Study of Film Openings

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Film openings are extremely important to a movie's success; they are a viewer's first impression of the work and it is its job to hook the audience to watch the rest of the film and to credit the people who worked on creating the film. Now that my partner, Sofia, and I have established the genre we'd like to focus on, I'm going research a couple of film openings within this genre so that I can see what films of this type look like. The genre being coming-of-age, I am going to look at the following examples:

Dead Poets Society (1989)

My Girl (1991)

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)

These three films all embody the themes of coming of age in different ways, and through different challenges that come when one is growing up. 

Dead Poet Society (1989)

The opening scene for Dead Poets Society begins with a young boy that is getting prepared to attend an opening ceremony for a school as multiple people in the background do the same. There are a lot of young boys that are lined up all carrying banners that highlight the school's values, including tradition, honor, discipline, and excellence as they walk into a chapel where a long shot shows the many young students awaiting an opening speech by the director of the school as he guides these children through the values of the school, and, as he speaks, it becomes apparent that this school is very prestigious and wealthy. There is a good sense of the setting of the film as a school and its values and principles are introduced to the audience through of the social expectations that are thrust upon the Young boys in the director's speech. This approach to the film's opening develops the background for the sort of challenges that some students may face as they may oppose the school's approach to their teachings and it introduces one of the main characters that will drive the story through its plot—the new teacher Mr. Keating.

My Girl (1991)

The opening theme for My Girl (1991) introduces the main character, a young girl, claiming outlandish things to her father who pays little to no attention to her, even if she claims she has cancer and is dying. The shot then moves to her walking out of the house and a small text showing the setting—the location as Pennsylvania and the year as 1972—as she convinces a group of boys to join her, defending one boy when he is mocked for saying he must go home. When they walk into the house she makes sure that all the boys have paid her, which shows that her character is rather smart as she is about to scam them, and leads them through a ruse that ends up with the boys running out and her with her newly earned money.

 This specific opening focuses a lot more on developing the girl's character than the Dead Poets Society opening, which focused on the setting and background. My Girl introduces a girl who lacks a present parental figure in her life as her dad ignores her as he is preoccupied with his work and her grandmother is unwell. We are also introduced to her home life and its impact on her as she is growing up in a funeral home, and there is a sense of attachment and protectiveness over the boy in the beginning as she defends him from the other kids mocking him. This film opening manages to, not only introduce to the audience who the main character is and what she is like, but also hint at what kind of conflict the movie could lead up to as she struggles with growing up alone in a funeral home, (not that the ending is remotely predictable based on this short clip; this movie destroyed me emotionally. I love it.)

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)

Lastly, The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) begins with slow music and views of a city as a car drives down an empty street tunnel as the credits play. The shot fades into the reflection of a young boy as he write an anonymous letter to an unnamed person through a voiceover narration. He writes that he hopes that there are people as good as that to whom he is writing, that will not judge, and explains that he has had a rough summer and is about to start his first day of high school, and is nervous. He doesn't have anyone to sit with during passing periods or class—his sister did not allow him to accompany her and his past friends ignore him—but he encounters a senior who is not intent on bullying freshmen and he meets his English teacher, who is a caring person who makes sure the boy is doing okay. During his English class, it is shown that the boy is passionate about the subject, as he gets the questions the teacher asks correct when no one else does, but he is still shy about participating and he also gets made fun of by a fellow classmate.

This film opening, like My Girl, is a lor more character centered than that of Dead Poet Society's. The main character here is describing his feelings and fears and concerns to someone, though to whom is unknown to the audience at this point in the movie, so that the viewer can get a sense of who this kid is as the story begins to unravel and is centered around this character. He is nervous about high school, and he is a quiet kid with no friends to be with, while he struggles with the universal horror show, I mean, experience that is starting high school.