Gone Girl Opening Sequence Analysis

How does this media text use media language to communicate and appeal to its target audience?The opening sequence of ‘Gone Girl’ conforms to the thriller narrative therefore appealing to its primary unisex target audience of eighteen year olds (in terms of the BBFC) to thirty year olds, who have psycho-graphics of thriller films. The first shot in the opening sequence appeals to the female audience who enjoy sub plots of romance. This shot appears to be a point of view shot and accompanied by the non diegetic dialogue, ‘I always think of her head’ it suggests there is an intimate relationship between Amy and whoever it is that is staring at her. The use of the pronoun, ‘I’ creates an immediate enigma around who the narrator is. The fact the narrators identity is also withheld through his absence in semiotics could also reflect that he sees Amy as most important and significant and therefore doesn’t want to take the attention away from her. As a result, this connotes to the audience that whoever is staring at Amy, who appears to be the hero in terms of Props character theory, is admiring her and appreciating her. This sets the tone of love and peace backed up by the intimate action of stroking her head. This appeals to mainly the female audience as they can relate to the intimacy and aspire to have that sort of relationship.

However, half way through this shot there is a tonal shift created through the use of the non diegetic dialogue: ‘I picture cracking her lovely skull and spooling her brains’. This creates an uneasy tone to the audience due to the juxtaposition of the intimate actions displayed through the use of semiotics and the violence suggested through his dialogue; Amy now appears a a victim. This also changes the expectations of the stock narrative, therefore appealing to a more mass audience of males who enjoy the violence denoted by the dialogue used. This offers the opposite interpretation from before as the audience now questions who the narrator is and worries for Amy's safety. The producers have also encoded Amy's body language to create the sense that she is not moving and have placed the narrators violent dialogue over the top to create a sinister feel. This could connote death and makes the audience feel uncomfortable almost as if they're witnessing something much more sinister than it originally seemed. Due to this, it offers the opposite interpretation that we are being withheld from the narrators identity as he has something to hide not because of his selflessness that we originally expected. The audience will now associate the narrator as having an almost psychopathic personality.

At the end of the narration the woman turns to stare towards the camera. This forces the audience to feel a sense of relief due to the denotation of her body language connoting death through symbolism. Due to the timing of her turning around it also makes it seem as if the narrator had been talking out loud. This connotes that they have a close relationship as she could almost read his mind and that maybe she is used to his dark thoughts and accepts them as if they're nothing as she doesn’t have a scared expression on her face. Already, the linear narrative that has lead the audience to confusion through different emotions portrayed. This can be a reflection of the narrative and the characters emotions therefore suggesting the film is a psychological thriller appealing to the target audience who have specific psychogrphics in this sub genre. Although the expression is not scared, she doesn’t appear to be relaxed, instead the straight mouth, wide eyes and lifted eyebrows suggest she is calculating and plotting something in her head. This assisted with the fact she inst looking directly into the camera, which is meant to be the narrators point of view, suggests that maybe we cant trust her as she can’t ‘look you in the eye’. This, to the viewer, creates intrigue into her personality and they expect an aspect of the narrative to explore why she doesn’t trust. They emphasise with her clearly slightly damages state.

             
As the narration moves on, the audience is again forced to change their opinions on the situation. The woman, who initially appeared as the victim begins to appear delirious as she moves slowly pressing her face into the mans stomach and her gaze now appearing threatening rather than loving. The intimacy of her being closer to the man switches the audiences worries from her to his safety. The use of the pale makeup they have used on her emphasises this making her appear ill and linking to her mental state. This could represent her to the audience as having inhuman traits, again adding to the mystery already created around her character. The use of the light in the doorway in the background contrasted with the more low key lighting on the woman herself makes her appear as if she is almost the dark side through the encoding of binary opposition. The fact the light is also in a doorway is significant as is symbolises that the man needs to escape building the tension of the viewer as they worry that the male character will not escape.

This close up shot is then followed up, through the use of a fade away, with an establishing shot featuring the title ‘Gone Girl’ in the centre. The fact that the establishing shot lacks any people suggests the location for the film will be isolated, it could also symbolise the feeling of the characters we just met and how alone they feel. The theme of secrecy is also continued from the first shot in which enigmas are created and not answered, as the use of the sea, dark and isolation have been encoded. This can link to the narrative suggesting that as the audience already know it is a thriller, this location can be the perfect place for typical thriller plots to take place: small, lonely and empty. Furthermore, the fact that the ‘Gone Girl’ title literally disappears through the use of a fade out suggests the narrative. The use of white also symbolising her empty space. So far the audience have only met one woman and this could foreshadow that she will disappear at some point through out the narrative. This conforms to the narrative theory that suggests the target audience appeal to what they know and what they can predict. However, the apposing theory suggesting that the target audience also enjoy a sense of the unknown can also conform to the opening sequence so far as the stock characters in terms of props character theory have not been established and the target audience are still confused and un-trusting towards the characters they have met so far.

The next shot shows Nick stood outside a house. The audience automatically infer that Nick is the male whose voice we heard in the narration in the previous shots. This instantly makes the audience feel threatened by him but also intrigued. This is continued by the hesitation before he turns his back to walk towards the house. His stance is also intriguing as his manly physique, creating the representational issue that all men should aspire for the muscly body type, is contrasted by his hunched posture almost as if he is anxious. The long shot used to frame this shot also keeps the audience in their comfort zone due to their instinct that so far the situation is dangerous: the long shot reflects that they are safer from a distance. However, it might also make some viewers feel like they want to get to know him on a personal level as they feel like they have been mislead towards his intentions making them feel guilty. The theme of juxtaposition is also continued in this shot. The juxtaposition of the abnormal feelings displayed by the male and the uneasy feel the audience generate for themselves after meeting the female for the first time are continued towards the characters. However, this abnormal tone created is juxtaposed to the familiar every day situation of being stood outside of a stereotypical American house and garage and carrying out normal every day activities suggested by the bins in the foreground of the shot, which again the audience can relate to creating a sense of surface realism to his character.

The final shot of the opening sequence remains a long shot outside the front of the house but has moved further away. It allows the audience to see Nick moving back towards the door of the house. As he does the non diegetic musics volume increases and quickens. This builds tension to the audience and makes them anxious to see what events will follow. However, because of the confusion generated towards the characters previously due to various changes in opinions, they will find it difficult to predict what he Is about to do or what is about to happen. This means that the function of the opening sequence has been achieved by the events and semantics encoded by the producer. As the audience are struggling to decode everything and make sense of what is happening, they are intrigued and almost ‘in to deep’ to stop watching now. They are so interested in the dynamics of the characters that have been created that they want to see how the narrative will play out. They have, by now, categorised the film into the thriller genre category and are inferring that the narrative will contain some sort of female disappearance and an attempt to discover where she if and who has taken her.

How will this helps me:
The main thing i can take from this opening sequence is how to use the miss-en-scene to represent characters and relationships. Also how to subtly suggest things about characters without instantly giving their personalities away. This helps to create a creepy tone from the beginning of thriller films as you're not sure weather to trust the character you think you are seeing. I think this is especially effective when meeting characters in a relationship as from previous opening sequence research (see previous blog post on Inception) i realised that when you meet two apposing character types together eg. hero and villain it is important to clarify their roles immediately.