James Bond - Casino Royale - Film Opening Analysis

The opening scene of Casino Royale is completely in black and white, this could be to show that it is in the past via a flashback of some sort. There is a shot of an executive looking car pulling up to a building in Prague. A rather executive man in a suit then steps out of the car and goes up a lift to his room / apartment. There is a shot of the floor number going up to floor 6; this shows that whoever the man is is quite wealthy as he has been able to buy the top floor of the building that seems like it is his as there is nobody else on the floor. The isolation of this man may be used to make the audience feel like he is vulnerable and that he might be at risk, however the man exerts a feeling of a high status could suggest that he might be isolated because he is a top marksman which suggests that he is safe. A panning shot shows the man walking along a corridor and into a room, in this room there is a close up of the man’s face which makes the viewer realise that the man has realised he is not alone. James Bond then speaks and the man and camera both turn quickly to see him sitting quite comfortably in a chair. The quick movement of the camera could be used to make the audience feel like they are with Bond and the man. The two men then start to talk, with Bond accusing the man of ‘selling secrets’, there is a close up of a gun in a draw. The fact that there is already a gun in the film barely one minute in shows that the film follows a convention of an action film; this being the use of weapons. There is then a flashback of Bond fighting with a man in a toilet which is expected in an action film. This flashback could suggest that the black and white does not mean that the scene is in the past, the black and white might just be being used so the colours match the typical black and grey Bond titles. The film then cuts back to Bond and the other man talking, the other man tries to shoot Bond but his gun is empty. There is then

James Bond - Casino Royale - Film Opening Analysis

another flashback of Bond and the man fighting, this time Bond appears to have strangled, drowned and killed the other man. It then cuts back to Bond shooting the other man off of his chair. The final part of the first scene is of Bond shooting dead the man in the toilets. Within the first 3 or so minutes James bond has shot dead two people which starts the action off nicely as throughout the film the action, fighting and shooting only gets more and more escalated. The director/writer may have decided to have James Bond shown to kill two people in the opening scene to draw the viewer in and to make sure that they going to want to watch the rest of the film.

The choices in the film have been made to show the supremacy of James Bond which is a convention in an action film, this being that the main hero type character always seems to win or come off better.