Action Opening Sequence Analysis - The Dark Night

Action Opening Sequence Analysis - The Dark Knight

Year released: 2008

Director: Christopher Nolan

Studio: Warner Bros.

Top Billed Cast: Christopher Gale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger

The genre of The Dark Knight is Action, this is shown from the first establishing shot which zooms in on a gunman in a clown mask. this straight away creates an engaging atmosphere due to the creepy and off putting mask the man is wearing and the sudden shock of the bullet piercing the glass brings the audience straight into a fast paced scene of conflict, a key element of the action genre. we are then shown other sinister looking men preparing bags who then zip wire from one roof to another roof, this further emphasizes the intense and faced paced feeling of the sequence which does not leave room for the audience to catch their breath.

The tone of the opening is frantic and creepy, this is shown most fittingly by betrayal by many different masked robbers who start taking each other out, this shows that whoever is in charge of the heist is very clever and is trying to leave as little people as alive as possible ti maybe ensure that they receive all the money stolen.  It means that none of the robbers can trust who they are around which ads to the hectic situation as you truly do not know what is going to happen since this is not the stereotypical course of a bank heist scene.

The audience is engaged by the diegetic pleonastic sound effects of the guns in the duel scene, such as when one of the workers at the bank decides to fight back with his shotgun, this is particularly engaging because this action represents something that not many people would honestly do when held captive to crazed men in clown masks. But once again unexpectedly he dies, the obvious narrative path would be to let him be a hero of some kind but no once again the audience's expectations are turned around and flipped over.

The characters of the men in clown masks are presented as unempathetic and naive, this is because they show no mercy to anyone in the bank with no respect to the general public which portrays them as heartless individuals will do anything for a large sum of money; they are naive due to the fact that they did not consider there might be a catch for working for their boss who appears to be crazed and sadistic based on his unhinged nature. At the end we get a snapshot of what the 'boss' is like and he is insane by leaving what looks like to be a grenade in a dying mans mouth which is insane. It's also revealed one of the men in the clowns masks actually is him, the boss, it was just a disguise all along which shows how calculating and intelligent the boss is despite his psychopathic behaviour.

Based on the overall sequence i definitely believe we will see who the 'boss' is and what their future intentions are because they have pulled of a mega heist without being detected and killing all the henchman off so there is no need to share the money. I think this opening sequence was very successful due to the interesting narrative, great use of pleonastic sound effects and incredible performances by the men in clown masks; particularly the boss who comes across as a phycopath due his horrific actions despite only being seen briefly, this shows his monumental make on the audience by stealing the whole sequence by his captivating performance.