Pride and Prejudice opening anaylsis

Pride and Prejudice Opening analysis

IMDB Rating: 7.7/10
Release: 2005 /  Pride & Prejudice Genre: Drama | Romance Director: Joe Wright Stars: Keira Knightley, Matthew Macfadyen, Brenda Blethyn

The opening scenes of Pride and Prejudice truly reflects the Georgian Era that was presented by Jane Austen in her books. In the very beginning of the movie the audience can infer that this movie will be set in the rural countryside. This is due to the fact that we can hear the Non-Diegetic sounds of the Wildlife, before we see the established shot. We can infer from this that the director, Joe Wright, wanted to create an authentic version of Pride and Prejudice and wanted  a close relation between the book and the movie. We know this as the setting of the book is in Longbourne, in rural England; in the movie the established shot is depicted to be Longbourne.

At the beginning of the movie Dario Marianelli's song, 'Dawn Pride,' which is the movie theme song is played. The song represents the traditional Georgian music.When we meet the first sister Mary Bennett, we see her playing 'Dawn Pride' on the Piano. This links to the requirements of females in this era, as their job is to be the perfect housewife and to have a manner of accomplishments which includes, drawing, sewing and music. As this movies main theme is comedy of manner, it includes a female protagonist which is bold and independent. In the opening scene we see this female protagonist who is Elizabeth Bennett. Elizabeth Bennett is a typical stereotype of a female in a comedy of manner drama. Right from the beginning the audience can tell that she is different because of the use of the mid shot. The mid shot emphasizes her body language that she is not looking where she is going and she is focused on her book. This links to the next shot which is the over the shoulder shot of the actual book. This highlights her personality and that she is considered smart. Men in this era wanted to be considered scientific and one of  the ways to achieve this is to read, so reading is considered as a mans profession. For Elizabeth Bennett to read to signifies that she does not consider herself as the average female in the Georgian era. 

When the audience meets Jane the oldest Bennett sister, we can tell that she is different from her sisters. In the movie she is considered the most beautiful out of the Bennett sisters.When we first see her we can tell she is unique because of her blonde hair, as she is the only one to inherit blonde hair in her family. This may be the reason why she is considered to be the most beautiful. This highlights societies expectations of appearances and what they considered to be attractive. Jane is the first one to use dialogue in the movie, she says 'Lydia' which is her sisters name. She is scolding her sisters for running around, even though they are in the comfort of their own home and are away from the public eye, she still scolds her sister for acting improper.This highlights that she is the oldest as her actions shows that she has a responsibility. It also shows that she cares about the expectations of society and how to behave like a women even in her own home. The director uses a mid shot when we first see Jane Bennett. Even though we cannot see her whole body, the director uses her costume to show her femininity as her dress is more womanlike then the rest of her sisters.We meet the two youngest sisters we see them running down the stairs. The director has used Kinetics to show their child like behavior as running and giggling is usually associated with children.Their body language shows that they are very comfortable and familiar with their environment also, by running down the stairs it shows that they don't have expectations.The proxemics between Kitty and Lydia is very close, this highlights that they have a strong sisterly bond, we can link this to running down the stairs showing they do majority of activities together.

We actually hear Mrs Bennett before we see her. This highlights that her character is very vocal and that she is a binary opposite to her husband, as we see him before we hear him. This shows that Mrs Bennett is very opinionated and that Mr and Mrs Bennett are considered as Equals as she scolds him.