Film opening 1: Les Misérables (2013)

Director: Tom Hooper

Release Date: 25th of December 2012 (USA)

Actors: Hugh Jackman, Russel Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Helen Bonham Carter

Music: Claude-Michel Schönberg

Production companies: Universal Pictures, Relativity Media, Camack International, Working Title Films

Genre: Drama, Musical, Romance

Budget: $61.000.000 (estimated)

The opening scene starts with a worm's eye view at 40 seconds of a torn and dirty flag underwater. This caption signifies several signs of battle since the water is greasy and the flag looks muddy and is taggered. At 43 seconds, there is a display of the following words:

"1815 TWENTY SIX YEARS AFTER THE START OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION A KING IS ONCE AGAIN ON THE THRONE OF FRANCE"

These words are useful to initiate a setting. It also signifies and helps the audience to identify what the movie most likely will be about and what time it is set in.

You can also hear the diegetic sound of the water and at 55 seconds there is another diegetic sound of a watersplash when the camera moves out of the water and shows a rat's eye view of a ship.

After this cut, the camera proceeds going upwards through a crane shot and you notice a non-diegetic sound of music and drums beating. These signs of battle and sound effects, connote that there is a lot of tension and this also adds a lot of suspension to the audience.

At 58 seconds there is created a master shot of the enormous ship since the camera has kept zooming in while continuing the crane shot.

As before, the crane shot keeps moving showing the ship from different angles and shots such as the master shot shown above but also a mid-shot:

And a bird's eye view at 1.13 seconds:

This bird's eye view creates an establishing shot of a big harbor. Together with this shot and all the previous ones, a setting is established and the audience knows that it is 1815 and maybe wartime do to the ship laying in the water.

Meanwhile the non-diegetic sound of music and drums is still in the background. Moreover, the lighting is very dark and gloomy which again adds tension to the audience.

After this the camera keeps zooming in on the port until you at 1.27 seconds notice that there are hundreds of men in the water who are all pulling on several different ropes.

The camera then still keeps zooming in until it at 1.40 creates a mid-shot of the men in the water.

From 1.40 - 2.00 seconds, the entire focus and setting is on the men pulling that rope. Despite the fact that they are "just" pulling a rope you can tell that there has been a special choreography created only for this specific scene.

In addition, these shots of the men in the water being treated as slaves, confirms our theory that the setting is in some hard times/war times during 1815.

Furthermore, the men are really struggling since they have to pull such a big ship into the harbor. This makes the audience feel sorry and pity for them, since one can tell through their facial expressions that they are suffering.

At 2.00 seconds there is an eye-level shot of a man who we later find out is the main character Jean Valjean. After this shot the camera creates a low angle and point-of-view shot to show the audience what Jean Valjean is looking at.

This is a low angle shot of a man (main character Javert), and a point-of-view shot from Jean Valjean's perspective. The audience sees him as the one being in charge and being the authoritative figure since he is put in a powerful position when looking down on all the men pulling the big ropes.

After this shot the camera keeps zooming in on Javert until he stands in a very powerful and dominant position in his uniform.

The mise-en-scene here of the costumes such as his uniform denotes the enormous visible difference between guards and prisoners. The prisoners all have a beard, scars and wounds on their faces and are waering very durty and torn clothes. Besides that they are wearing chains around their neck and hand wrists, which also contributes to the contrast established between guards and prisoners.

The guards on the other hand, all have well-tended beards, clean uniforms and not a single stain of mud or blood on them.

All of these costumes, also help the audience to establish that setting of being back in 1815, where there was really this sort of slavery.

From 2.11 - 2.34 seconds there are a lot of continuity cuts from the low angle shot of Javert to a high angle shot of Jean Valjean. The high angle shot of Javert looking down on the prisoners, again signifies his power and domination.

Meanwhile the men start singing "Look down" in unison. The lyrics of this song, are meant to portray the feeling of the men. They are singing "Look down, you'll always be a slave". Again, this makes the audience feel pity for them and there is a very strong tension created.

Following this, there is an over-the-shoulder shot at 2.34 second of Javert, looking down on all the prisoners. This again is a shot to emphasise that he is above them and he is the one that is in charge.

After this shot, the continuity cuts between Javert and the prisoners continue until at 3.01 seconds, where there is an establishing shot of the entire port with the men in the water.

This establishing shot is used to focus attention on the fact that there are hundreds of prisoners in the same miserable state and position. We know that they are miserable, since they are wearing chains, but also because they keep singing the same song in unison. This song could however also be their way of showing that they stand together.

After this shot there follows a point-of view shot from all of the men to foreground the large ship they have to pull in.

After this the the camera continous to do mid-shot's of several different prisoners in the water. What the director also wanted to bring accross is the message that Jean Valjean is not like all the other men. The men keep singing "look down, look down", however Jean Valjean expresses an active defiance when he keeps looking up at Javert.

At 3.25 there is an over-the-shoulder shot of Javert looking down on the slaves before there is a cut to the next scene where the men walk over the flag with the camera focus on the chains around their feet and the dirty and torned flag from the beginning of the film opening.

The men are still singing the song in unison. After this shot where the focus in on the flag and the feet with chains, there follows a high angle shot of the men. This shot, puts the audience in a strong position and the men in a weak one. It signifies that they are always being watched and, which conditions they are living in.

The shot shown above is an eye-level shot of the prisoners looking down to the ground while they are still singing. Again emphasising on their costumes and the fact that they will always have to stay there. Moreover, the audience again feels sorry for them, since they are put in the same vulnerable position as the slaves through this eye-level shot.

In this two shot of Jean Valjean and Javert, there is a clear comparison between the clean guards and the dirty prisoners.

Moreover this two shot let's the audience notice the position Javert stands in compared to the prisoners. He is standing very uptight and straight in his uniforms while the prisoners look down with their arms dangling next to their tired bodies.

There is established a two-shot again, showing Javert handing a note to Jean Valjean allowing him to leave. In this scene, we hear how Javert calls Jean Valjean "24601". Once again, this let's the audience feel pity for all the men, since they are degraded that much that they are not even being called by their own name. Lastly, this also emphasises on the setting and how it was to be a "criminal" back then.