Casino Royale Opening Sequence

Casino Royale is the 21st film in the James Bond franchise and is considered a reboot of James Bond. The reboot was planned to make the character much darker and more realistic as opposed to the very ‘camp’ element that was used many years before.

From the opening it is clear that the darker tone is shown almost immediately with the use of black and white to create a very grim, dark and dreary atmosphere towards the audience. The use of black and white is very similar to typical film noir which makes the scene very gritty and serious. The use of black and white could also reflect the original setting of Bond from the book as this was set in the 1950s. Typical films of the 1950s were made in black and white which could indicate to the audience that this film is going to be more closely related to the book than previous James Bond films which is an intriguing concept and could easily keep the audience interested.

The scene opens immediately with long low angle shot on an unidentified building. The building looks like a typical working-class factory which makes the scene seem much more realistic as this is a very typical building; the use of the building looking like a typical factory could again resemble a 1950s setting. A black car then drives towards the front of the building at 0:08, as the car passes we can see titles saying “Prague, Czech Republic” which could link to the Cold War, one of the most remembered wars in history which again links to a 1950s setting, the Cold War is a war that is remembered for its secrecy and conspiracy, typically when thinking of the Cold War many people tend to assume the use of spies and assassinations, this reflects James Bond’s character and keeps the audience anticipated to see Daniel Craig (who at this point was the most recent actor to play Bond in film).

There is then a low angle canted mid-shot (0:10) on an unknown character. This is typical of classic film noir films such as The Third Man which uses these shots to create a very dreary, disorienting feel to the audience. The character is wearing a hat which is similar to a typical Russian Ushanka, this could resemble a kind-of East versus West feel to the audience as typically in films the Russians are represented to be sadistic and evil whilst the English/American people are typically represented as very heroic. The use of these canted shots is typical of classic film noir films such as The Third Man which uses these shots to create a very dreary, disorienting feel to the audience. Within the first few seconds lots of diegetic sound can be heard such as a car door opening and closing. This highlights the realistic approach that this film is aiming for. The sound is very quiet by this point and makes it seem very slow and dreary; this resembles the unknown character as the audience by this point is supposed to not be interested in him. The character then arrives in the building and enters an elevator, as the man is in the elevator there is another canted shot used but this time as a close up (0:20), the use of the man being in an elevator whilst this happens bequeaths to the audience the feeling of claustrophobia, the use of the canted shot resembles the disorienting factor that was made earlier to the audience.

There is then a low angle close up (0:22) on the room floor indicator which indicates what the character is looking at, it also resembles a countdown but in an opposite spectrum with the numbers going up positively rather than negatively as though the man is about to visit his death.

We then see the man walking across a room (0:26) in a long dolly shot. The room is very different to how the building looks from the outside. There is clearly a large amount of stairs and the whole room creates a very disorienting factor. It looks reasonably futuristic with the use of glass encompassing the walls to show the outside, the use of being futuristic could resemble that this film is not set in the 1950s to the audience. The lighting is very interesting here as everything appears quite lightly coloured other than the outside and the man. This creates the sense that the man is very sadistic with him being in very dark colours, the outside of the house being dark could resemble that the man has just come from the outside leaving the outside very dark and sinister which in turn resembles the man. As the man walks across the room the audience can hear his footsteps walking along the metal floor as the man gets closer to the end of the room non-diegetic sound can be heard to make the scene seem very ‘creepy’ but also intrigues the audience. There is also a very interesting use of non-diegetic sound at 0:29 in which a very faint sound can be heard which could easily resemble a gun barrel from a pistol being loaded. This could highlight that danger is getting closer or the man is walking to his death. The use of this sound in particular also makes the scene very disturbing and sinister and thus resembles the ‘thriller’ concept.

There is then a high angle point of view type shot (0:31) of a very dark room as the man walks in. There are notably a very large amount of shadows which create a very dark and menacing tone towards the audience. The shadows also do not correspond in any way to the objects that are shown on the screen. For instance shadow behind a typical office lamp is very strange and twisted. This is reflective of very old silent German expression films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari which uses disorienting shadow throughout to express the mood and tone of what’s being shown on-screen. This is used in the same way here to simply create the disorienting factor and to also highlight the very sinister aspect that the film is trying to convey. As the man closes the door and walks across the room the audience can see (from 0:33) that the camera starts to pan from a high angle point of view type shot to a shot which is kind of like a split-screen point of view type shot with half the camera hiding behind a black pole whilst the other side watches the man walk towards to the other side of the room in a long shot. All this is done to create the sense of the man being watched. The use of the pan shot as opposed to cutting between different shots resembles the point of view of a character and since the audience will be aware of whom this character is it also anticipates them into seeing what the character actually looks like.

