Comparison of scenes from No Country for Old Men

In No Country for Old Men, there are many iconic scenes with a lot of iconography in them. Two of the most memorable scenes from the film are the two coin toss scenes. These scenes are so memorable because of the mystery behind Anton Chigurh. It is never explained what the meaning of the coin toss is or what it means to Chigurh, which adds to the mystery of the missing narrative which the Coen brothers love to use.

In the first coin toss scene, Chigurh is very positive and seems quite happy with himself that he is successfully winning the verbal exchange between him and the shopkeeper. There is a lot of tension in the scene and it seems as though he is thriving off of it. The strangest part of the coin toss is that Chigurh almost doesn't think that it is him that is murdering someone. He claims that the coin travelled years to get to the person on the victim's side. The camera angles in this scene are traditional over the shoulder shots most of the time, but there are occasions where there are shots of the shopkeeper by himself to shoe that he is isolated and alone. A nice feature is the background props in the scene. There are nooses behind the shopkeepers head and ironically, there are smiley faces.



In the other coin toss scene, the mood is a lot more negative and it seems as though Chigurh is a lot more reluctant to kill Llewelyn's wife. There is no music in this scene, whereas in the last scene there was one note. We still do not work out a lot about Anton's personality in this scene too. The performance from Javier Bardem's character in this scene (and in the whole film) just adds to the chilling feeling we get from it. The editing in both scenes is very smart and not flashy to make the scene feel more real and raw.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Analysis of opening scene and Junky Limbo scene from Trainspotting

Image
Opening scene The opening scene of Trainspotting is widely regarded to be one of the most iconic scenes in British movie history. It does a great job of showing you what to expect for the rest of the movie, jumping straight into explicit scenes. The music that plays throughout it while Renton reels off all of the things to 'choose' sets the fast pace and adds an action-based effect to the scene. We get to see all of the main characters here and one of the sub-plots of the movie (Renton trying to get off of heroin) is set. Most of the camera shots are close ups or mid shots in this scene as it is still trying to develop the characters and introduce them to the viewer. The lighting in the house is very dark and miserable. This directly contradicts the light from the previous scene of being outside, and it also contradicts the music which is still playing in the background. This creates a strange effect on the audience which makes them not too disturbed or sad by the scene, d...
Read more

Similarities and differences between Casablanca and Do the Right Thing

Casablanca and Do the Right Thing are two very different films from two very different time periods. Both deal with different issues, but both are similar in a sense that the overall meaning of the film is deeper than just the storyline itself. Do the Right Thing inevitably has more advanced camerawork in comparison to Casablanca. The majority of Casablanca is simple over-the-shoulder camera shots and barely any wide shots. Casablanca was very good in it's utilisation of eye-lines when it cut from shot to shot. Do the Right Thing has more flashy camera work and it has traditional Spike Lee-type angles such as the zoom from above one. Similarly, Do the Right Thing has far more advanced editing too. It features a lot of flashy cuts and transitions, whereas Casablanca uses simple editing and doesn't really use any flashy editing throughout, as expected. Both are similar in a sense that they use establishing shots often. A good use of this in Casablanca is when Rick's bar i...
Read more

Weekly film analysis-Brazil

Image
Brazil is a film made in 1985, directed by Terry Gilliam. It is of the dystopian genre and is set in a future which ironically turned out to be rather inaccurate. The plot is very unclear throughout the whole movie, but this is done with clear purpose. Although the plot is hard to follow and often leaves the viewer wondering why they are watching Brazil, it is very thought-provoking and interesting to watch, which is why the film is so watchable. The plot was not believable at all but this was all part of the genre. The central goal of the movie was probably to express the opinions and views of the people who made the film, more so than to deliver a message or entertain the viewer in a certain way. A lot of symbolism was used in the film and there are many theories as to what the symbolism actually represents. An example of this is the flying scenes and especially when the ground begins to rise into the skies. The characters were complex and hard to break down. The acting was ...
Read more