The film „Das Wunder von Bern“ starts with the names of the film companies on a black screen. The titles appear in white letters and a soccer field is intimated by white lines. The film title is shown above a goalmouth. That lets the audience know that the film is about football. The music playing in the background is non-diegetic. It is classical and calm and matches what you can see. Then it fades into an Establishing wide shot which shows a dreary industrial estate. The camera tilts down slowly and at the bottom of the frame the words “Ruhrgebiet, spring 1954” appear.
After this, the camera switches to four boys and a girl standing in a tree, looking expectantly into the sky. To show this, a Low Angle is used. They seem to be a bit poor because of their clothes. One of them is holding binoculars. The next shot is made as if the audience looks through these binoculars. It is therefore a Point of View shot. Suddenly you can see a dove through the binoculars. The children climb out of the tree and start running. That makes the audience wonder why and where they are running. The dove is shown again, but this time by a Long shot. The camera movement used is Tracking. The music is becoming a bit faster and louder which is matching to what you can see.
They run through a poor, dirty village and finally enter an attic with a dove cage in it. One of the boys walks purposeful into that cage and takes a note off a dove. To show the boy opening that note, an Extreme close-up is used. The boy reads out loud: “Allemania Aachen - Rot-Weiß Essen 1 : 0.” This is obviously the result of a football match. Because of the childrens’ reaction everyones knows that they support Rot-Weiß Essen. Now the audience also knows the reason why the children were waiting for that dove.
The colours during the whole opening are very dreary and although it is supposed to be spring, the sky is grey and it rather looks like it is autumn or even winter. That creates a sad, cool admosphere. Nevertheless, the music sounds quite happy. The lighting used is High-Key. Ther is only one type of editing in this opening. This type is a straight cut.
