Opening scene research on a Western film 'The Harder They Fall'

The Western Film opening sequence I'm going to be analysing is from the film 'The Harder They Fall' which was released in 2021, directed and wrote by Jeymes Samuel. Starring actors including Jonathan Majors, and Zazie Beetz. The Film had a budget of $90 million USD. At the box office it received $8 thousand USD worldwide.

This film is about an outlaw Nat Love discovering his enemy Rufus Buck is being released from prison he rounds up his friend's to find Rufus and seek revenge on him. 

The opening begins with a black screen with sentences appearing with a diegetic sound of a desert in the background for example the sound of wind and crickets and having no cars or vehicles running by tells us it's a secluded area and the use of the sound it to put us instantly into the film. Having the sentences and having one word sentences is the director wanting the audience to remember these people as if they are to be really important, maybe to the audience we can start to get an idea what these characters may be like as its a western they will probably be quite dangerous and threatening.

When the camera fades from black we are greeted with an establishing shot of the desert which now definitely not only tells the audience the location of the film but definitely gives a convention too that the film is going to be western. The house that we see looks to be made from wood and looks fairly old from a far telling the audience that this may not be set in recent times. We can also tell that as this house is all by itself the people living there may have wanted to leave a town to escape danger? maybe these characters are outlaws and were exiled by their town.

The camera takes us into the house where we can see a little boy playing a guitar. The camera is pointed at a high angled shot to show that we as the audience have more authority than him and stereotypically, he is less important as he is a child. In the back of this shot you can see the parents talking to each other and having their faces cut off from the screen also shows us that they also have more authority than the boy. We as the audience can also establish that this is a family as the father calls the child "son".

When the mother and father go to sit down in the next shots, giving us a medium shot. The When the boy tries to grab the food, then mum slaps his wrist and she asked them to say, grace, showing to the audience that this is a religious family. So, throughout Will probably see them have a religious intent. This scene is quite symmetrical, showing to the audience that we may be a part of this scene and putting us in the moments at the end of the table. From the costumes that the family are wearing we can tell this is a period movie as they are wearing quite old fashioned clothes.

This lovely picture that the director creates is shortly interrupted by someone arriving at the door and banging quite abruptly on the door. This creates an image of distress and worry for the audience as we do not know who is arrived and never do the parents.  as a father moves to the door, we follow him within their tracking shot from when we were just sitting down this shows that we are in the moment with the father and we are moving with him as we want to know what's going on. Throughout the time we walk to the door with him there is another sense of worry to the audience.  

The close-up changes to the man's face at the door. We only see his lips and the bottom of his face. We don't see anything above implying to the audience that this is a sinister man, who we do not know what he looks like. As he is raising his head, the camera turns to an over the shoulder shot of the sinister man, again not being able to show his face to us but to the father. This creates an unsettling image for the audience as we still do not know who this man is and makes us ask more questions about who he is and why he is come here. The shot is an island shot as well as an over the shoulder shot showing us that the man in the doorway is a lot taller than the father and is being looked down upon. Having the background blurred here makes the audience only focus on these two characters as the director is clearly trying to make them important to us. The sinister man is wearing a brown jacket and a cowboy hat stereotyping the types of colour and hats that people wear in western films so we are starting to understand the genre of the film. The shot focuses on the father's reaction showing his worry that the man gives him as well as to the audience creating high tension between them.