Textual Analysis Opening scene and Opening fight scene

Textual Analysis Opening scene and Opening fight scene of John Wick Chapter 2:

The entire film starts off with clip of an antagonist falling off his motorcycle and being chased by a mysterious character in a Ford Mustang. This anonymous character walks out of the car to take a gold plated card that belongs to one of the villains. Then attention is taken to an underground Russian mafia gang where they are relocating due to the fact that the leader is scared of the main character John Wick. We then understand from the characters speech is that the gang group holds a car that belongs to Mr.Wick. During this speech the audience sees a bunch of sequences of John taking out one member at a time whilst this speak is occurring. The mafia leader gets a call from the protagonist saying "You have my car" in Russian. straight after, the leader hears an engine start. After this point a series of action set pieces take place in the film where there is a constant battle between protagonist figure against the gang of antagonist group member representing some binary oppositions. 

Blumler and Katz. This theory is the uses and gratification theory of audiences.The idea of surveillance means to be educated from the extract the viewer is watching, this links to my opening scene as the antagonist's speech to his helper acts as a voice over narrating facts about the main character John Wick. Personal identification: Another Blumler and Katz theory that comes with the opening clips of the film, is the ideology of personal identification within audiences towards the characters in the extract. In this clip we are positioned in the shoes of the antagonist fooled to feared by the infamous Wick. This is also reinforced through the use of cinematography and the use of editing and sound in the clip.

Tzvetan Todorov's narrative theory suggests that all narratives follow a three part structure where they begin with equilibrium, where everything is balanced, progress as something comes along to disrupt that equilibrium, and finally reach a resolution, when equilibrium is restored. As this is the opening scene and already there is a fight scene this subverts the theory of Todorov as it doesn't fit to his style of narrative. You can also argue that it does fit the structure of Todorov as its in an alternative universe where assassination is a social norm, which already makes it an equilibrium.

Vladimir Propp's Character Theory. Propp suggested that every narrative has eight different character types, these character types are: The villain — fights the hero in some way. The dispatcher — character who makes the villain's evil known and sends the hero off.

Barthes’ Enigma Code, argues that every narrative is interwoven with multiple codes. 'mystery' or a puzzle. It is something you don't know and have to work out by yourself. The Enigma Code is simply a theory that suggests a text (whether that can be television, film or a poster) portrays a mystery to draw an audience. In the action genre enigma codes are used to usually build suspense which is why the director of John Wick 2 chose to apply this theory to the opening build up scene with the antagonist. Then later on introduced Barthes other theory which is of the Action codes, which mean come when a fight occuring this produces visceral pleasure with in audiences as they are getting thrill and entertainment through the action set pieces.

Daniel Chandlers theory are about conventional definitions of genres tend to be based on the notion that they constitute particular conventions of content (such as themes or settings) and/or form (including structure and style) which are shared by the texts which are regarded as belonging to them. This theory relates heavily to both extracts of the film, as these clips contain many significant conventional factors of the action genre. for example the fight scene is based in a Taxi warehouse station where they are dealing with drugs and money.

David Buckingham theory is of Ever changing media, ever changing identities - development of genre to the argues, genre is not simply given by the culture; rather it is a constant process of negotiation and change. This is clearly evident from this sequence because if the viewer sees an action based film opening scene and fight scene from 50 years ago it will look completely different to the first or second film if John Wick. this including the props used, make up on actors and characters  setting ect. it will also include the style of editing, sound design, cinematography, camera shots and dialogue used.

Steve Neale's theory of Repetition and Difference. Steve Neale states that genres all contain instances of repetition and difference, difference is essential to the to the economy of the genre. A film must match the genre's conventions to be identified as part of that genre. when relating this theory to this John Wick opening scenes it is very easy to spot the change in action genre conventions over time (tech used and style and technique to film it).  However there are numerous amounts action genre codes and conventions applied to these scenes. for example the use of prop weapons, character roles of Protagonist and antagonist. as well as the use of lighting to build suspense in the scene corresponding to the music track overlaid on-top.

Levi strauss proposed a theory of 'binary opposites' which entails that the majority of narratives in media forms such as books and film contain opposing main characters.These binary opposites help to thicken the plot and further the narrative; and introduce contrast. Binary opposition (also binary system) is a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning. Binary opposition is the system by which, in language and thought, two theoretical opposites are strictly defined and set off against one another. In this case the two opposites are the villain and hero. which are the Russian mafia leader and the protagonist John Wick. This is evident through the use of speech in the clip, especially the dialogue.Which fits in perfectly with in films like John Wick as the action genre based clips contains opposites such as good vs evil, hero vs villain, light vs dark, American vs foreign. However, the most relatable one must be the protagonist vs antagonist ideology.