Research into a Western film

 The opening scene for western film I choose is 3 10 to Yuma. It is a 2007 film with the director – James Mangold. The main casts are Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Peter Fonda. In addition, it is produced by Relativity Media by a budget of $48-55 million. The opening scene tells the story in linear narrative.

 

The opening scene tells us the setting and genre straight away. The view and the houses suggests that they are in a farm. The gun, the horse, and the farm shows the genre of Western film. The quiet environment at the beginning with the nervous and aware facial expression of the man hints there will be some bad things happen soon. There are two non-diegetic soundtrack in the video clip. One is the up-beating music plays when the people fired the house.

This is a parallel sound which supports what us going on and emphasise the nervous mood. Following this, the soundtrack change to a slow and soft music, the atmosphere changed to a sad and helpless feeling. We can realised that their life is difficult and tough.

 

There is a obvious opposite relationship in the beginning. The scene introduces quiet a lot of characters: Dan, the women, Willian and the man on the horse. Dan should be the owner of this farm. It can be seen from the beginning that his emotions have always been nervous and guarded, and he has been holding a gun in his hand.

From the lighting, the time should be late at night. Immediately through the eyeline match shot, we found that someone was burning the farm. Through a long handheld tracking of Dan, it connotes that Dan is annoyed and anxious. He runs to the man and wants to stop it. We know that he has a disability on his leg by the close up shot.

This hints that he might experienced wars or fights before. The man on the horse obviously threatened or warned Dan by setting fire. From the dialogue, we know that the family might owe them something, “You have a week, then we will burn the house”. Compared with the man on the horse, Dan and his family is weak and powerless. Willian is Dan’s son, he helps his father to save things in the barn. At the end, he used a shot reverse shot during their conversation. From the dialogue,“I will take care of this” “No, you won’t”. It connotes that William might be dissatisfied with the current situation and his father's cowardly and incompetent performance.

It can be seen from his motion that he raises the gun that he has the mind and courage to take revenge. Unlike the men, the woman was incompetent and confused, and she did not do anything to help. This also reflects the stereotype that women were not able to do things independently in that time.

 

By seeing the opening scene, I was quiet interested of the rest of film. At the beginning, their home was burned and the group of people said they would come back, so I think the following story may be about how the family would protect their home or what changes they will make to prevent them from living in fear. I want to know whether their life of fear and poverty will be improved.

Importantly, it sets the main ideas of the characters and their situation. Overall, this is a good opening as I am quiet engaged by the fast speed and tense atmosphere with very suitable music. These make my mood be nervous with them together.