Textual Analysis of Lord of War Opening Scene

The Lord of War opening scene starts off with the camera panning upwards until it reveals a figure, Nicholas Cage turns around and the camera is at mid shot. He says some dialogue and then the camera follows a first person perspective of a single bullets production and usage.

The main character is Nicholas Cage, I inferred this from him directly addressing the camera in the opening sequence. He is presented as a man in a suit talking about gun trade statistics to the camera. He is also smoking a cigar. The first title of the credits is 'Nicholas Cage' and this further hints he is the main character of the film. His dialogue also hints to the possibility that he has something to do with firearm manufacturing and distribution; 'There are over 550 million fire arms in worldwide circulation, thats 1 firearm for every 12 people on the planet, the only question is; how do we arm the other 11?'

The films audience is 18-30 year old males. I believe the target socio economic group would be between A and B due to the intellectual material in the film. The film is rated an 18 by the rating boards because of the touching matters it elaborates on and sexual and violent scenes. Hobbies or interests of people watching the film would probably be the prominence of Nicholas Cage as he is a famous actor who has been in many Hollywood films. An intellectual audience is targeted with the opening sequence as it differs from many normal ones. It also targets a slightly older audience by including a backing track from the 1960's called 'Buffalo Springfield - For What Its Worth' .

The camera creates meaning by giving us a point of view from a bullet. This is unusual as it is rarely done in films with inanimate objects. This suggests that the film is involves a lot of guns and bullets and firearm manufacturing and distribution is the main theme of the film.

There is a build up of suspense throughout the whole opening sequence because of the presence of the bullet. Bullets are made to be shot and that is what the audience is waiting for and that is what delivered at the end of the opening sequence. The bullet is fired and results in a head shot. This is what the audience would want because without that climax the opening sequence would be boring. They were anticipating that action.

The opening sequence keeps the audience hooked to watch the rest of the film because it presents them with a disruption of an equilibrium, the death of an unnamed soldier. This may or may not lead onto the main plot but it still presents a climax that will cause the readers to want to find out what happened after it.

A lot of enigma is built up within the opening of this film. The audience will be wondering about how much relevance Nicolas Cage has to the film and what character he is supposed to be. The significance of the single bullet throughout the whole of the enirety of the opening sequence will make the audience want to question it.

The genres of the film is thriller, crime, drama and action. The obvious conventions of an action film are present in the opening sequence to this film. The weapon manufacturing buildings, the vast amount of bullets and the action that commenced when the man was shot between the eyes. Other action conventions that were included was the dramatic non diagetic sound present when the bullet went into slowmotion or 'Bullet time'