10 Opening Movie Scenes NOTHING Like The Rest Of The Film
2. A Serious Man
A Serious Man is one of the Coen brothers' greatest movies - a deliciously savage black comedy set in 1960s Minnesota about a Jewish man, Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), questioning his faith as his life begins to systematically crumble.
But before this, the film is front-loaded with a tangential-yet-brilliant opening sequence set in a 19th-century Eastern European Jewish town, where a husband returns home with a man claiming to be an acquaintance of his wife.
However, the wife announces that the man has been dead for three years, and that this individual must in fact be a dybbuk - a malicious spirit impersonating him.
The man laughs off her accusation but she stabs him in the chest with an ice pick, after which he leaves the house and his fate remains uncertain.
After this the credits roll and we flash forward to the main story, and though there's certainly thematic DNA shared between the opening and the rest of the movie - namely regarding the nature of faith, doubt, and uncertainty - it's still a massive gear-shift.
From the earlier time period to the more fable-like dialogue, and of course the 4:3 screen ratio, this opening scene is basically a brilliant little short film that the Coens were good enough to attach to their existential black comedy, even if it was certainly a head-scratcher on an initial viewing.