Opening Sequence Analysis 2 - The Bone Collector

The film opening I have chosen to write about is The Bone Collector. It is the 1999 film adaptation of Jeffery Deaver’s 1997 novel of the same name. It stars Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie as the main characters. Washington plays Lincoln Rhyme, a quadriplegic who works in the Crime Scene Investigation unit of the New York Police Department and Jolie plays Amelia Donaghy, a regular street cop who happens to find the first victim the killer.
The film opens with some credits showing the main people involved in the film. As these are showing on the screen, the background shows blurry lights moving around in a disorientating manner. Every so often during this illustrations from novels appear. The illustrations seem like nothing out of the ordinary at this stage in the film but in fact have much relevance later on in the story. Whilst these titles are showing, slow tempo string music can be heard. It is an eerie sound which is far from upbeat and gives a clue to the dark plot of the film. The next part of the credits sequence shows the tile of the film and a few quick flashes of a strange monkey key ring that is suspended and swinging. This is once again nothing out of the ordinary until later in the story when the audience learns about where the item is and who it belongs to. After this we see a few more titles showing some of the smaller roles in the film and again images are shown in the background. They include the front and back covers of a crime scene analysis book by Lincoln Rhyme, and some photos of dead bodies.

The background images of ht e titles suddenly become the New York skyline at night and when the last credit has shown, Lincoln Rhyme steps into the frame. Sirens can be heard and there are flashing lights which (having seen the books and pictures in the titles) indicate to the that this is a crime scene. Rhyme walks into the crime scene and asks a colleague how things look. He is then told about the body of policeman which has been found 300 yards down an abandoned tunnel. Rhyme is the epitome of professional and remains unfazed by this, continuing walking into the tunnel, flipping on his torch as things get dark.

The camera then fades to a shot of Lincoln crawling through a small gap in the tunnel. The fade here indicates the passage of time between Lincoln walking down the tunnel and him reaching this point where he must crawl on his stomach. A close up of Lincoln crawling shows strain in his face, indicating just how secluded the area is and raising questions of how a murderer could place a body here. As Lincoln emerges into a small clearing where the body is, the camera moves into slow motion and we hear a heartbeat as Lincoln moves to examine the body. Rolling the head of the victim around so that he can see the face, Lincoln reveals his own face on the victim. A loud clang is heard followed by someone shouting “watch out!” and the camera then cuts to the top of the clearing which shows a large concrete beam falling down towards Lincoln, he looks up (as does the camera in a POV shot) in time to see it coming towards him but can take no evasive action and a large thud is heard as the beam hits the floor. Suddenly Lincoln wakes up in bed and we learn that these events had all been a flashback explaining how Lincoln Rhyme became the quadriplegic he is today. The flashback of Lincoln in his prime, positions the audience to feel sorry for him and also makes them respect his professionalism as he is clearly very focused on his job. According to Roland Barthes’ Hermeneutic Code, this flashback is a typical Partial Answers part of the story. Some of the plot (the reason Lincoln is bed bound) is revealed to the audience but the reveal asks further questions. Did the beam fall, or was it dropped? Was the killer ever caught? All of these questions are raised by the opening and hopefully answered by the end.