The Seven Best Openings to a Motion Picture

7: Touch of Evil (1958) dr. Orson Welles. st. Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh and Orson Welles.

A splendid, uninterrupted tracking shot opens Orson Welles's taut thriller. Citizen Kane is widely considered the most accomplished film ever made, due in large to its revolutionary camera composition. This sequence from Touch of Evil rivals the very best of Welles's first feature. Distinctive in its diversity of crane shots and close-ups, though all encompassed in one three minute thirty-one second take, this scene forebodes the felonious milieu and evinces the film noir setting in a commanding fashion.

6: Up (2009) dr. Pete Docter, Bob Peterson. st. Ed Asner, Jordan Nagai and Christopher Plummer.


Up's affecting opening is so simply crafted narratively. In the space of four minutes we see Carl Fredrickson meet Ellie as a child, and then how their lives become intertwined in love, marriage and heartbreak. Its emotional pull goes up and up and up, with a culmination of Ellie succumbing to old age. The montage of key events in their life together consists of harrowing elements, which include a miscarriage. Though, this is an honest portrayal of a life-story. Traumatic, yet wonderfully enlightening.

5: 8 1/2 (1960) dr. Federico Fellini. st. Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimee and Claudia Cardinale.

Fellini's masterpiece begins with a dream sequence, which is ambiguous, though also very meaningful once you reach the film's end. The most outstanding aspect of it is that it feels like a dream; the jaggedness of it, the surreality, yet the array of senses being displayed making us wonder, is this actually happening? The symbolism and depth in metaphor, particularly Guido (the protagonist) being pulled back down to earth, after escaping the expectation being pressured upon  him by hanging up with the clouds, is a superb  technical feat. Above all else, this is a genuine  representation of the strain of being a director. Fellini got it right.

4: Goodfellas (1990) dr. Martin Scorsese. st. Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci.

This isn't the best scene in Goodfellas, but it is one of my favourite openings to a motion picture due to its tentative framing and editing, which intensifies the scene's content. These gangsters are going to dump a body, but when finding the body alive Joe Pesci's ruthless Tommy De Vito stabs him repeatedly in a bitter fury, and then stony-faced Jimmy Conway shoots him a few times. This in turn sways the camera to a more confident frame, introducing our triumvirate of gangsters in slick style. Then we see the figure of Henry Hill close the boot, remarking 'for as long as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster', kicking in the rapid title Goodfellas.

3: Vertigo (1958) dr. Alfred Hitchcock. st. James Stewart, Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes.

Although there is possibly Saul Bass's greatest title sequence acting as a prelude to this, the rooftop chase is seminal in its power of excitement and fear. It implies John 'Scottie' Ferguson's instability and vertigo, through the influential Dolly Zoom effect. This technique, later used in Marnie and Jaws, was so influential and perfectly represented the climax of Hitchcock's 'Veritgo', which was to reassess ones trust in a character. 

2: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) dr. Sergio Leone. st. Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda and Claudia Cardinale. 

Once Upon a Time in the West would be one of the greatest films ever made, had it not have been for a couple of unexplained narrative jumps. Still though, the beginning is untouchable,
and the tension (my word of the day) is accelerated by the close-ups of three sweaty gun-slingers ready to take out the man getting off the soon-to-arrive train.

1: Inglorious Basterds (2009) dr. Quentin Tarantino. st. Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent and Christoph
Waltz.

https://vimeo.com/80494528

Yes. This is my favourite opening scene of all time, a vimeo link to it is below the poster. Influenced by his Westerns, Once Upon a Time in the West being a key example, Tarantino rips open Inglorious with an introduction to the Jew Hunter, Hans Landa, and his search for a particular family in a quaint little home in France. His bilingual conversation with the home-owner is shockingly menacing, amidst the pleasantries lies an undercurrent of malice. Waltz could have won the Oscar for this scene alone! The framing is not so difficult, this scene relies on the dialogue and acting to exacerbate the fearful tension and to compound the irrevocable fate of the Jews lying under the floorboards. This is my favourite opening to a motion picture, but it could also be my favourite scene in a Tarantino movie!

 

My Next Seven Best Article Will Be.... The Seven Best Films of 2014!