This photo shows inequality because of how Vincent is not as popular with his family as his brother Anton who is genetically superior to him.
Close shot – flat angle –

This photo shows the anger in Vincent because his family loves his genetically superior brother Anton better than him. This causes him to rub out his name on the wall under his brother to erase himself from the family.

Close shot – slightly high angle –

Scene Analysis

This scene is just after the opening title sequence and depicts a week before Vincent, posing as Jerome, is going to be sent into space. At the start of the scene, we are shown the inside of GATTACA from the outside, which gives us a look at the escalator and all of the floors above the ground. On the higher up floors, we can see people who are walking around the floors. At the bottom we see all the people funnelling up onto the escalator. In the next shot, we see them all walking up to a scanner that takes blood samples to confirm that they are ‘valid’ and allowed to be at GATTACA. They then show the machines that are collecting the blood samples, and show that they spin around to collect as many blood samples as possible. When Vincent puts his hand down onto the scanner to be read, he knows that he will be ‘valid’ because he is using a fake fingerprint and blood sample from Jerome to make sure that he doesn’t get denied. After he gets accepted, we are shown a woman behind him who is clearly fascinated with him, however she tries to keep a solemn look on her face. We are then shown the whole room and a lot of people walking through it again. In the next scene, we are shown Vincent from behind a computer screen, and we see him typing and focusing hard on his work. We are then given a small glimpse of his work and then shown him finishing off work. After he does, he picks up a tool that either sucks or blows away any dirt or clues to who Vincent really is. While he cleaning his keyboard, his supervisor comes up to and comments on how clean his workstation is, to which Vincent replies – “It’s next to godliness…isn’t that what they say?”. We are then given a third person view, which appears to be from the woman who is fascinated with Vincent. We hear the supervisor say to Vincent that there wasn’t “1 error, in a million keystrokes”. We are also shown a shot of the woman overhearing the conversation, and then we are again shown Vincent where he is told “It’s right that someone like you is taking us to Titan”. Vincent then asks if the committee has approved to mission, as he has overheard people talking about delaying the flight to Titan. The supervisor tells him that he will be flying out in a week’s time and that he has a substance test. After the supervisor leaves, Vincent pulls out a small, glass container that has some skin remains from Jerome and has a hair strand in it. He tips the remains into the keyboard, and then puts the hair strand between some of the teeth in his comb, and puts it away in his desk.

This opening scene shows the audience what GATTACA is like, and what it is they do. It also shows the audience the life of Vincent that he is pretending to have, because he clearly doesn’t belong there with everyone else.