FILM STUDIES MID-TERM PRESENTATION :FILM STUDIES MID-TERM PRESENTATION


Before taking this class, I knew very little about Motion Pictures. In fact, I would have had to put myself in the same category of other mindlessminions from the film achieves :Before taking this class, I knew very little about Motion Pictures. In fact, I would have had to put myself in the same category of other mindlessminions from the film achieves Bobby Boucher Waterboy, Carl from Caddyshack, Step Brothers, Loyd Christmas & Harry Dunne


FILM ANALYSIS :FILM ANALYSIS


The Coen Brothers' No Country For Old Men opens with shots of the parched Western Landscape. :The Coen Brothers' No Country For Old Men opens with shots of the parched Western Landscape.


The land is black, swallowed in the shadows. The sky is beginning to glow orange and blue. This is Genesis, the primordial landscape of "No Country for Old Men." We may think we're looking at a sunset at first, but the next few shots show a progression: The sky lightens, the sun rises above the horizon to illuminate a vast Western expanse. No signs of humanity are evident. And then, a distant windmill -- A barbed-wire fence cuts through a field. :The land is black, swallowed in the shadows. The sky is beginning to glow orange and blue. This is Genesis, the primordial landscape of "No Country for Old Men." We may think we're looking at a sunset at first, but the next few shots show a progression: The sky lightens, the sun rises above the horizon to illuminate a vast Western expanse. No signs of humanity are evident. And then, a distant windmill -- A barbed-wire fence cuts through a field.


Slide 7:Sheriff Ed Tom Bell’s (Tommy Lee Jones) voice-over in the beginning of the film, tells the story of a boy that Sheriff Bell sent to the electric chair because the boy killed a fourteen year old girl and the papers considered it a crime of passion. But the boy confirms that there's a blunt intention to kill and that if he ever got out of jail, he'd kill again. “An unmotivated murder shows an unfathomable disdain for humankind.” This statement appears to foreshadow that the fine line between Good and Evil will be blurred. Evil will not be portrayed as it normally has been in the traditional Western Films. NARRATOR


Sheriff Ed Tom Bell is haunted by the collapse of the world's virtues, the conquest of what he, and all the lawmen previous to him, stood for.The voiceover narrative at the beginning of the film, reveals the most about his character. :Sheriff Ed Tom Bell is haunted by the collapse of the world's virtues, the conquest of what he, and all the lawmen previous to him, stood for.The voiceover narrative at the beginning of the film, reveals the most about his character.


Bell says, "The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say, 'O.K., I'll be part of this world.'" :Bell says, "The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say, 'O.K., I'll be part of this world.'"


Anton Chigurh the film’s antagonist is introduced as a mere shadow, a silhouette and an ordinary concern for the unfortunate sheriff who arrests him. Chigurh dispatches the sheriff with unfeeling ease by strangling him with his handcuffs. Although violent in nature, the scene becomes even more intense when Directors Ethan & Joel Coen leave us with unsettling images. The most striking visual motif is the struggle that is recorded on linoleum tiles, a frenzy of black heel marks like an Abstract-Expressionist painting. :Anton Chigurh the film’s antagonist is introduced as a mere shadow, a silhouette and an ordinary concern for the unfortunate sheriff who arrests him. Chigurh dispatches the sheriff with unfeeling ease by strangling him with his handcuffs. Although violent in nature, the scene becomes even more intense when Directors Ethan & Joel Coen leave us with unsettling images. The most striking visual motif is the struggle that is recorded on linoleum tiles, a frenzy of black heel marks like an Abstract-Expressionist painting.


Slide 11:The Directors effectively use Mis En Scene through out the film, carefully arranging all of the visual elements so that they will have an immense impact on the audience Boots on the ground. Many shots of feet, from overhead or boot-level. You can't quite tell where they're going or what may intersect their path. Chigurh, the film’s antagonist is strongly identified with the ground, the craziness and violence rooted in and rising up from below the surface.


