Alex's Analysis of an Opening Sequence

Analysing an opening sequence
The Business, Nick Love 2005

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqZdy6HkcPg&feature=related

The Business belongs in the ‘British gangster’ genre, the audiences generic expectations of the text are compiled by some basic factors. Drugs, violence, organised crime, and a glamorous extravagant lifestyle are what many would expect a British gangster film to consist of, and of course the more obvious, like being set in Britain and with British actors. Although this movie is actually set in Spain, the people involved are british gangsters that have moved away from Britain due to there criminal ways. The text in question, ‘The Business’, does conform to the characteristics of its genre. Themes of drugs and violence are conveyed through out the opening scene, and it is shot like a documentary into an insight of there lifestyle, and a mugging that starts the film with the two main characters and guns, also shows violent behaviour. The way the move starts, is clever as it is actually the end, where they are desperate, and no longer live the high life. Witch doesn’t indicate a glamorous lifestyle, but his dialogue tells us how he used to have it all.
The mise-en-scene is very important in the opening scene as it depicts the era, and location of the film. The first shot is of dirty painted brick walls, of Spanish looking buildings with a clear blue sky and dusty roads, this immediately give a mood to the movie as it sets the location very simply. The mountain and more Spanish style buildings add and back up the location as the opening progresses. One of the other important item of the mise-en-scene is that the clothes the two characters are wearing are classic 80’s addidas trackies, this sets the era and period of history that it is set in, very basically but clearly, the sound track, (Planet Earth by Duran Duran) also helps to depict the time period. They then turn up at a small terrace house and smash the door down, to find a dark dingy flat like room, with about 3 or 4 Spanish people sitting around doing drugs, this depicts the lifestyle of the 80s and what people were up to in Spain at this time, and what kind of background the characters are used to. The swearing and gun waving show aggression, violence, and the ‘hardman’ mannerisms of a British gangster
The camera begins with a still, low, long shot, but then cuts to many shaky mid shots and close shots, and more still long shots, the long shots are to shoe the scenery, where as the shaky close-ups are to add to the effect and tension of the characters running. The music is also very upbeat and exciting and adds to the running, and is also from the 80’s as that is when the movie is set. It is also cleverly used in the film, as the timing is set so when the line ‘look now, look all around’ is sung, they stop and look around before they break the door down. Also in the house, he gets angry and kicks the stereo; witch stops the music in the film as though he broke the stereo.
From the dialogue we learn that he had a lifestyle to do with drugs, but now he is no where near as successful as he used to be. He also tells us how his dad was in prison meaning his childhood and up bringing, where perhaps heavily criminal influenced. His perception on life that ‘crime, woman and drugs’ is all that there is to do, shows that the film will probably be based upon those features, witch are the characteristics of a British Gangster film. Between the scenes and shots in the opening sequence, the editing is simple cuts between shots randy at appropriate times.
The narrative explains how his ‘old man’ was in prison and wrote him aleet telling him to stay away from crime woman and drugs, as to not end up like his dad. He then says that there’s not much else to do, and the scene plays. Then later at the end of the opening he explains how he and the playboy used to have it all but now they have lost everything and that he’s glad he had been someone for a day, rather than a nobody for ever. This dialogue is basicly telling the story of the film briefly, as the begging is actually the end of the film.
The target audience is that of a young age between 15 and 30s to 40s, as the certificate is a 15, this is because of the drug content, violence and the appealing lifestyle of the gangster culture. The preferred reading of the film is that of an anti hero who has a lifestyle choice to do with drugs and making money, and who perceives himself not as a gangster but as a employee to the ‘playboy’. The oppositional reading is that his lifestyle is wrong as drugs are a let down to the community and the move only promotes the, the aberrant reading would be that he is evil and intends bad by what he does. As I am a British teenager, carton evaluation of the text is that the lifestyle does look appealing, from what little have seen in the first few minutes, and the amounts of money are very high, but this does not urge me to go about trying to become a big time drug dealer, as I know that is ridiculous. Danny dyer, being the main character, had already been known as a respectable actor in the UK, Dyer's first major film appearance was the role of Moff in the clubbing film Human Traffic (1999). And he was also in he popular Football Factory (2004) witch was also directed by nick love, so as the two had worked together, successfully, the producers would have accepted the idea for The Business much more easily. The Business is distributed by Pathé, Pathé produces, acquires, finances and distributes films. It should be noted that outside of France , Pathé does not distribute its own product on DVD. Rather, other distributors release Pathé's product (such as 20th Centyry Fox in the UK).