Body of Lies – Codes and Conventions opening scene

I watched the opening sequence, which was just less than 3 minutes long. The titled opened with the quote ‘I and the public know what schoolchildren leans, those to whom evil is done do evil in return.’ This at the beginning of the film doesn’t begin to make much sense however later on in the movie we may see why this quote has any significance to the movie.

The movie then sharply begins with a very fast beating soundtrack that sets a fast pace to the movie and is very similar to other action and crime soundtracks such as Bourne trilogy and so it creates a similar feel to this by using similar music, this is a convention of this genre of movie. Soon after the introduction to the backing track we see what the audience would perceive as the location at which the first scenes/scene is set in and as it states in the movie is ‘Manchester, England’ however there is an Arabic voice speaking in the background and he fades in, this is not what you would expect from Manchester and isn’t a stereotype that most would imagine, which within the first 40 seconds of the movie beginning has the director already put the viewer in a confusion.

In the movie the first person pictured (see figure 1) is in a very dimly lit scene where you are unable to make out his face or view any distinguishable features from the video, often this effect can be found in many thriller films and used for effect and to represent the ‘bag guy’ (Using the manipulation of light and dark), in this movie not only by the subtitles can you tell that the video is addressing terrorist attackers in the UK but also by their appearance. This goes with many Muslims stereotypes and unfortunately this group has suffered terribly at the hands of scapegoating. A very good example of a stereotyping of Muslim terrorists in film is the Four Lions movie. Soon they state their intentions in the movie, which in Body of Lies is to ‘avenge the American wars on the Muslim world’ and this is extremely typical of thriller movies.

In the following scenes after we see the link between the initial video that the viewer got to see a clip from and also the audience of the clip. This soon brings the audience to raise suspicions to whether they too are terrorists. Visually they make up the appearance of a Muslim however this is going by stereotypes. The scene in the house is very poorly lit, all the curtains are closed and very little light is coming

through from outdoors, this is typical of movies where the villain is in hide out.

Soon to follow is a visually contrasting view; it is taken from outside and judging from the mis en scene the viewer would often agree with the opening title stating that it is Manchester. There is a member of possibly a SWAT team holding a gun on the rooftop

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

(See Figure 2) and this gives a very intimidating view and obviously is often used in Crime movies such as this genre so it conforms to that. The camera angle at which the officer is at is a low angle shot which is often used on Police Officers in movies to show power and authority so again it conforms to the convention.

The movie then suddenly bursts as the train passes by and of course the officers take their move to get in a swiftly as possible. Once again they are sticking with the low angle shots to the officers and then enter the house. Their sound effects that they use are very traditional to other crime movies and the running sound effect in their uniform has been one used in many movies to add tension and dramatize the scene.

As soon as the explosion happens, it has a very stereotypical Point of View camera angle with the ‘shaky’ effect which attempts to put you in the seat of the person viewing the action first hand and this often works well to add more dramatic emphasis to the scene.

Clip can be extracted from here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRz3ABq-nJA