Analysis of the opening sequences to 'Goldfinger' and 'True Lies' and comparing the ways they hook the audience and establish narrative.

True Lies contains more comedy then Goldfinger.  Goldfinger also contains some romance.  The audience can work out the genre of both films from watching the opening sequences.  In both films symbolic codes are used to show the genre.  The performance of both actors shows that the film contains action and romance by their body language and the way they react with other people.  An example of this is in Goldfinger; the audience knows that the film contains romance by the way James Bond interacts with the woman who was in the bath.  Also the audience associates stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sean Connery with action films, so they will know what to expect from their films.  In the opening sequences to both films the stars both start off swimming in scuba diving suits; and take them off to reveal a white tuxedo.  Also in the films the main character carries around a gun and explosives.   From the clothes and the weapons that the actors wears and carries around the audience can straight away work out that it is an action film.  Technical codes are also used to show the audience the genre.  There are lots of special effects used such as explosions in both movies.  Explosions are associated with action films.  Also in the opening sequences the camera shots are quite short and there is a lot of camera movement (panning) and this all tells us its an action film.  Audio codes are also used to tell the audience that it is an action film, which they are watching.  There is a lot of non-diegetic music used, which has a fast tempo.  In Goldfinger the James Bond theme tune is used, this will tell the audience who had watched previous James Bond films that there’s going to be an action scene.  Also there were a lot of sound effects used from the explosions and the gunfire. In the opening sequences to both films we are introduced to both the main characters: James Bond, and Harry Tasker.  In Goldfinger the film starts off with the equilibrium of a previous mission James Bond has completed.  So the audience is not told yet what is going to happen in the rest of the film.  But the audience is told about the character of James Bond.  We are told about what he is like with woman and also told about the kind of risks he is willing to take to do his job.  This tells the audience that they can expect to see lots of action and women.  In True Lies we are introduced the main character Harry Tasker and we learn about the job he does.  But this is different to Goldfinger because we are introduced to characters, which will be in the rest of the film.  We learn about other people who work with Harry Tasker and we also find out that his enemy is Juno Skinner.  The audience will know this by the way that she acts.  So the audience will expect that Harry Tasker will be on a mission, which involves stopping Juno Skinner from doing some evil. The filmmaker hooks the audience to the film by using action sequences containing lots of explosions at the start of the movie.  Also they try to make the audience think about what is going to happen in the rest of the movie, this will make them want to watch it to find out if they were right. Films are promoted using their opening sequences.  The use of the stars is used to promote the film.  Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sean Connery; are known to the public as starring in mainly action films.  So from seeing these stars in the films the audience will know what to expect and so they will decide if they like the film or not.