Friday, 24 April 2009

No Country for Old Men


Before any film is shown several names of the actors appear on a black screen lasting a few seconds before changing to a different name. The opening starts with a black screen this then fades into a shot of some mountains. The light are dim the sun is still rising. There is diegetic sound of the wind rustling. A man is talking over this non-diegeticaly as we cannot see him he is talking about the old days and how things used to be, his voice is deep and gravely. There are several more shot similar to this of the surrounding fields and mountains. With each shot which lasts about 6-11 seconds it appears to be getting lighter, dawn. At about 1.20 in the camera pans from a dusty old field with a barbed wire fence running along it to a copper who is escorting a man into his police car. It is at that point that the voice over fades out to just diegetic sound. We can see that they are in the middle of no where as we see the long stretching road beyond. There is a medium shot as the cop pushes the man into his police car, all the wile the man seems calm and does not struggle. This cuts to a close up shot of the passenger seat which the police man then places a canister with a hose attached to it. We are left wondering what this mysterious object is and what it s used for. The police man then gets in to the car behind him we can again see the long empty road behind, there are no other cars or any buildings. A crane shot is in which we rise up as the car drives of into the distance. Which we presume is heading to the police station.

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