V for Vendetta
Describe the opening scene of the visual text. Explain how it helped you understand what the text was about using examples of the visual and oral language features to support your ideas.
In the film, V for Vendetta, directed by James McTeigue, the opening scenes helped me to understand what the text was going to be about. The film opens with voiceover dialogue by Evey, the film’s female protagonist. Evey delivers the infamous Guy Fawkes poem ‘Remember, remember the fifth of November, the gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder, treason should ever, be forgot!” This establishes ideas of rebelliousness, civil unrest and opposing government. The next scene of Guy Fawkes running under Parliament house and getting caught and hung plays and we still hear Evey’s voice about love and ideas and how you can fall in love with a man, but not an idea.
McTeigue then cuts to what we realize is present time where Evey is getting ready to go out, then intercuts with a similar scene where V is putting on his mask. When V puts on his mask, Evey puts on her makeup signifying that they perhaps are both hiding under different types of masks. Evey’s room is lit only by a dull yellow lamp that ties back to the opening scene of Guy Fawkes running under Parliament and the walls being lit by yellow flame torches. V is illuminated by the lights surrounding his mirror which are also dull yellow. While the frames keep cutting between Evey and V, Lewis Prothero, a member of Parliament, is on TV, in both rooms addressing the public about the civil war that is happening in America in the present day of the movie. His voiceover is maintained while it cuts between the pair. The first line of dialogue that Evey delivers, that we hear her deliver is complaining about how she is late and dashes from her room, already showing rebelliousness as we find out that she is out after curfew from a close up shot of a speaker, flashing a red warning light. This shows us that Evey is
In the film, V for Vendetta, directed by James McTeigue, the opening scenes helped me to understand what the text was going to be about. The film opens with voiceover dialogue by Evey, the film’s female protagonist. Evey delivers the infamous Guy Fawkes poem ‘Remember, remember the fifth of November, the gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder, treason should ever, be forgot!” This establishes ideas of rebelliousness, civil unrest and opposing government. The next scene of Guy Fawkes running under Parliament house and getting caught and hung plays and we still hear Evey’s voice about love and ideas and how you can fall in love with a man, but not an idea.
McTeigue then cuts to what we realize is present time where Evey is getting ready to go out, then intercuts with a similar scene where V is putting on his mask. When V puts on his mask, Evey puts on her makeup signifying that they perhaps are both hiding under different types of masks. Evey’s room is lit only by a dull yellow lamp that ties back to the opening scene of Guy Fawkes running under Parliament and the walls being lit by yellow flame torches. V is illuminated by the lights surrounding his mirror which are also dull yellow. While the frames keep cutting between Evey and V, Lewis Prothero, a member of Parliament, is on TV, in both rooms addressing the public about the civil war that is happening in America in the present day of the movie. His voiceover is maintained while it cuts between the pair. The first line of dialogue that Evey delivers, that we hear her deliver is complaining about how she is late and dashes from her room, already showing rebelliousness as we find out that she is out after curfew from a close up shot of a speaker, flashing a red warning light. This shows us that Evey is