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Cinematic Overtures: How to Read Opening Scenes
Cinematic Overtures: How to Read Opening Scenes

Cinematic Overtures: How to Read Opening Scenes in Bloomington, MN

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A great movie’s first few minutes provide the key to the rest of the film. Like the opening paragraphs of a novel, they draw the viewer in, setting up the thematic concerns and stylistic approach that will be developed over the course of the narrative. A strong opening sequence leads the viewer to trust the filmmakers. Other times, opening shots are intentionally misleading as they invite alert, active participation with the film. In
Cinematic Overtures,
Annette Insdorf discusses the opening sequence so that viewers turn first impressions into deeper understanding of cinematic technique.
From Joe Gillis’s voice-over in
Sunset Boulevard
as he lies dead in a swimming pool to the hallucinatory opening of
Apocalypse Now
, from the stream-of-consciousness montage as found in
Hiroshima, mon amour
to the slowly unfolding beginning of
Schindler’s List
,
Cinematic Overtures
analyzes opening shots from a range of Hollywood as well as international films. Insdorf pays close attention to how the viewer makes sense of these scenes and the cinematic world they are about to enter. Including dozens of frame enlargements that illustrate the strategies of opening scenes, Insdorf also examines how films explore and sometimes critique the power of the camera’s gaze. Along with analyses of opening scenes, the book offers a series of revelatory and surprising readings of individual films by some of the leading directors of the past seventy-five years. Erudite but accessible,
will lead film scholars and ardent movie fans alike to greater attentiveness to those fleeting opening moments.
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