Trails of blood. Blood is spilled upon the earth, but is also in the earth, as men are of the earth and will return to it. You half expect blood to seep up from the ground like Texas oil, this land is so saturated with ancient blood. Blood serves as a sign -- a mark upon the land of some wound, and a portent of the future. Men follow trails of blood to unknown , or are followed by the blood they leave in their tracks. :Trails of blood. Blood is spilled upon the earth, but is also in the earth, as men are of the earth and will return to it. You half expect blood to seep up from the ground like Texas oil, this land is so saturated with ancient blood. Blood serves as a sign -- a mark upon the land of some wound, and a portent of the future. Men follow trails of blood to unknown , or are followed by the blood they leave in their tracks.


Doors, ducts, drains, holes. Take these portals, passages, barriers, hiding places, out of the movie and it's about 20 minutes long. They're all about revealing evidence or disposing of it. One of the movie's signature shots is the figure silhouetted in the doorway, the outsider on the threshold between civilization (in the form of trailer or motel) and wilderness. Chigurh blows the deadbolt locks out of doors to get them open, using a slaughterhouse implement that leaves holes (in human heads, too) but no telltale shell or bullet behind. :Doors, ducts, drains, holes. Take these portals, passages, barriers, hiding places, out of the movie and it's about 20 minutes long. They're all about revealing evidence or disposing of it. One of the movie's signature shots is the figure silhouetted in the doorway, the outsider on the threshold between civilization (in the form of trailer or motel) and wilderness. Chigurh blows the deadbolt locks out of doors to get them open, using a slaughterhouse implement that leaves holes (in human heads, too) but no telltale shell or bullet behind.


SOUNDAlong with the modulations of Tommy Lee Jones' voice, the noises in the air, and Carter Burwell's music-as-sound-design. The movie intensifies and heightens your senses. Light is tangible, whether it's sunlight or fluorescent. Blades of grass sing in the wind. Ceiling fans whirl. Milk bottles sweat in the heat. Ventilation ducts, air conditioners and deadbolt housings rumble, hiss and roar. :SOUNDAlong with the modulations of Tommy Lee Jones' voice, the noises in the air, and Carter Burwell's music-as-sound-design. The movie intensifies and heightens your senses. Light is tangible, whether it's sunlight or fluorescent. Blades of grass sing in the wind. Ceiling fans whirl. Milk bottles sweat in the heat. Ventilation ducts, air conditioners and deadbolt housings rumble, hiss and roar.


Slide 15:The sound design is so imbued with moments of palpable silence that the tiny noises we hear as Javier Bardem’s ultra-creepy boogeyman Anton Chigurh closes in on his prey (wind blowing through an open window, a light bulb being unscrewed) become truly scary. One unusual technical aspect of the movie worth noting is minimal use of a musical score. A hint of music can be heard when Anton Chigurh is driven away in a squad car in the first scene, and later, when Chigurh tells the gas station proprietor the story of his lucky quarter, a faint strain of music creeps in. Given how often filmmakers use music to manipulate viewers' responses, it is a testament to just how powerful the acting, directing, and editing are that the Coen brothers opted not to take that route.


Cinematographer Roger Deakins’s burnished vistas, the ideal of both grand personal renewal and the power of civilization to overcome savagery, is dead in Bell’s Texas. :Cinematographer Roger Deakins’s burnished vistas, the ideal of both grand personal renewal and the power of civilization to overcome savagery, is dead in Bell’s Texas.


Slide 17:PLAY CLIP


THEMEThe Coen Brothers' film No Country For Old Men seems to say a lot about humanity. “The shadows are neither invading or conquering the land as they are as timeless as the land itself.” Humanity is relatively new to the land considering that the earth is roughly 4 billion years old and that Homo sapiens only started living in small nomadic groups 10,000 years ago. Therefore, man chooses to dwell underneath the dark or to bask in the light. Morality may just be balanced by forces of fate and fortune and perhaps there is no clear border separating good and evil. The most painful thing in the world may be realizing just that. :THEMEThe Coen Brothers' film No Country For Old Men seems to say a lot about humanity. “The shadows are neither invading or conquering the land as they are as timeless as the land itself.” Humanity is relatively new to the land considering that the earth is roughly 4 billion years old and that Homo sapiens only started living in small nomadic groups 10,000 years ago. Therefore, man chooses to dwell underneath the dark or to bask in the light. Morality may just be balanced by forces of fate and fortune and perhaps there is no clear border separating good and evil. The most painful thing in the world may be realizing just that.