Pleasantville Opening

Recently, we have seen the opening of the movie 'Pleasantville'. Then, we were asked to analyze it.

The first time I was watching it, I was very confused as I couldn't understand what is going on. In fact, the movie starts with different old american TV programs, which are switching around. I think, that may be because someone is bored. The channels are different: sport, news and it always return to the old movie-'Pleasantville'. We can hear very short choppy sound of every program, between these channels there is a static white noise, which in fact shouldn't be there. 

Pleasantville is a classic TV show of 1950-s - vision of an American Dream, so all these programs were about that TV show. The fact that the longest shots are about 'Pleasantville' make us understand that it is the most important.

Then, suddenly, it seems that someone has turned off the TV, so we have got just a black screen. After a few seconds a "Once Upon a Time" appears.

That may give a clue, that this will be a fairy tale-some sort of fantasy.

However, the next shot is very real-looking. 

We can understand that is an American High School because of different stereotypes such as yellow bus and chilled atmosphere of teenagers. We can also spot that it is a warm state as there are mountains on background and everybody wear summer clothes. 

After some shots of crowd and chaotic school court we see the dialog between a girl and a boy:

We have conversation shot reverse shot, the focus is on their faces, so we can't see the background. We can also notice that her face is on the left side and his is on the right. We haven't got any shot of them together, but there is still a strong feeling of conversation between them.

He looks like a school looser and geek.

She looks like a typical popular school girl, probably a cheerleader. However she doesn't ignore him and even smiles, which seems strange.

For all this "conversation" we can hear a music which starts to breakdown when we see that actually they are quite far apart and he just imagines, that he is talking to her. Such a visual joke,

We have here an over a shoulder medium shot. It is quite deep, so we can see that girl who is actually talking to another guy. 

Then, we have even wider shot, which shows us how lonely he is. We should start feel sorry for him.

To make a connection with this character, there is a sound bridge. The shot is wide, he is far but we can steel hear how he is talking to himself.