The Notebook title sequence

Notebook Analysis



The Notebook is a romance film retelling a love story of two individuals and how they came together, and the life that they experienced. The opening scene shows a young man rowing through what appears a giant lake, while the sun is setting in the background. The two main focuses are the man in the lake, as well as the red sky and the sun setting. It opens the film with a quiet and loving feeling, foreshadowing on what the film would be like, but contrasting the fact that the man in the lake is alone. While rowing across the lake the titles appear, reeling the actors names while the sun sets in the background and the character moves further up the lake, signalling a slight passing of time.


Sound is very minimal, using the diagetic sounds in terms of the waves of the lake that seem to be crashing gently across the banks. No non-diagetic sound is used, so the sound of the scene is completely natural, and again gives a feeling of calm and sets the scene for a romantic genre for the film. It could be suggested however that it is a "calm before the storm", and that actually the film could be something different altogether. The other main focus is the sunset. In contrast to a stereotypical romance film in which a sunset is used at the end of the film to signal a love coming together, its used at the beginning for only one individual against the normal of the genre.