The camera then cuts back to the CU of the Captain driving, as the lieutenant/war correspondent looks at him for an explanation in bewilderment, in the background, from the passenger side. The Captain looking confidently into the distance, pacifies the lieutenant. He explains that the man was their "bosun's mate" and that he had "been on quite a bender tonight." The camera cuts back to the shot from the back seat of the car, as we approach a group of sailors who are lined up on the side of the road, they are obviously intoxicated. The camera cuts back to the CU shot of the Captain, as the lieutenant asks: "Who are those pigs?" The Captain does not answer, but turns on the windshield wipers and continues driving. Cutting back to the shot from the back seat, the car continues on as the sailors urinate on the Captain"s car. The camera sticks with the shot of the road ahead as the Captain explains: "That's their fireboat drill." In the first few minutes of the film Petersen is quick to establish the identities of the Captain and the war correspondent. .
The scene consists of basically two shots. The shot from inside the car, in the backseat peering out the windshield, and the shot from outside the driver side window of a CU of the Captain's as he leads the passenger's to the brothel. The shot from the backseat is a point of view shot. The audience identifies quickly with the war correspondent as he and the audience tries to figure out where they are going, and what is going on. The CU of the Captain, on the driver's side, is from a low angle. This emphasizes his superiority. The fact that it's a CU connects the audience to him. In the earliest moments in the film, the war correspondent and the Captain establish a sort of teacher/ student relationship. As the two shots would tend to suggest, the audience observes the story from both sides. This gives the audience the feeling of being both self, and self reflective.
