Within the beginning of the film starts with a landscape of the desert which is conventional for the western genre which this film uses even though it is set during the 80's the film uses conventions from traditional westerns. As it shows different wide angle shots of the desert a voiceover plays the character that is talking is Sheriff Ed Tom Bell who seems to represent the "Good" character in the film as he represents the law and order and can be seen as the hero due to his right morality and this voice over is used to immediately the audience is aligned to the sheriff and connote to the audience what type of character he is going to be when he eventually appears in the film a lot later than the other main characters as the wide angle shots of the scenery continue we are introduced to the villain of the film and this is conveyed as we don't directly see his face when he is being arrested and put into the police car and the reason why we are not shown his face is to make the audience not become aligned to the villain Anton Chigurh as his identity is kept a secret during the opening as the next scene in the police car his face is hidden in the darkness whereas the police officers face has been clearly visible during the entire time somewhat making the audience align to him also while Chigurh is being arrested we are not told why he has been arrested and during this opening scene the audience wouldn't know that he is the cold blooded killer which is the prominent villain in the film so the crime he committed is left to speculation.
The next scene in the police station Chigurh's face is finally shown however it is shown while he is strangling the police officer and his exaggerated facial expression which the audience sees begins to show how psychotic and evil he is as a character. The next scene is in the bathroom where Chigurh is cleaning his wounds from killing the police officer and usually in scenes like this the camera would positioned in a over the shoulder shot to align the audience to the character as the audience can see the character's face and the wounds he is cleaning as films which are in the action genre which this film has some links to the action genre typically use that shot however the shot used looks down on only his hand which reinforces how the audience is supposed to avoid aligning to chigurh. When we finally see Chigurh the outfit he is wearing and also his hairstyle is entirely different than every character in the film which furthers the reinforcement of avoidance of alignment as he doesn't fit into the atmosphere/aesthetic the film creates with the other character's styles.
The next character to be shown is Llewelyn Moss and almost immediately the audience is aligned to him as the scene begins with a POV shot of him hunting and also we are shown his face very quickly signifying that he is the main character as the audience begin to align to him and not like Chigurh where the first time we saw his face it was greatly exaggerated. Also Llewelyn looks like he fits into a Neo western genre as the colours of his clothing are warmer colours and the entire scene we first see Llewelyn it has a lot more warmer colours unlike the scene of Chigurh after the police station where the colours are a lot more darker showing a theme of good vs evil between the characters also the clothes he is wearing fit him as a character fits into the Neo western genre which mostly all of the main characters fit into like his hat and boots strongly present Llewelyn as a modern cowboy.
The scene of Chigurh at the gas station is an excellent example of presenting his character as we see in the beginning he already is seen to be different to the other character in the scene as the atmosphere in the scene is awkward and somewhat eerie due to Chigurh constantly asking the man questions and repeating what he says to in some way make fun of him. Later on in the scene his ideology of him being a servant of fate and pushing the blame of a possible murder onto fate as when he begins to play the coin flip game with the man behind the shop counter he explains that the coin has gone through twenty two years of traveling to get to that point and he is just doing fate's work to exonerate himself of the murder which may happen.
The next character to be shown is Llewelyn Moss and almost immediately the audience is aligned to him as the scene begins with a POV shot of him hunting and also we are shown his face very quickly signifying that he is the main character as the audience begin to align to him and not like Chigurh where the first time we saw his face it was greatly exaggerated. Also Llewelyn looks like he fits into a Neo western genre as the colours of his clothing are warmer colours and the entire scene we first see Llewelyn it has a lot more warmer colours unlike the scene of Chigurh after the police station where the colours are a lot more darker showing a theme of good vs evil between the characters also the clothes he is wearing fit him as a character fits into the Neo western genre which mostly all of the main characters fit into like his hat and boots strongly present Llewelyn as a modern cowboy.
The scene of Chigurh at the gas station is an excellent example of presenting his character as we see in the beginning he already is seen to be different to the other character in the scene as the atmosphere in the scene is awkward and somewhat eerie due to Chigurh constantly asking the man questions and repeating what he says to in some way make fun of him. Later on in the scene his ideology of him being a servant of fate and pushing the blame of a possible murder onto fate as when he begins to play the coin flip game with the man behind the shop counter he explains that the coin has gone through twenty two years of traveling to get to that point and he is just doing fate's work to exonerate himself of the murder which may happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment