There are endless cliches out there about the importance of a first impression, but whatever truth they may hold in our everyday lives they go double for film. When there’s only a couple of hours to tell a story and capture its players, an audience’s first chance to meet a character is an asset no filmmaker worth their salt is going to waste. So with that in mind, CHUD is going to take a look through the many decades of cinema to extract the most special of those moments when you are first introduced to a character, be they small moments that speak volumes, or large moments that simply can’t be ignored.
Inevitably it will be the major characters and leads that are granted the grandest of entrances, but don’t be surprised to see a few supporting players and minor individuals get their due, when the impact of their appearance lingers longer than their screentime. Also know that these moments may be chosen for any number of reasons, and the list could never be exhaustive. But here you’ll find moments that make a big splash, say a lot with a little, or we think are just particularly cool.
We hope you enjoy, and can’t wait to hear from you about each and every entry. Don’t spend the effort guessing future choices or declaring what must be included– just enjoy the ride!
The Film… The Matrix (1999)
Director… The Wachowski’s
Entering From Stage Left… Keanu Reeves in the role of Neo.
What Makes it Special… The (Academy Award winning!) Picture Editing.
The Matrix is a film I believe to be exceptionally close to the perfect action movie. A remarkable assembly of wonderful ideas, unprecedented imagery and stunning execution of craft, it changed the face of blockbuster cinema and paved the way for all kinds of movies that followed– from Crank to Inception, and many things in between. It’s the kind of film that equally rewards highly focused or big picture examinations of acting, directing, special effects, writing, cultural context, and/or literary influence, but for this particular piece I want to hone in on one of the silent, mostly invisible contributors to the genius of The Matrix– the cut. Ironically, a film in which a technique that allowed for more fluid motion around events, and whose directors pushed for stuntwork to be accomplished in long shots with minimal cutting, it is in fact the editing that makes every single moment of the film so effective. There’s not better scene with which to highlight this than one that includes one of cinema’s greatest (re)introductions of a character ever– Thomas A. Anderson wakes up and opens his eyes for the first time in his life, entering the real world and truly becoming the iconic Neo.
While we meet Thomas Anderson mere minutes into The Matrix, it is not until thirty-two and a quarter minutes that he opens his eyes for the first time, and we meet the real Neo. Before that point we’ve seen Thomas amidst his Matrix research, pursued by the mysterious agents, and interacting with the rogue hackers that he’s apparently been searching for years to meet. Having finally made a choice to follow Morpheus “down the rabbit hole,” he goes through an elaborate process in which his mind is extracted from the digital construct of the Matrix, and rehoused in his own, living body. He then bursts out of the gel-filled glass sarcophagus that holds him, and discovers the true nature of his physical existence, and the horrific infrastructure of the machine world. Ultimately Neo is flushed by the power-plant and retrieved by the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar who introduce him to the Real World. It’s an incredible sequence, and the beautifully directed imagery is delicately cut for maximum impact, be it confusion or horror.
Once Neo is “unplugged” our first view is Neo’s own point-of-view: a rose-tinted, submerged look at his own violated person, where we can see in his hands the failure to understand exactly what has happened. Then the real revulsion of the situation begins as Neo pushes his way out of the congealed layer of gel encasing him, all-too-viscerally removes a breathing apparatus, examines the pipes and tubes connected to his body and head, and finally notices the scale of the plant that surrounds him. Working in concert with a dramatic and dynamic score from Don Davis, the picture edit deftly times the visual representation of Neo’s self-realization. Bit by bit he takes in reality, and the edit perfectly parallels the mental pieces falling into place, all culminating with that terrible head-jack. Then the personal horror shifts to awe-inspired horror as the very intimate details and close-ups of Neo’s body give way to incomprehensibly-scaled wide shots of the billions of other sarcophagi. It’s brilliant, and it continues with the same level of precision all the way through to Neo being cared for on the ship.
Along with the precise timing to create visual tone, the edit also perfectly carries the visual rhythm of the Wachowski’s direction and Bill Pope’s photography. Take for example this single picture edit:
It’s representative of the skill with which everything in this film is built: the beautiful shot of the camera rotating and descending on Neo cuts into a shot with very minimal, delicate movement. That could be a jarring edit, but the movement of the subject of the second shot and the small camera tilt “catches” the visual momentum of the previous shot and dips back up- you can feel the gravity of the movement and see the energy passed from one shot to the next. That is filmmaking.
Thematically the introduction represents the second awakening and first rebirth of our character. Consider that we first see Neo asleep at his computer desk and then compelled to awaken by a digital prompt, here in this scene we see him awaken his real, physical body, and one final time later we will see him re-awaken from death in the Matrix to accept his role as The One. It’s also the introduction of the actual mechanisms and grotesque physical machine world that has so far been represented by the gestapo-like agents. It was also movie audience’s first introduction to the fulfilled promise of the cyberpunk movement, which sought to represent our corporate slavery and coming digital dependency with sci-fi fantasies. Here it was done right, and at the proper scale.
