Iron Man (2008) Scene Analysis
The scene I chose to analyse is the opening scene in the 2008 Iron Man film with Robert Downey Jr. I chose this scene for a couple of reasons: first, it is the opening scene of the Marvel Cinematic Universe-- undoubtedly a huge force in movie history and entertainment history soa lot was riding on this movie; second, the scene jumpstarts the Tony Stark character arc-- seeing US soldiers be killed with the weapons he developed and being kidnapped by terrorists shocked him; and third it is a great scene in terms of music, shot direction and acting.
The scene does a great job of leaving you hooked for the rest of the movie. At the beginning of the scene you are happy and excited because RDJ’s character is really, really funny, and who doesn’t like comedy. Then, mid joke, a bomb goes off in front of the humvee and you are thrown into action. Everyone knew this was a superhero movie going into it, but previously superhero movies had been overdone and comic like. This first action scene does a great job of showing gritty, dark, and realistic combat while setting up the next 18 movies-- what if superheroes came to our Earth?
The scene is a great intro to Tony Stark as a character and this can’t be better expressed than how the director did with the first shot of him on screen. It is simply his left hand holding a glass of scotch, while a fully dressed marine glances at him nervously. This eases the audience into Tony Stark as a character: an easy going and charismatic guy that likes his money, women, and booze: but exudes confidence and power, enough to make a car full of marines nervous.
On a more technical level the scene is executed wonderfully. The very first shot is an establishing shot of 3 or 4 humvees in the desert. There is a heat wave in front of the vehicles which is out of focus giving some beautiful bokeh and depth to the shot. All the while AC/DC’s “Back in Black” is playing as an overlaid track. The camera then cuts to the inside of one of the humvees with our main character, Tony Stark, and 3 marines. Here the song is transferred to a speaker in the vehicle seamlessly. Dialogue ensues between out four characters at this point and while we can see out the windows, the nondescript background draws our attention to the dialogue.
The shot choice for inside the vehicle breaks the rule of 180. It jumps from side to side of the car-- but since it is in a car and has an establishing shot of where everyone is, it isn’t to jarring. Also, the color correcting is not noticable, but warm. This becomes important later. The cut to action is jarring and sudden, how it was supposed to be. A terrorist attack comes without warning as it did in the scene. As soon as the IED goes off the music cuts out and the color correcting gets a big more blue-- again not noticeably but the change in color gives off a different mood and helps the audience to open up to the dire situation the director intended.
While pre-action the shots were mostly on a tripod or steadicam, during the action there is a lot of handheld shots and the camera is noticeably shaky. Also, the shots are much more quick almost cutting to the beat of the explosions or gunfire.
The use of dialogue, different styles of filming, music or lack of music, and color correcting are a few of the things that help to create such a compelling opening scene to a movie that was really a gamble for the studios. I believe that this format, realistic, gritty, and good looking filmmaking has helped propel the MCU to places no series of movies has ever gone before.