Analysis of The Shining opening sequence

The Shining's opening sequence is basically made up of several high angle shots looking down at a car driving along the moors and mountains. This may seem harmless and simply an establishing shot of the setting in the film in order for the audience to gain an understanding of the location, however, the minute that the sequence starts (as what would have been a helicopter taking the footage because it is high off the ground and in motion over several parts of the setting, not just the road) very booming music plays. This connotes that whatever the film is leading up to, will be something negative, and because low and booming music has connotations of danger - it is very monotone, and here, the lack of emotion in the music is quite chilling. This is supported by the fact that in the film, we already have a grasp of the genre and expected events which are come- there is no reassurance of there being something positive ahead. Also, due to the fact that the cameras point of view is mainly from behind as well as on a high angle means that the viewer could interpret the camera, is following whoever is in the car, and they are one step ahead of everything that is to come as they can see so much more than the people in the car. Also, due to the fact that it is a high angle shot makes the car below seem smaller - insignificant almost - therefore whatever is "following' the car is of more importance (higher up, therefore seems larger than life) and evil (as the music suggest danger) will show no mercy to the people below...

Also, the scene is made up of mostly cuts rather than fades when we go from one setting to the next. This suggests that for the sake of the audience, they have cut the car journey short for us, therefore getting across that the journey along the mountains, was a very long one. This will then support the fear factor later in the film as we find out that they are so high up a mountain, they can only contact others through radio, and once the radio and car is broken, and the characters are in danger, they have no way of getting back. Also, each setting in the opening scene gradually changes - at first they are mainly grassy and earthy scenes, but it then all of a sudden changes to a snowy setting, this increases the nerves of the viewer because not only do they know how far away they are from other people, but they will also be living within harsh conditions, therefore if something unfortunate were to happen later in the film (as the viewer can expect as this is a horror film and has been advertised as such) we can expect something about these weather conditions to come into play and increase cause for concern for the characters.