Analysing Opening Sequences - The Devil Wears Prada

Scene Summaries – The Devil Wears Prada

The first shot is a point of view shot of a woman looking in a mirror. The shot helps establish who the main character of the film is and we can begin to get a sense of her personality. The prop of a toothbrush, the wet hair of the character and steamed mirror, gives the impression that she is in a bathroom and it is early morning and the film is starting at the beginning of a new day, perhaps also suggesting the beginning of a new chapter in the woman’s life.

It then cuts to an aerial shot of a large city, New York and the title of the film ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ appears as word over lay. This establishing shot informs the audience that New York City is going to be the setting for the film.

Mise-en-Scene then begins to play a major role within the next shots of the opening 2 minutes. From the aerial shot it cuts to a close ups of various women putting on expensive and glamorous underwear. All of the scenes in the opening two minutes are graphically linked together allowing it to run seamlessly.

It then crosscuts to the original woman, the suggested main character, and she too is preparing to put on underwear. This graphic match links the two scenes together and this continues to happen seamlessly throughout the two minutes. However the underwear that the glamorous women are putting, on compared to the main woman, is of completely different styles. The main characters underwear is plain and looks inexpensive but the other women’s underwear looks the complete opposite. This use of juxtaposition highlights how there is two completely different types of women being shown; the high fashion glamour type and the ‘plain’ down to earth type.

A mid shot is then used to show one of the women from the first group and you can see that her styling is again high fashion and the mid shot enables us to see enough of her surroundings to see that she is standing in a posh apartment and inside a walk in wardrobe. This suggests further that she is greatly interested in high fashion and must earn a lot of money.

It then cuts to extreme close ups of women putting on their make up; there is also a close up of a drawer filled with again expensive looking make up. A woman chooses a lipstick of pinkish shade, a very feminine colour and it then cross-cuts back to the main character. In an extreme close up she is seen picking up a very simple plain coloured lip balm, another graphic match, and in a mid shot is shown putting it on. This again is juxtaposition and further highlights how the main character is not in any way interested in glamour at all which is a complete contrast to everyone else shown; these differences suggest the main character will be an outsider in whatever she goes on to do within the movie as she is being singled out from an early stage as very different to the other women shown. The mid shot too enable us to see that she does not have a walk in wardrobe and is not living in an expensive apartment which when graphically matched with an earlier shot is again in complete contrast with the woman and the surroundings shown.

More cross-cutting and graphic matches continue showing extreme close ups of women putting expensive jewelry; when it crosscuts back to the main character she however is more preoccupied with looking at various cutouts of newspaper articles through a POV shot. These articles have titles like ‘NU women take back the night’, confirming the idea that she is less interested in the stereotypical view that women love fashion and more interesting in more pressing matters.

The next most significant shot is of a close up one of the blonde glamorous women kissing a man who is asleep in her bed. In the cross cuts and is followed by the main woman kissing a man who is awake. This graphic match is again displaying juxtaposition and really shows a contrast between the two women’s personalities. Both two shots show how there is some kind of relationship and interaction between the women and the men, except the first women’s man in asleep and she kisses him on the cheek which show less affection and shows how the two are not engaging. However the second two shot shows the man present awake and he and the main woman engage with each other and they kiss on the lips suggesting there is much more affection shared between them. This is in complete contrast with the first two shot and shows again how there are two very different types of women being displayed. The men that the two women are with are very different in their appearance as well; the first man appears very clean shaven with a neat hair cut and is shirtless whilst the second man has curly messy hair and is wearing a dark t-shirt. This demonstrates how the social groups that the two types of women mix in are very different as well furthering the point that the main character would be an outsider compared to the others shown.

When it cross-cuts back the other women are leaving their apartments and this is show from a low camera angle. The mid shot enables the audience to see the posh surroundings that they are leaving and the low camera angle looking up towards the women highlights the fact they seem very powerful and are very domineering. This could create a link back to the title of the movie ’The Devil Wears Prada’, as ‘the devil’ is seen as very domineering and we know that the women are interesting in fashion, i.e. ‘Prada’ so the camera angle demonstrates how these kind of women can be intimidating summarizing the title. Again in juxtaposition with this when it cross cuts back to the main character she is viewed in a mid shot from street level, so therefore appears to be on the same ‘level’ as the audience so they can relate with her. She is also again as seen more down to earth than the other women as in the background of her mid shot in shallow focus there is a group of school children which make the shot feel less high class.

 Titles and Credits – The Devil Wears Prada

There is an opening title of the company’s official logo and this is followed by another two title slide written in a specific font on a black background.

The second set of writing, reading ‘A Wendy Finerman production’, stays upon the screen but the black background is then replaced by a blurred POV shot that then becomes clear when the main character wipes the mirror.

Credits then play, in the same font as the two title slides, throughout the rest of the two minuets, appearing in various places overlaying over moving especially in shots were extreme close ups are used. The title of the movie is also shown like this over an establishing shot, linking the name of the movie with the location of where it is set. This is effective as it helps link scenes together throughout the cross cutting and helps emphasis the graphic matches by being something that is continually there throughout the opening scenes.

Use of Sound- The Devil Wear Prada

The sound motif for 20th Century Fox plays as the title runs and then the second two title slides are shown in silences and very quietly you her non-diagetic music beginning to play. It is the song ‘suddenly I see’ by KT Tunstall and the words of the lyrics seem to link to the character on the screen, making the audience feel like the artist of the song is singing about the woman on screen. The music helps to further establish the character of the women being shown, for example, the opening lyric is ‘Her face is a map of the world’ suggesting that she is a naturally inquisitive character and is interesting in discover new things. This coincides with the POV shots of her reading interesting newspaper articles. The music is also synchronous and positions the audience to feel in a happy positive mood much like that of what the main character seems to display herself. Diegetic sound is also present on top of the music and when the first shot of her wiping the mirror is show the sound of her doing so is heard. Other natural sounds are played throughout the music as well, such as the sound of her brushing her teeth, the sound of high heels and the sounds of removing clothes from the wardrobe. The only dialogue is when the man the main charter kisses calls out ‘good luck’ to her. This furthers the idea, along with starting the movie at the beginning of a new day, that she is about to start a new chapter in her life.