The opening scene of City of God establishes the setting of a poor slum in Brazil and introduces the central characters. Cross-cutting is used to show a gang preparing a chicken for dinner and a young man discussing becoming a photographer. The chicken escapes, prompting the gang leader to threaten locals with his gun. The photographer gets caught between the gang and arriving police, realizing he is in danger from both sides. This enigmatic opening leaves the audience wanting to understand the gang violence and photographer's situation.

1. City Of God opening scene analysis
City of God starts with a extreme close up of a very sharp blade scraping a rock in order to make it
sharper, as this is happening the camera cuts to a blank screen repeatedly making it difficult for
audience to see the blade but easy to hear (diegetic onscreen sound) the blade being sharpened,
which gives audience suspense because they do not know what the blade is being sharpened for. As
the scene continues many crosscutting is used, where many alternate shots of lines of action
occurring simultaneously in different places. The crosscutting and close up of carrots being pealed
and chickens being killed in order for them to be eaten, this shows us that this whole bunch of
people who are preparing the chicken are very different to European culture as they don’t kill
animals in preparation for their dinner, and they go out and buy theirs. Also crosscutting of close up
shot of people with no shoes shows that this place the chicken is being prepared is sort of a poor
place and maybe even a slum. The fact that these people are not going to supermarket for their
chicken, and the fact that they have actual alive chickens shows that this community is separate
from the things like shops etc.
As the chicken and everything else is prepared, audience can hear an on screen diegetic sound from
people drumming, the drumming is of a Brazilian style, therefore assuming the film is set in a slum in
Brazil.
A close up of a chicken wriggle themselves from a rope is shown and as the chicken gets out of rope
and into a alleyway, the diegtic onscreen sound of the drumming suddenly stops and cuts to a
extreme close up of a chickens blood on a plate, emphasising the theme of the film is got to do with
blood and killings, symbolising that the chickens are just the start of the killings that is going to be
made. After the blood shot, parallel editing is used, to show close of a dark man speaking in a foreign
language saying “oh fuck the chicken got away, get it” then long shots of a gang is shown with guns,
this shows that the man speaking is a group leader of a gang who is armed, emphasising again that
this film theme is killing as every gang member has a gun. Also shows how the community is
separate as every gang member has a gun, in countries such as England this will simply not happen
because of the police, however this shows that the area is a slum and the community is separate
from law, showing that lots of crime can happen.
Then crosscutting is used between two scenes, one scene is a young adult who wants to be
photographer, talking to his friend about how risky the shot he has to take to become a
photographer is, and the gang leader and his gang chasing the chicken eventually to the middle of
the road. As the gang leader is chasing the chicken someone comes in his way, he pushes the person
down a pulls out a gun and threatens to kill that person, showing how this gang leader is in power of
the whole community and can do what he wants, the camera shot used is a over the shoulder shot
from behind the gang leader from a high angle whilst the victim is on the floor, the audience
attention is captured as this shot shows how much power the gang leader has and how everyone is
scared of him in the slum. The photographer and gang leader meat each other on opposite side of
the road and gang leader tells photographer to grab the chicken who is in the middle of the road. As
photographer is trying to get the chicken the gang say “oh shit police”, a long shot of people running
is used, however the gang leader orders his gang to “don’t fucking runoff” and they all come back
with their guns pointed and ready to use at the police officers who is behind the photographer, the
photographer realises that the guns are pointed from police at the gang and gang at the police and

2. he is in the middle of all this and doesn’t know what to do and says “if I run I die and if I stay I die”
then the film cuts to start of the film, showing that this is the end. This opening scene creates
enigma as the audience wants to know why the gang and police is in a gang war and how
photographer has got himself in this situation and why he is in danger of being killed if he takes a
particular shot. Also establishing some of the central characters of the film, the photographer and
gang leader.
The gang leader creates an interest in audience as he isn’t the normal type of person, he is in fact a
rebel who seems to be ruthless and horrible person who is in control of the whole slum and is even
against the police, and nobody can stop him because of his big armed gang. Also the photographer
creates interest for audience as he seems to be very quite calm, risk taking (willing to take a shot
even if it would mean his life) and the fact that the character isn’t caught up in the gang violence
shows he is protagonist and gang leader is antagonist. Both of these character are contrast each
other, which also grabs audience attention to see why the photographer isn’t a bad person and why
gang leader is.
Most of the title sequence is done before the film starts in blue in a black background, the title
sequence is very simple and as the film starts the rest of the title sequence is done in white in the
bottom right hand side of the screen, making it hard to see, unless good attention is paid, this is
because the film is very fast paced even from the start, and therefore doesn’t want to distract the
audience from what is going on in the film and audience have to keep up with what is going on or
they will miss what happened as the film is fast paced and many things can be missed out, that is
why most of the title sequence is done before the movie start.
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