Monument men opening

Monument men opening
In this shot we see a high angle shot of the Nazi flag flying above occupied Paris in 1943. This is the opening shot of the film so it uses an establishing shot of Paris accompanied with the text at the button to set the scene of this film. This colourisation in this shot is a representation of the Nazis in France and how they were a dominant, blood thirsty faction. You can see this in the shot as the Nazi flag is blood red in contrast to a colourless Paris.

The next shot is of a high ranking Nazi officer driving through Paris, the film uses this scene to inform the audience that this is in fact the antagonist of this film and is going to create some complications for our heroes, the film does this by utilising the characters costume, facial expression and placement in the shot. The film uses a medium shot so we can clearly identify what the character is wearing and his facial expression, he is wearing a grey trench with his arms not inside the coat properly and has a satisfied, almost mocking face.

In this shot we see the clearly upperclass officer with his vast collection of art, he is centrally framed and the camera is looking up at him, both of these things show that he has some sort of dominant power in the narrative. The film further reinforces his evil representation by including the next shot as a juxtaposition between him (Representing the Nazis) and innocent civilians under Nazi control. In this shot we see a bunch of lower class individuals working together to construct defences. This shot is a juxtaposition between the Nazis and civilians under their control because in the last scene with the German we see many bright colours and fancy props accompanied by no musical score or any other sound other than the two people talking, the scene is then followed by this next shot of people working hard to protect something,    the scene is almost entirely colourless other than some shades of brown. The characters costume also reinforces the separation between the Nazis and the people in Europe, they are wearing modest clothes covered in dirt and sweat. The sound in this shot is also chaotic as we here the sound of people rushing around and explosions going off, a clear juxtaposition to the lack of sound in the last shot.
















After this we are then introduced to the protagonist of this film, we know he is the protagonist because he is a white, American male who is standing in front of a Nazi occupied Europe, this shows that he is trying to stop the Nazis. The shot is also a medium/close up of George's face, this is to show his seriousness of the situation.