Analysis of Brick Opening Title Sequence
By Luke Whitehouse
Brick
At the start of the opening sequence of Brick there is none incidental music playing this sets a
mysterious tone to the film it also gives a sense of loneliness and the actual music sounds like
the noise of dripping water, this could be a connotation to what the film is about. The first
shot we see is of a boy, the shot is a close up of his shoes and feet. His shoes are quite old
fashioned and nerdy this gives us a sense of the protagonist’s character. When the camera
reveals the protagonist’s face using an extreme close up there is a shallow depth of field, we
learn from the character by his face that he is a teenager. His face also tells us he is in
distress. We see a variety of shots of the girl, the first shot we see is of her feet, her hair and
her blue bracelets. The enigma codes makes us ask is how did she die? Why is he there? Did
he do it? The blue bracelets are significant as they are shown on the girl again but when she
is alive. There are two titles used in the opening sequence one is the title ‘Brick’ and an
important title which reads ‘two days previous’ this shows the film is telling the story
backwards. At the start of the flashback we see is a close up of the boy sitting on a pavement
looking at his watch, the camera then goes into a low angle shot as the boy looks up at the
camera when a telephone starts ringing. We get a long shot as the boy stands up and walks
over to the telephone, when then get an extreme close up as he picks up the phone and then
a close up as he starts talking, he is talking to a girl called Emily who we assume is the girl we
saw in the beginning of the sequence, we also find out that the boy is called Brendan. As a
car comes up the road, Emily starts to sound desperate and scared, when Brendan sees the
car he rushes out of phone booth after the car, the vehicle speeds off into the distance with
an close up of somebody's hand throwing a cigarette out one of the car windows, the
opening sequence ends with a close up of the cigarette in the road and Brendan’s leg beside
it. The sudden sense of urgency and worry in Emily's as the car comes up the road suggests
that she was in the car and has been kidnapped and speaks louder and quickly to try and get
Brendan’s attention.