At 0:39 there is than a canted close up of the man as he looks across the room to notice at 0:40 that something is wrong with the scenery. We can tell this is how the man feels through the surprised look on the man’s face and also through the very eerie non-diegetic music made throughout this few seconds.

Before the man turns around suddenly the audience hear a voice. This character can then be seen as James Bond in a mid-shot at 0:46. The audience can see from Bond’s clothes that he is a very dark character as all his clothes are black. The only lightly coloured areas shown are on Bond’s face. This shows him to be a very heroic and dark character. The audience can hear from the dialogue that the man has been selling secrets of the British Secret Service; the man does not deny this statement from Bond which confirms that Bond is telling the truth. This highlights that the man is evil and sinister.

At 0:52 there is a very interesting long shot of the room in which there is clearly a large amount of equipment around the man whereas there is very little equipment around Bond, this resembles that Bond at this moment in time is not a secret agent as he has not earned his status yet whereas the man clearly has already earned it through all the equipment around him. Bond cannot be seen very well in this shot which shows that Bond is more inclined to ‘keep to the shadows’ and is therefore a much darker and more threatening than the man. As the man sits down in a chair there is a low angle close up on the man opening draw revealing a gun at 0:53 thus showing that the man’s intentions are to kill Bond.

At 0:55 there is a very interesting mid-shot on the man sitting behind his desk. At the forefront of his desk is a lamp in which appears to be leaning over the desk which could resemble how Bond is superficially leaning over the man as he is interrogating him.

As the man starts using dialogue it shows a shot/reverse shot of a close up on the man and the long shot of the room, the camera cuts between these shots as the man starts new sentences. At 1:19 Bond then starts using his dialogue. Bond’s dialogue here is very short as he is interrupting the man to show that he knows the man’s answer before he has said it. The very blunt answer using one word shows that Bond does not have much to say and simply wants to do his duty as opposed to the man who wants to talk.

As soon as Bond says the line “two” when referring to the amount of kills Bond has to make in order to achieve his double 0 status. There is then a jump cut to a flashback (1:20) showing the first death Bond made. Clearly the scenery is in a bathroom which could be reminiscent of other crime thrillers such as Psycho in which the most famous scene is the murder of a woman in a bathroom. In this flashback Bond is clearly shown to be fighting a man by aggressively forcing him inside toilet doors (breaking them in the consequence). This fighting scene is done to show that this Bond is going to be far more aggressive than all the other previous Bond’s and is also going to be far more realistic as a bathroom is a very average and typical place as opposed to the previous Bond films such as Moonraker in which a lot of the fight scenes aren’t realistic at all as they take place on the moon. As the men fight Bond is clearly winning over the man in terms of strength and fighting technique and whenever the two are knocked down (such as 1:28) Bond is always the first to stand up showing how he is superior to the man he is fighting. Bond in this fight scene is wearing a suit whilst the man he is fighting seems to be wearing quite a ‘cheesy’ Hawaiian type shirt; this highlights the sophistication of Bond and also his ruthlessness of his character through the fighting. The man wearing the ‘cheesy’ shirt seems quite typically working class and could show how Bond is triumphing over them thus representing the working class as aggressive people (as he is ruthlessly fighting Bond) but also as very unsophisticated and illiterate as the man fighting has no lines of dialogue other than groans from the fighting. At 1:30 the scene then jump-cuts back to the interrogation between Bond and the other man, the other man draws the gun that was placed in his drawer and holds it pointing directly at Bond, there is then a shot/reverse shot on Bond as the man exchanges dialogue before he suspects that he is about to kill Bond, however once the man pulls the trigger it is clear that the gun is not loaded as Bond has taken the cartridge out, this is taking directly out of many crime-drama’s where the villainous character holds a gun up to the heroic man’s face and exchanges dialogue before pulling the trigger and is often thought of as one of the most over-used clichés (link below to Cinemassacre’s top 10 worst movie clichés).

