David Fincher’s Gone Girl gave Jacop T. Swinney the idea of comparing the first and final frames of films. Of course Gone Girl would but you would have to know the film well to get the impact of what Fincher (and Rosamund Pike did there). It is the rare director who contemplates such things and Fincher is one of those. Other notable standouts for me – Fight Club, There Will Be Blood, Shame, Godfather II, The Searchers, Raging Bull, 2001, Gravity. Some are meaningful, some are meaningless. This is really a great bunch of clips.
His intro via his Facebook page as follows:
What can we learn by examining only the first and final shot of a film? This video plays the opening and closing shots of 55 films side-by-side. Some of the opening shots are strikingly similar to the final shots, while others are vastly different–both serving a purpose in communicating various themes. Some show progress, some show decline, and some are simply impactful images used to begin and end a film.
