American Gangster Opening.

American Gangster 

Director: Ridley Scott

Genre: Crime Drama

Year: 2007

Distributor: Universal 

Budget: $100 million

total gross: $266 million

Soundtrack once again creates suspense as it plays over the idents, this builds tension and creates immediate narrative enigma. The soundtrack is very off beat and almost out of tune. Also we are introduced to our protagonist who is in shadow and being looked up to by the camera immediately establishing them as being in power yet very mysterious and dangerous. Expensive formal clothes are used to also show power within the gangsters and how they are above the man in the chair. The characters are back lit by headlights which defines their figure and creates almost a silhouette to them showing them within the shadows which fails to show us their true persona and identity which corresponds to the crime world genre. Graphic violence is used immediately to show us power and reveal the personalities to the characters who we immediately know are bad people and involved in crime as executions such as this are an often occurrence in crime films. Also an observance I have made watching crime film openings is the lack of emotion our protagonists show throughout the opening scenes showing them as having no remorse. Titles are often minimalistic and come at the end of the sequence after the violence has occurred and all is calm. They are san sarrif and very clear to read. Often black screen with white text such as this one. Location again is shown however no context  as to where it is in perspective to the world is shown.