“The
Thing” by Matthijs van Heijningen
The opening scene of the movie, “The Thing” consists
of three men in a yellow jeep driving in the snow of Antarctica. They fall into a crevasse and see an alien
ship at the bottom. Before they fall,
the two men laugh about an obscene joke and the third man is listening to a
sonar radio with headphones on. The
atmosphere of the first shot is a feeling of isolation in a vast snowy
landscape. It is a way of foreshadowing
the events to come later in the film. When these men go on the expedition, they will
encounter life-threatening aliens without the help of the outside world. The tone of the film is imminent danger at
all times. They joke and then the third
man hears a sound on the radio and they stop and the ice breaks, causing them
to hurtle towards the pit. They look
with awe at the alien ship in the darkness.
This is a very eye-catching and interesting way to open the film. Viewers can see that there is a mystery to be
solved and whatever is inside the alien ship is dangerous. The sound is quiet and peaceful at first and
then changes to ominous and foreboding.
The lighting is important because the opening seconds are so bright with
shadows on the snow and then there is bleak darkness when the jeep shines light
into the crevasse. Changing from a
bright scene to a dark scene is drastic and powerful. I think the opening scene is successful in
catching viewers’ attention because of the contrasting composition and pacing
of the actors’ demise.
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