In the first scene we see his argumentative wife, Adelaide (the veteran mezzo-soprano Victoria Livengood), consulting a fortuneteller (the lively contralto Suzanne Hendrix).
After a prologue, in the first scene we see the Painter, as the character is called (the tenor Paul Groves) doing a portrait of Lulu in his Vienna studio.
In the first scene, we see him waking up from a night of passion with his mistress, the Marschallin ("wife of the field marshal").
From the first scene, we see the hapless, hopeless Edwards, determined to make a sporting success of himself but destined to trip up over his laces at every finishing line.
In that first scene, we see a handsome, if slightly sleazy-looking, airline pilot, his jacket and shirt off, who is speaking to the cabin on his cockpit radio, while the top of a blond head moves up and down at the bottom of the screen.
In the first scene we see the mother, the mezzo-soprano Rosalind Plowright, who brought anguished vocal colorings and fierce intensity to her portrayal, treading her way to the prison, hobbled with grief as she walked on a shifting section of the stage floor that keep her, metaphorically, stuck in place.
When I first saw Inside Llewyn Davis, I missed the opening, so I didn't realize that it has a circular pattern, that the first scene we see is the last scene we see, that this is a movie that tracks how Llewyn gets to the point of being beaten by a mysterious cowboy in a dark alley.
Efficiently, in the first few scenes, we see and hear his philosophy of life: he's a user, a player, a misogynist, a thief, mugger and murderer because it's expedient, not because it's premeditated.
The fantasy element of the film begins with the first scene, where we see Keaton levitating/floating two feet above his bed in his dressing room at the St, James Theater.
I loved the first scenes where we see Paper Boi and Earn at the radio station.
