Assessment of Donnie Brasco - Ishmail

Assessment

How do the filmmakers establish character, genre and narrative in the opening?

Write about:

• Camera 
• Editing
• Sound 
• Mise-en-scene

Donnie Brasco opening assessment

The film opens with the production company logo and then it immediately fades to the opening titles of the film in this case it was the actors and composers names. This was overlaid over a series of images in black and white. This consisted of an eye line shot of a man looking to his right and then it fades to a series of images in the style of a film reel. This is an effective editing technique to signify past occurrences, this will also tell the audience that these people shown, have met or will meet in the future.

This also suggests that he was looking at something or someone, as he was looking to his right which would muster questions into the audiences head i.e. “What was he looking at?” As the scene progresses, we are introduced to a transition of a film reel where multiple black and white images of people are shown, again this is a very effective editing technique to show the audience events which have occurred in the past, also it is not to revealing so the audience are left on their toes guessing. The black and white images suggest that the people shown in the images are in the younger years, like a set memories trying to make the audience reminisce the events that have occurred also the music played in the background had a 1940-50s feel to it, which adds to ambience of memories.

At this point in time the audience are trying to connect the images and the music to events that could have taken place in the past using their imagination, questions that they can ask themselves is that “how are they related to each other?”, ”what ties these people together?”. The scene then fades to the next; we are again introduced to a man using an eye line shot, but this time it appears to the audience that he is looking to his left. Earlier we were introduced to a man looking to his right now we are introduced to a man looking to his left, this suggest that they are probably looking at each other. We can now assume that these two people are the protagonist and antagonist it is made quite clear that these two are binary opposites i.e. left and right.

We are then shown images of the men from the film reel transition in photographs, but this time their faces are circled with a marker and one of the faces has a cross on it. From this we can determine that the man looking to his left has a grudge against the man looking to his right, this is because the people circled may be associated with the man on the right and that he will not stop at all costs until everyone associated with him and he himself is eliminated. We can assume this because circled photos is a typical technique used in other films and dramas to show that he/she is target and also when cross is put over it, it usually means that he/she is dead.

We are then re introduced to the man looking to his left with another eye line shot in black and white and then it fades into colour, this is a effective transition and editing technique (colour saturation) to show that it has become present day where he appears to be in a bar where the man looking to his right, which we will refer to him as Mr. right and the other as Mr. left from now on is sitting with his people. Mr. right seems to be talking to one of his people about which car is better, he goes on to give reasons as to why the car he chose is better, he lists multiple reasons and then starts to repeat some of the things he has said. Then another one of his people tells him that he is repeating his words. From this we can determine that a great deal of time has passed as he is getting old and starting to repeat words (short term memory loss). Mr. right turns around and then his eyes meet with Mr. left. He asks one of his people ‘who is that guy sitting there, is he a wise guy’ (wise guy is a term used by gangsters in the 1940-50s not necessarily commonly used nowadays) then the person replies ‘don the jury’. From this the audience begins to wonder what past did Mr. left have and what could he have done to gain that title.

As the scene progresses we are shown an over the shoulder shot of Mr. left from the point of view of Mr. right the camera then focuses on Mr. right and the person talking to him in a two shot where Mr. right asks to the other person ‘if I had a thing, could you take care of it for me’ from the dialogue spoken we can immediately concur that Mr. right has something to hide and wants it to be taken care of, we also can determine that there was a sense of fear due to the fact the way the dialogue was spoken. It was spoken in a nervous voice with a slight tremble.   

The scene moves on to Mr. left looking at the reflection of Mr. right and then leaving from the bar where we shown a series of jump cuts; a camera is following his movements and taking pictures from afar. From this we can determine that Mr. left is a watched man, but by whom.

From this opening we can determine what type of genre this film is, we can do this by analyzing the generic conventions portrayed in this film. In a thriller we have 1 main protagonist and 1 main antagonist that will eventually collide, in this case, it is of Mr. Left and Mr. Right. We know this because in the beginning of the film we have both of them introduced, one in the left of the frame and one in the right of the frame this will signify two opposites as it is shown clearly to the audience watching that, they are the two that are in conflict.

Other signifiers that are shown which will make the audience assume that the film is a thriller is when the characters are in a bar together examining each other for the slightest of defects to which they can use to their advantage for a arriving situation. This is also a typical convention of the genre thriller where the protagonist is faced with a situation where escape seems impossible.