BBCS AS Media 2011-12: November 2011

City Of God opening scene analysis

City of God starts with a extreme close up of a very sharp blade scraping a rock in order to make it sharper, as this is happening the camera cuts to a blank screen repeatedly making it difficult for audience to see the blade but easy to hear (diegetic onscreen sound) the blade being sharpened, which gives audience suspense because they do not know what the blade is being sharpened for. As the scene continues many crosscutting is used, where many alternate shots of lines of action occurring simultaneously in different places. The crosscutting and close up of carrots being pealed and chickens being killed in order for them to be eaten, this shows us that this whole bunch of people who are preparing the chicken are very different to European culture as they don’t kill animals in preparation for their dinner, and they go out and buy theirs. Also crosscutting of close up shot of people with no shoes shows that this place the chicken is being prepared is sort of a poor place and maybe even a slum. The fact that these people are not going to supermarket for their chicken, and the fact that they have actual alive chickens shows that this community is separate from the things like shops etc.

As the chicken and everything else is prepared, audience can hear an on screen diegetic sound from people drumming, the drumming is of a Brazilian style, therefore assuming the film is set in a slum in Brazil.

A close up of a chicken wriggle themselves from a rope is shown and as the chicken gets out of rope and into a alleyway, the diegtic onscreen sound of the drumming suddenly stops and cuts to a extreme close up of a chickens blood on a plate, emphasising the theme of the film is got to do with blood and killings, symbolising that the chickens are just the start of the killings that is going to be made. After the blood shot, parallel editing is used, to show close of a dark man speaking in a foreign language saying “oh fuck the chicken got away, get it” then long shots of a gang is shown with guns, this shows that the man speaking is a group leader of a gang who is armed, emphasising again that this film theme is killing as every gang member has a gun. Also shows how the community is separate as every gang member has a gun, in countries such as England this will simply not happen because of the police, however this shows that the area is a slum and the community is separate from law, showing that lots of crime can happen.

Then crosscutting is used between two scenes, one scene is a young adult who wants to be photographer, talking to his friend about how risky the shot he has to take to become a photographer is, and the gang leader and his gang chasing the chicken eventually to the middle of the road. As the gang leader is chasing the chicken someone comes in his way, he pushes the person down a pulls out a gun and threatens to kill that person, showing how this gang leader is in power of the whole community and can do what he wants, the camera shot used is a over the shoulder shot from behind the gang leader from a high angle whilst the victim is on the floor, the audience attention is captured as this shot shows how much power the gang leader has and how everyone is scared of him in the slum. The photographer and gang leader meat each other on opposite side of the road and gang leader tells photographer to grab the chicken who is in the middle of the road. As photographer is trying to get the chicken the gang say “oh shit police”, a long shot of people running is used, however the gang leader orders his gang to “don’t fucking runoff” and they all come back with their guns pointed and ready to use at the police officers who is behind the photographer, the photographer realises that the guns are pointed from police at the gang and gang at the police and he is in the middle of all this and doesn’t know what to do and says “if I run I die and if I stay I die” then the film cuts to start of the film, showing that this is the end. This opening scene creates enigma as the audience wants to know why the gang and police is in a gang war and how photographer has got himself in this situation and why he is in danger of being killed if he takes a particular shot. Also establishing some of the central characters of the film, the photographer and gang leader.

The gang leader creates an interest in audience as he isn’t the normal type of person, he is in fact a rebel who seems to be ruthless and horrible person who is in control of the whole slum and is even against the police, and nobody can stop him because of his big armed gang. Also the photographer creates interest for audience as he seems to be very quite calm, risk taking (willing to take a shot even if it would mean his life) and the fact that the character isn’t caught up in the gang violence shows he is protagonist and gang leader is antagonist. Both of these character are contrast each other, which also grabs audience attention to see why the photographer isn’t a bad person and why gang leader is.

Most of the title sequence is done before the film starts in blue in a black background, the title sequence is very simple and as the film starts the rest of the title sequence is done in white in the bottom right hand side of the screen, making it hard to see, unless good attention is paid, this is because the film is very fast paced even from the start, and therefore doesn’t want to distract the audience from what is going on in the film and audience have to keep up with what is going on or they will miss what happened as the film is fast paced and many things can be missed out, that is why most of the title sequence is done before the movie start.