Opening Sequence to the Breakfast Club

The opening sequence to

‘The Breakfast Club’

‘The Breakfast Club’ is a comedy-drama produced, written and directed by the American producer John Huges, which premiered in February 1985. The film was a box office success, grossing $45,875,171 domestically and $51,525,171 worldwide. It is considered to be one of the best movies ever made and often referred to as the ’quintessential 1980s film’. The movie has a psychological background and tells the stories of different stereotypes who step out of their comfort zone and cope with basic teenage problems, like fitting into a group and identity struggle.

I personally like the opening sequence of the film as it gives the viewer a lot of information about the setting, the characters and their backgrounds, as well as setting the tone of the film and tying the end and beginning together.

The first thing that appears on the screen is a sky full of stars that fade out into the Universal logo along with the song ‘Don’t you’ by simple minds. The Song has a strong relation to the movie because it contains lines like: ‘won’t you come see about me? I’ll be alone,..’, ‘will you recognize me? Call my name or walk on by.’ or ‘tell me your troubles and doubts.’ The score repeats in the final scene, and consequently became the movie’s theme song.  The Logo is followed by a one minute and 44 second long credit interval, which nowadays is added to the end credits to avoid an interest loss of the audience. However, I think it is very honoring and cherishing towards the actors and filmmakers to present their names in the beginning of the project, on which they usually have been working on for two to five years.

The interval is followed by a shot of David Bowie’s quote: “... And these children
that you spit on
as they try to change their worlds
are immune to your consultations. They're quite aware
of what they're going through...” in white letters on a black background, which is then smashed to reveal the first establishing shot of the Shermer High School. Along with the shot of Brian, one of the Main characters announces (in form of a narrator) the date, location and time. The bursting of the screen image is unexpected and therefore catches the viewer’s attention by signifying with a loud sound that the following sequence is important. While Brian explains the current situation and reads his essay directed to Mr. Vernon (the teacher), the score changes into a more silent version without lyrics and we see an ensemble of different shots from the School building.

Firstly, we see a clock in an empty hallway followed by an empty food counter to once again enhance the feeling of an early Saturday morning. I personally feel that the effect is captured well by the shots of the empty hallway and lunch area, because all the Cubs and snack bars are perfectly stacked and displayed ready for Monday’s morning’s uproar, but the seating areas are deserted, which is a very unusual situation. Also the director played close attention to the fact that at the end of the empty hallway there is an open door revealing another empty hallway, to create the feeling of silence in the viewers mind subconsciously, since there is no sound coming from the other corridors too.

After these establishing shots introduce the setting of the film we are provided with a sequence of shots that create a background for the characters. We get to see multiple shots of destroyed property in school, a newspaper article on the schools wrestling team, trophies, an academic classroom, a sports changing room, strange artwork in a guidance councillor’s office, a note book with ‘help’ scribbled all over the pages, an announcement banner for ‘senior spirit soars’ and the prom queen voting. All these shots enhance the stereotypical groups the students belong to. The bridge between the establishing shots and the more specific ones of the school building is created by a shot of a student store display. While all of these play Brian sets a rough plot of the film by explaining that they judged each other based on the stereotypes, but have been brainwashed during their Saturday detention.

These introductory shots are followed by 1 minute and 44 seconds of character introduction, acting as a bridge between the opening sequence and the plot beginning. The characters are introduced through tings like the car type, their clothing, the way their parents interact with them and the way they carry themselves.

The film fascinates me every time, due to the attention to detail and by how it still interests thousands of people although the plot is given away in the first few minutes.