There's 2001, A Space Odyssey, which is particularly epic, and best of all in our
humble opinions, Contact's tour of the entire fucking universe.
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Not only did this last three minute behemoth clock in as the longest
unbroken stretch of VFX in 1997 when it came out.
But it still stands up to viewing today,
which is a serious technological achievement.
Combine that with some brilliant sound design that turns a tour of our
universe into a simultaneous retrospective of modern human history
via the reach of our radio waves while setting up the entire plot.
And tying us into Ellie's childhood motivation and obsession, and
you have yourself one hell of a space debut.
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One of the coolest things an opening shot can be is the microcosm
of the entire movie.
It shows us the whole story.
The characters, the plot, the conflict, the theme in a single moment.
That's why we think contact shot was so bad ass, and
it's also why we pick our number 5, Fight Club.
This shot is ultra cool to look at here,
because it's almost the exact opposite of what Contact does.
Instead of a long shot VFX to through outer space,
it's a long shot through inner space, in this case the brain of our hero.
It too ends on his face, but instead of getting there years and
years before our story begins in the form of a flashback.
It arise at the very end of our story, flopping is not only in media rest, but
nearly in media resolution.
In this way, it joins the ranks of brilliant starting at the ending opening
shots like those from Pan's Labyrinth, The Prestige, and Memento.
Which are ultra clever because they all kind of contain a fuck you spoiler for
the twist to come that we're not quite smart enough to pick up on yet.
Of course there are lots of other movies that do a good microcosm,
think Altered States and Rear Window, and Annie Hall and Marie Antoinette.
We got to hand it to all of them for putting their best foot forward.
For our number 4, it's got to go to true foes Day For Night.
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It's your typical friend shock tour, sideways dallying long take right up until
the shot cuts away just a few frames too late, [SOUND] realize it really isn't.
It's a brilliant movie within a movie microcosm, perfectly creating and
subverting our expectations defining the world we're going to inhabit in a way we
don't understand.
Until the next shot turns it on it's head, playing our assumptions against us in
preparing us for what's to come, even though we don't realize it's happening.
Of course, these past few shots have really started to rack up the frame count.
Getting more bang for their buck by, well including more in each.
So if longer is better for an opening shot, and we're not sure that it is, but
it's certainly more impressive.
Let's look at some of the most impressive long shot openers.
First up, more an achievement of staging an unbroken performance than fancy camera
footwork and perfect timing.
It's not The Conversation, although we love that surveillance shot.
And it's not Punch Drunk Love, although it's absolutely wonderful.
It's actually Flowers of Shanghai.
>> [FOREIGN]
>> A Taiwanese period piece,
Flowers opens with an absolutely beautiful oil lamp lit, nine minute long shot that
pans patiently back and forth across a table in a Chinese brothel,
following the complicated dynamic of an entire party.
An absolute masterpiece in staging, acting, and restraint.
This shot doesn't force a narrative, so much as it scans across it,
picking up some threads while abandoning others, telling a story loosely and
with room for interpretation.
Of course, if after nine minutes, you haven't had your fill of long takes,
just keep watching, the film has 37 more right after.
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Of course, there are other opening long takes.
There's the POV first murder from Halloween that complete disco prologue
from Boogie Nights and Nick Cages unbroken insanity from Snake Eyes.
However, when it comes to setting up every single plot element in one go there's
almost nothing better than our ultimate pick, The Player.
[SOUND] >> That's quiet on the set.
>> Scene one, take ten, marker.
>> Almost more brilliantly meta than Day for Night,
The Player's meticulously choreographed crane shot comments on itself and
its industry while simultaneously setting up the entirety of the plot.
Establishing all the key relationships, dynamics and conflict.
And of course, in one of the most brilliant moments of self-reference
the studio security had complained about movies and their MTV cut, cut,
cut style while waxing nostalgic about the long tapes.
What happen to films like Touch of Evil that setup the entire plot in a single
long take opening.
Well, they've landed on the top of our list,
because our number one slot goes to one and only, Touch of Evil.
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>From it's opening close up to it's soaring wide touch of evil premier shot
is a clinic and effective suspense.
Crisscrossing a moving bomb with our hero's time and time again.
The audience has no choice, but to wait anxiously for it to explode.
Disappointingly, the movie was butchered for
release went to theaters as the bee have of a double feature and bomb.
But over time, it's artistic merit prevailed.
Film lovers recognized it for the brilliant shot that it is,
an unbroken tour of a seedy border town punctuated by moments of pure tension,
a mid action microcosm of the movie that follows.
Beautiful and thoughtful and
brilliantly staged which is why we think it's the best opening shot of all time.
So what do you think?
Do you disagree with some of our picks?
Did we leave out your favorite opening shots?
Let us know in the comments below and be sure to subscribe for
more CineFix movie lists.
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