Finally consider that amidst the edit, this scene sets up a few bits of imagery that will be repeated later. While there is a scene of blatant deja vu in the film (and a big presence of twins in the Agent training program), there is also a hidden set of mirrored and repeated images in The Matrix*. Two examples here are the slamming of the tank’s aperture-like seal, and the removal of the breathing tube. These moments will be respectively recalled later: the door repeats when Morpheus mentions that the machines “liquefy the dead” as a tank fills around a newly grown infant, and the flinch-inducing tube removal returns when Neo pulls a very icky IV tube from a port on his arm a few scenes later. Subtle cinematic deja vu.
Why it Resonates… This is where The Matrix went from being a small cyperbunk techno-noir with a weird/cool effects shot at the beginning, to being one of the most iconic visions of a dystopian future ever filmed. The hero character’s reawakening is inherently embedded in the audience’s first glimpse into the real core of The Matrix. Here the film leaves the unshakeable stamp on one’s mind, and coldly spells out the horrible stakes at the center of this story. It’s an illustrative, yet limited glimpse into the machine world, and despite being complicated and even betrayed by the baggage of later films, its resonance has not diminished in the decade since it shocked audiences for the first time.
Other Grand Entrances… There are a lot of wonderful first looks at characters: the split-diopter shot of trinity’s face and the police at the beginning, the lightning-backed smile of Morpheus as he turns from the window and we cut to close-up, or even the shadow that peels back from Agent Smith as he emerges to destroy Neo’s only way out of the Matrix towards the end.
*There is an even a continuity error that manages to accomplish this.
I’m always checking twitter, keeping an eye on the comments below, and going back and forth on the boards- so I want to hear your thoughts somewhere!
Day 3: Groucho Marx (Duck Soup)
Day 4: Jackie Gleason (The Hustler)
Day 5: Orson Welles (The Third Man)
Day 6: Clint Eastwood (A Fistful of Dollars)
Day 8:George C. Scott (Patton)
Day 9: Grace Kelly (Rear Window)
Day 10: Robert Mitchum (Night of the Hunter)
Day 12: Del Toro’s Pale Man (Pan’s Labyrinth)
20 comments
Great write-up, Renn. I don’t hate the sequels as much as others seems to, but I’d almost forgotten the “WTF?” response upon seeing this the first time.
Think I’m gonna have to watch this one again, it’s been years but it really was a damn good movie.
1999 was before I was online, so I got to go in totally unspoiled. I really miss that sometimes.
It’s too bad they never made a sequel.
Great writeup of one of the most potent scenes in modern cinema history. Unforgettable. The first hour of this movie, which is all exposition and setup, and in and of itself more entertaining than most entire films.
Dark City and The Matrix would make a great double feature. If you run a theater near to where I live – make it happen!
The Matrix is a classic and Hugo Weaving is the man. ’nuff said!
Anybody read Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles? Is it true most of the philosophical/metaphysical meat of the Matrix is taken from that?
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/Who_really_wrote_The_Matrix_1745.shtml
Oh yeah, I remember that. But it sounds more like the generalities, which can be traced back to other core sources (eg: Dune’s Messianic themes). Snopes has it as not proven in court: http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/matrix.asp and here also: http://www.examiner.com/african-american-books-in-national/debunked-sophia-stewart-vs-the-matrix-story-still-circulates-web
She doesn’t seem to have written anything of note outside this particular claim. So it’s less like the Harlan Ellison case against Terminator, for instance. But The Matrix falls inside Morrison’s established wheelhouse in a variety of ways though.
I guess I’ll go pick up The Invisibles and have a look for myself. Could be just a case of heavy inspiration; they know their idiomatic shit filmically, as Renn shows above. Morrison himself follows closely on from Pete Milligan who follows on from Jack Kirby’s more psychedelic era (IIRC).
WTF is with “Your comment is awaiting moderation.“?
Starting to slowly type into my address bar:
w, w, w, ., b, a, d, a, s…..
I think a double feature of this and Inception would make for a fun little trip. The latter owes so much of its pacing to the Matrix it’s not funny yet the aspects of finding freedom from within the system, whether internal or external, makes for a nice compare and contrast.
I heard about this story, oh, long ago on the radio. What was the outcome?
The case got dismissed. She was after a billion dollar payout. Yeah right.
Unfortunately it looks to have become a “Whitey is a Thief!” race meme. There’s a creepy hit squad traveling from article to article across the web attacking any doubters and the woman herself seems to be pedaling the idea that she did in fact win but White Media is blocking the truth.
I posted a comment with links (Snopes and an African American perspective), but looks like that sets off a comment moderation process (anti-spam?) that renders it pointless.
The large majority of the character introductions in The Matrix – and indeed, even its sequel – are beautifully, expertly done. This is probably the best one, although I would submit that Morpheus in the original and the Keymaker in Reloaded both benefit from being much-discussed prior to an ultimate, dramatic, impressive reveal that kicks you in the eyes.
Whoa!
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Very well written, made for good reading for this MATRIX fan. It’s really a masterful sequence
PS Sairus, excited for the APP!
It was the last film I saw before leaving Germany. The place off base had films in English and served beer! So I had a couple and watched it (you couldn’t drink too much or you’d miss some of the film). This was a movie I’d not known I was missing until then.
Oh, I got hooked on Hugo Weaving as a bad-ass, and fell in love with Carrie-Anne Moss from this. Too bad the strength was all in this first on; the sequels sucked.
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