Film Opening Deconstruction - Drama - 'Into the Wild'

The film opens with 'Paramount Vantage' with the sound of a typewriter which accompanies the logo. This then goes to black, when ominous music and a sound of a car which accompanies 'River Road entertainment' logo. This, similarly, goes to black which remains for a few seconds until the black fades to the quote 'There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;/There is a rapture on the lonely shore;/There is society, where none intrudes,/By the deep sea, and music in its roar:/I love not man the less, but Nature more... - Lord Byron'. This then goes to black and there is non-diegetic sound of 'mum...mum..help me', this transitions to, what we assume, is the mother waking up gasping, in a panic. The husband next to her in bed exclaims 'Whats is it?', she then replies  'I wasn't dreaming, I didn't imagine it. I heard him...I heard him, I heard him, I heard Chris...I heard him. No, I wasn't imagining it. He's [screams] I hate him'. We can assume from this that Chris is  her son, who she is missing and has not seen in a long time, this leaves the audience questioning where he is and why he is not coming back to see his mum and thus, creating enigma. 

This cuts to black and happy guitar music begins, this fades to a shot in a train at 1:18. At 1:24 there is a straight cut to the outside of the train and then another straight cut to from the inside of the train, looking out, there is also 'Alexander' written in chalk on the train carriage, there is humming also with the music at this point.  At 1:37 there is a close-up of 'Alexander Supertramp April 1992' written in chalk, establishing our main protagonist, hinting at what he is like, perhaps living on the road, as well as establishing the time in which it is roughly set 'April 1992'. At 1:40 there is a straight cut to the outside of the train, where we can see snow as well as tree, implying that this is deep into the 'middle of nowhere', there is also an icy river. There is an extreme close-up of the '1992' reinforcing our ideas of the time, there is then another shot of looking outside the train as it goes through a tunnel.  At 1:44 there is a wide shot of a sunset on an industrial train termination spot and over this scene there is handwriting in yellow 'WAYNE,'. This cuts to a scene with an ice sculpture and the letter continues 'GREETINGS FROM FAIRBANKS!' thus, establishing setting. Also during this point there is a straight cut to a wide shot on an icy river and the yellow writing fades.

At 1:57 there is a cut to a shot of some shots as the writing continues 'ARRIVED HERE TWO DAYS AGO' during this there is straight cuts to a factory and another cuts to a 'Masonic Temple'. At 2:04 there is a close-up of a man holding out his hand for hitchhiking. There is another straight cut to a man walking in the snow next to the road, in this way we assume that this is our protagonist and the letter that is being written is him writing. At this point the writing continues, 'IT WAS VERY DIFFICULT TO CATCH RIDES IN THE YUKON TERRITORY', there is a straight cut of a large lorry driving down a mountainous road. At 2:16 there is a close-up of the back of the man with his large bag full of equipment on his back, we can assume that this man has been on the road for sometime and enjoys it. There is then a cut to a snowy road and at 2:21 it appears to be a shot from within a car, since the camera moves in sync with the driving, the writing continues 'BUT I FINALLY GOT HERE.'. There is another straight cut of the inside of a bookstore as the writing continues 'PICKED UP A NEW BOOK ON THE LOCAL FLORA AND FAUNA' , this then transitions to a wide shot of a snowy landscape as the writing appears 'I'M PREPARED AND HAVE STOCKED ALL NECESSARY COMFORTS TO LIVE OFF THE LAND FOR A FEW MONTHS.'. There are cuts to a dairy farm as well as a grocery store, guns store and engineering store as the writing says 'MIGHT BE A VERY LONG TIME BEFORE I RETURN SOUTH.', in this way it conveys how he has had to gain supplies in order to stay alive for the next few months.

At 2:47 the shot returns to within the car, with the snowy landscape in front of them, the writing continues 'JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW, YOU'RE A GREAT MAN'. At 2:58 there is a medium close-up shot of a road sign which says 'Stampede Rd', this shot is overlay-ed with another medium close-up of a sign which says 'Closed for Winter'. This transitions to a wide shot of a large snowy landscape, the music begins to slow at this point, 'Paramount Vantage and River Road Entertainment present', written in green, implying that this is a film set in the 'wild' as the title suggests. At 3:23 'a square one C. I. H/Linson Film Production' appears as the music fades out and there is the diegetic sound of a truck driving as the camera tilts down to reveal it. The man in the car says 'That's about as far as I can get ya', another voice then says 'Alright, thank you', this man then steps out of the car and grabs his bag, it become apparent that this is Chris, our protagonist, 'Thanks again'. At 4:59 the writing continues 'I NOW WALK' this then fades and 'INTO THE WILD' appears on screen firstly in yellow, then turning green and the text gets bigger and changes font to take up most of the screen, signifying that this is the title.