127 Hours openeing scene

The Film I am focusing on is 127 hours which is a survival drama film. The story takes place in Utah’s canyon lands National Park in the US. It is a modern film under the influence of a true story. It is based in 2003; from April 25^th- May 1^st.

The beginning sequence firstly consists of a split screen of three parts. The first minute is taken up by various crowd events playing within each of the split screen parts, building up to form a screen filled with three different  clips of crowd events. As a clip ends the next one begins on the section next to it, creating a fast paced sequence of moving images. The first clips are crowd celebrations, but the third clip enters bringing in a religious theme of large structured lines of people praying.  Then follows  clips of: a congratulating crowd scene, a swimming competition, a crowded beach, a large crowd doing a Mexican wave and  a man being thrown up within a crowd, until one clip of a crowd running  to the left is played on all three sections. Each section is then filled with a busy crowded place with people all travelling in the same direction. The clips continue to change until a lamp with a man walking in front of it appears in the middle section. Both the left and right sections are filled with two different but symmetrical clips of people travelling up an escalator. The right section is first discarded to reveal more of the scene with the man and the lamp, then the left does the same, giving us a full screen of a man walking through his house. The man is packing a bag, taking various equipment, water and food within his bag. As he is doing so his answer message is playing. The message is from the man’s sister who says, even though she knows he’s going to be away this weekend they need  to decide what they’re going to play and when they're going to practice. She also asks him to ring their mum ‘as she worries’. As he grabs his keys and leaves the door, the split screen reappears filling the screen with three sections of the man’s tap dripping in which he used to fill his water.(symbolising the foreboding of the water he will lack when he Is trapped, and how he wastes it now)  Each section is then filled with a clip of moving cars on a motorway of some kind, and the main character’s face is shown driving switched between many of the screens, followed by places and food restaurants he passes. The sections each show parts of the now empty motorways with only his car driving. The only other people to be seen are a group of cyclists travelling in the opposite direction in which he is driving. The split screen finishes as the focuses is brought onto the man’s car driving. He then begins filming himself driving, stating the date and expressing his happiness and excitement for his adventure he is taking. Various images of Egyptian inscriptions are then played, until It shows him pulling up to an apparent campsite.
 I feel that the order of the events are significant to the story. I feel that by introducing the film with hundreds of thousands of people creates a false impression of the film. This means the lonely journey that we find out the film is about is a surprise to the audience, meaning it is more effective.

I see the opening sequence in three sections. The first being the various crowd clips being played, the second being the character packing his bags, and the third is his journey down to the campsite. The first part is very unconnected to the two other parts. In some sense they are very contrasting. While the first involves thousands of people, the second and third involve the preparation and journey of one man. The second and third parts to the opening sequence are linked to one another, allowing you to follow through with what this man is doing. The packing of his bags allows you to understand what kind of journey he is going on, and the journey to the campsite links to why he packed his bags.

The main character is introduced at the beginning, being the first individual person to be introduced to the film. Unlike the thousands of people included in the beginning, the introduction of the main character is on a more personal level. We are in his house, listening to his answer phone messages, and seeing all his possessions that he has around the house.  We find out his name is Aron due to his answer machine. We also are introduced to his sister on the answering machine who also introduces us to their mother as being ‘very worried’.  We know that this man Is the main character as the opening sequence comes down to only him, and we know the woman on the answering phone is his sister due to her comfortable tone and her reference to him as ‘A’ symbolising how she knows him very well, and her reference to ‘mum’ as their mother.

Due to the beginning crowds scenes played for the first minute of the opening sequence, this leaves the audience with not much content and detail to the opening sequence. The story evidence that is revealed is that our main character is going on a journey in which he has travelled into an isolated part of town to begin, which we discover from the contrasting busy motorway images first displayed which then become images of empty roads with only his car travelling on.  Any information about how long he is going for, where he is going is withheld in order to build suspense and allow us to follow him through with his journey, instead of waiting for information we already know, and we have already been given, to take place.

I feel that there is nothing in particular the audience needs to know at the start of the film. This is because the film involves a twist in which the whole film ends up being about. If any hint to this part of the film is revealed, then the audience know what the whole film is about, as this is the only thing the film involves. I think for this reason in order to really feel the surprise from the film and to go through the emotional journey of Aron that can be granted, the audience should watch the film knowing nothing about what is going to happen.