A view to a kill

1985

Thriller film opening analysis

The story follows James Bond 007 (Roger Moore) investigate a scam involving horse racing leads to an industrialist called Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) who’s plan is to destroy silicon valley which is located in California to create a worldwide microchip monopoly.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090264/

Plot of A view to a kill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmMIgIygzdA

The opening sequence to the film with the titles of the film.

Analysis of the opening sequence

In the title sequence there is a pan shot of a woman who unzips her coat. The camera stops when the shot is at chest height. The T- shirt reveals red writing with 007. This foreshadows the violence of what is to come later on in the film. The text above and below the red writing appears in capital letters

The Theme is titled “A View to a Kill” was written by Duran Duran and John Barry, The song was recorded in London with a 60-piece orchestra. The song resembles what is shown in the sequence with the figures dancing in the fire. The lyrics are “Dance in to the fire”. This song hit number one in the charts.

The camera focuses on a gun which appears from the left side of the screen. The lasers were added afterward by editing and as the laser shoots twice the words “A VIEW” appears which is followed by “TO A KILL” fading on to the screen after. This is followed by a woman appearing on the screen from the bottom of the screen. With this there is a mid shot of the woman when she turns around and the light showing the woman darkens.

After the sequence with the gun the screen goes dark and we only see the glow in the dark lipstick that the woman is wearing and we see a point of view shot through a scope of a weapon on the right side of the screen while the camera pans down showing the woman in the shot. The text is fading in when all in capital letters.

The next part of the sequence there is a close up shot of a woman who is lighted in orange symbolising that she is the flame of rebellion. The rest of the screen is in darkness. The camera remains in the same position throughout this part of the sequence and the text appears on screen for 3 seconds.

As the sequence goes in to brief darkness there is a flame at the bottom of the screen. This is followed by an explosion which would have been added in the editing. This is followed by Roger Moore's character appearing with a vertical tracking shot of the character shooting a weapon.

This is followed by a drawn in effect of 10 circles increasing in size each time which then the inner circle reveals the next part of the sequence

This part of the sequence shows a woman skier with her cloths and make up only being lighten by glow in the dark equipment. The rest of the body is in darkness which could symbolise the mystery of the film. The titles are fading in to the shot and fading out after a few seconds.

The blue figure which runs in from the left of the screen would have been shot as a real person but edited by colouring in the individual shots. The drawn shot included shoots the woman skier and is turned to ice.

When this has happened the camera zooms in very quickly to the face of the ice sculpture. The camera then stops at the eye and the sculpture fades out to reveal a hill

Here is a long shot of a hill. The figures come from the left side of the screen. In the first part of this sequence we see several figures skiing whist one person goes past the camera.

Later in the sequence these figures begin to perform stunts. This is shown in slow motion and then resumes at a normal speed after the stunt.

This next part sees the ice figure again. The camera starts with a extreme close up but zooms out. When zooming out we see that there are flames melting the figure. This could symbolise that there will be death in this film of an important figure.

The icy figure then fades and a woman who is wearing an orange mask which is symbolising fire appears in the same place as the icy figure. The woman then begins to move backwards and forwards

The shot then shows an explosion and a woman but on both sides, like an optical illusion during the explosion and soon after.

In the final part of the sequence the woman is shown more clearly. The technique which was used was two individual shots were done but then joined together in the final edit to give the illusion. The picture will then fade to show London.