Country Strong: Opening sequence analysis

Country Strong film poster 

Country Strong is a drama/music film starring Gwyneth Paltrow, directed by Shana Feste. The storyline is about a famous country-music artist who tries to live the life she did before hitting rock bottom with personal issues between her and her husband. She falls in love behind her husbands back with another rising country songwriter, but more complications occur on their journey to the top. The opening scene starts with an audience clapping whilst the titles start to appear on screen, written in a cream, elegant font on a black background. The man is speaking over the titles, his voice has an echo loud effect, we assume he is on a stage and is using a microphone. So far the titles have represented to genre and the title of the film as we begin to imagine who this character is and how significant he is going to be in this film.

As the title of the film is shown on screen the title scrolls up and the background fades-in to a high angle shot panning down and zooming in to a local community centre where people are standing outside talking, and country trucks are parked outside. Meanwhile, the credits are still on screen showing in the bottom corners of the shots. Live country music starts playing as the camera pans inside the building showing us a fairly empty event with a few couples slow-dancing and children playing around. The trucks parked outside and the way people are dressed in cowboy boots, hats and buckle belts sets the scene of a country environment. The camera zooms in on the band playing and close-ups of the man singing are shown on screen telling us he is a significant character. We see close-ups of couples laughing and smiling, which tells us the film is a happy film and not a dark, thrilling film.

The start of this film lives up to the expectations of the audience. The audience it is targeted at expect to see and hear country music and everything else which is country just by looking at the name of the film. Audience begin to imagine the film and this film includes everything to make the narrative clear and goes on to be a outstanding movie.