Analysis of Thriller Opening-No Country for Old Men

Camera work

• In the first minute of this thriller there are just establishing landscape shots. They are all extreme long shots and last around five seconds each. These shots are very important as they give the audience an idea of the whole setting, and how important it is.  The first moving shot pans along the fence and then onto a car where it stops as the audience watches a sheriff walk an arrested man to it.  There is a close up of an oxygen tank being placed on a car seat, which brings the audiences attention to this prop and wonder what it is there for.  Later on a point of view shot is used as the arrested man picks it up, putting us in his perspective: again wondering what he will do with it.
• The shots used when the arrested man is in sight always hide his face; the first shot of him only showing his back, and the second one, as the sheriff gets into the car, uses the mesh between him and the man to obscure his face. Back at the police station, shallow depth of field is used to hide his features as he approaches the officer, and even when he strangles the man his face is hidden in the scuffle. These shots help raise mystery around this character.  

Editing

·    The first shots of this sequence show time passing; in each shot the sun is more and more up which gives us an impression of it being sometime in the morning.  The use of cutting in these shots makes the sunrise in under a minute to save time.

Mise en scene

• The costume on the arrested man immediately gives him away as the protagonist.  He wears all black, connoting darkness, along with his dark hair.  This, a long with his facial expressions and body language make his character comes across as brutal, untouchable, purposeful and uncaring.   All his movements seem very deliberate; the way he strangles the police officer is not out of sudden rage, it's planned and cruel.  As he does this, we see his unhidden face for the first time:  his eyes are wide and his face is contorted as he tries to kill the man.  He looks insane and the affect is very frightening.
• The scenery that we are shown in the first minute is very beautiful but deserted and barren which gives the audience a sense of loneliness and fear because we realize there is no where for anyone to run to.

Sound

·    The non diegetic sound consists of a voice over and at one point an eerie long noise which starts when we first see the oxygen tank, making it seem sinister.  The voiceover at the beginning has a southern accent, and it talks of murder quite naturally which reflects the idea of this being quite a rough area.  We don’t know who the voice belongs to either which gives us the impression the protagonist has not been introduced yet.

·    The diegetic sound starts with the wind as the voiceover is going, and it emphasizes the desolate area.  The other digenetic sounds consist of dialogue, footsteps, cars, running water and gurgling.  There is hardly any music which makes the opening very realistic and takes the audience right into it.

Freya