No Country For Old Men Opening

One element of Film Form used to create alignment in No Country For Old Men is sound. The opening scene is narrated by Bell and we get an insight into his character and beliefs. For example, we learn about his fears of crime becoming more volatile and unmotivated: the more psychotic and random nature of the crime, the less he understands and is able to stop them. This allows the audience to understand him and sympathise with him despite not actually seeing him until later in the film. This is good contrast with Chigurh, as we are introduced to him straight away but we do not see his face clearly or hear him talk. Introducing Chigurh as Bell talks about his fear of random crime is dramatic irony because Chigurh is almost the manifestation of that fear with his apathetic and inhumane murders. Throughout the film we see Bell's nightmare come true as the film, to the point where Chigurh gets away and Bell essentially loses. This is all comes from Bell's monologue at the beginning, making it Bell's story that we are following from different perspectives.

One element of Film Form is used to avoid alignment is camera angles and framing. The opening scene displays Chigurh being arrested but we do not see his face nor hear him. For example when Chigurh is in the police car is placed in back of the shot in dark lighting, concealing his appearance. This stops the audience from clearly seeing his face. This represents the mystery literally shrouding his character because we don't know who he is or where he's from (we don't even learn his name until later on the film). This tells the audience that he is menacing character straight away because he is depicted as a predator lurking in shadows quietly. The lack of alignment supports the idea that audience is not meant to empathise with him. In fact the only time we do see his face is when he is killing the police officer. He moving chaotically as the camera slowly zooms in on his face. This represents who the character truly is and zoom is how that is revealed to the audience (they could just show him kill the officer but they choose to focus on his facial expression to highlight his madness and make that clear to the audience.

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