Once it has been established that Bond has the cartridge to the man’s gun there is another jump-cut to the flashback at 1:58 where Bond punches the man in the face forcing him to land and break a group of urinals. The man is then forced to stand up by Bond and is brought aggressively to a group of sinks filled with water in which Bond attempts to drown the man. This is clearly much more violent and sinister than in all previous Bond films and clearly shows the darker edge the film is trying to portray. The very violent scene where the man is being forcibly held in water drowning shows that the audience for this film would have to be around the 15-onwards mark as the film would probably be too violent and sinister for younger audiences. It would not be an 18 due to the fact that there is no blood shown in direct detail as the whole scene is made in black and white. As the man struggles the audience can see close-ups of Bonds face whilst very spine-chilling non-diegetic sound can be heard within the background, the sounds are very short to begin with but gradually become slower and much longer thus reflecting the man’s heartbeat as he drowns in the water. The close-ups on Bond’s face highlight the violent behaviour and ruthlessness of his character as he never takes his eyes of the man as he drowns as though he is totally focuses on ensuring the man is dead thus showing how Bond has no sympathy for him. Eventually the music stops thus indicating the man is dead, once this happens Bond simply drops the man on the floor and stares aggressively at the man’s dead body as though he is making sure in his mind that the man is indeed dead.

The scene then jump-cuts back again to the original interrogation, the original man tries to get emotions out of Bond by saying “made you feel it did he?” as though making killing seem like a sexual thrill, this could correspond with a villain from a previous James Bond film Goldeneye in which a villainous character kills people through sex as a form of her own sexual thrill. However Bond’s facial expression does not change thus indicating that this version of Bond is essentially emotionless and does not care about what people say. Before the man can finish his sentence for his next line of dialogue Bond immediately draws a loaded gun onto the man and shoots him subsequently killing him. As the man falls of his chair there is an incredibly quick point of view shot of the man at 2:52, the use of incredibly quick editing here resembles how quick the death of the man was, it also resembles a disorienting and confusing feel towards the audience which in turn resembles how the man would have felt as he would not have expected being shot so quickly.

There is then one final jump-cut to the fight scene at 3:00 in which the man who was thought to have been drowned quickly sits up and tries to shoot Bond however in a long shot James Bond turns and shoots the man emulating the famous ‘barrel shot sequence’ which is a typical feature in the Bond franchise.

The original man can be seen to be wearing a very posh suit and speaks with a notably posh accent which corresponds with the very sophisticated suit Bond is wearing during the fight scene and also Bond’s voice which is notably posh but is much deeper than the man’s. This shows how Bond is triumphing over the working class in terms of fighting and also represents the upper class as very sophisticated but also very pompous and dim-witted as the man did not notice that his gun had no cartridge inside it and was thus mentally overcome by Bond. This would overall show how the working class are aggressive fighters and how the upper class are sophisticated but can also be very dim-witted and overcome by very simple techniques. There is also a clear representation of men here as there are no women shown at any point here thus resembling how men overpower women in terms of government and crime.

An example of the canted close up shot in Casino Royale (as referred to in the blog).

Here is a similar canted shot taken from  a film called The Fallen Idol, which was made by the same director of The Third Man (as referred to in the blog), as you can see there are many similarities between the two and both clearly highlight the disorienting factor that they are both trying to perceive towards the audience.

Here is the shot I referred to in the blog when talking about the disorienting feel that is being given from the shadows. As you can see the shadow that is behind the light shade does not match the shape of the light shade thus creating a disorienting feel. 

 In the blog I stated that the previous image could bear links to the German expression film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari as they both use disorienting shapes to create a disorienting feel towards the audience. Here is an still from the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, as you can see the vast majority of shapes in the background are very peculiar shapes and bold no resemblance to each other thus creating a similar disorienting effect on the audience.

Here is the image I referred to in the blog when discussing how Bond (on the left) is clearly shown to be kept 'in the shadows' whereas the man (on the right) is clearly in amidst of a vast amount of light. It is also clear how the man seems to have a large amount of buildings behind him which is similar to a famous still taken from Jaws in which the villainous characters have an array of equipment behind them whereas the heroic characters don't have much in their surroundings thus creating the feel that the villainous characters at this point have the 'upper-hand' over the heroic characters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klltwoa6glE - Here is a link to Cinemassacre's Top 11 Worse Movie Cliche's as referred to in the analysis (look up number 1 in the countdown for the main reference when concerning the analysis).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epxYm3OouQA - If the video on this post does not work, here is a link to the same video on YouTube.