Tom's Film Blog

Trainspotting uses various elements of film form to convey to the audience straight away the themes and characters of the film. The film starts off straight away in an action scene by showing Renton running away from the police frantically. This gives the film a fast pace and tells the audience that the film is going to have a fun tone. Starting a film with Renton running away could be seen as dramatic or maybe even intense, but other elements of film-making are used to subvert this. For example the music in this scene is chaotic and upbeat, allowing the audience to feel upbeat too. This perfectly displays the chaos of Renton’s life and thrill he gets from it: more specifically the thrill he gets from heroin. This is true because the music continues into the scene where Renton is taking heroin. It shows the audience how it feels to take it. This aligns us with Renton because now the audience knows what he is feeling. It also depicts the issue of addiction in a light-hearted manner. May...

Both No Country For Old Men and Captain Fantastic uses elements of sound and visuals to engage the viewer with the characters, narrative and themes of both films. First of all, No Country For Old Men uses mise-en-scene, editing and camera angles to visually tell a story. This is evident in the final scene of the movie where we see Bell's retirement. It starts by slowly fading from the previous scene: Chigurh walking away from the crash and transitioning into Bell in his home looking into the distance. The editing makes it look like Bell is looking at him walking away and he doesn't do anything about. This is a recurring theme throughout No Country, that Bell is ineffective and can not stop this new wave of crime that Chigurh represents. Also the shot frames Bell at the center, aligning us with him and the transition preceding the scene seconds before could symbolise this is what Bell's thinking: that Chigurh escaping the crash represents him escaping justice and it is unset...

Chigurh's final scene subverts expectations of the viewer and the consistency of his character whilst still conveying the theme of fate vs chance. For example, the scene where Carla Jean and Chigurh have their confrontation, they are both framed in the center and at the foreground of each of their shot. This is also followed by multiple shot reverse shot of them staring directly at each other. Not only does this continue a recurring theme throughout the film and the consistency of how the film is shot but also creates an intensity to the scene: the quick cuts back and forth causes the viewer to feel nervous and wonder if Chigurh is about to kill her. This idea is subverted when she is killed off screen, the same as her husband. Maybe this is done just to create dramatic irony or maybe it is a conscience move by the Coen brothers not to upset the the audience because of the innocence of Carla Jean's character and killing her on screen would be to upsetting or unnecessary. The mi...

The Coen brothers subvert the expectations of the viewer by avoiding the confrontation between Bell and Chigurh. This is done to maintain the way Bell has been portrayed throughout the film (the tired and worried sheriff). This is done through two elements of film form: camera angles and performance. First of all, at the beginning of the scene, we are given a shot reverse shot of Bell's point of view and a close up of him in his car. This is mainly done to align us with Bell as a person: showing us the world through his eyes. Furthermore, the close up of him in the car is done to highlight his emotion and body language. The close up clearly shows that he is afraid and hesitant of going in their because he feels he will be killed just like Moss. This is evident as his body language shows that he waited a moment before getting out of the car, almost as if he thought of driving away, conforming with his archetype of not doing anything. However this trait of Bell is transgressed when d...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RpEdCX5kNM In the scene where we are introduced to Llewellyn Moss, the audience is aligned to his character through various elements of film form and film-making in general. This is seen in the first shot of his introduction. For example, before we have point of view shot before being shown a close up of Llewellyn looking down his rifle. The physical closeness of the camera to his face make the audience feel close to him as a character and want to follow him as the story progresses, which is what literally happens in the following scene. Also, the point of view shot allows the audience to have an insight into Llewellyn as a character and let us see the world how he sees it. This is important because throughout the film Moss is depicted as a morally grey character with no real allegiances to good or evil, unlike Chigurh and Bell. This ominous way of depicting his character is highlighted in this scene. In particular, he is hunting animals with a gun. Gun...

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, ...

I actually really liked the ending because it subverts the expectations of the viewer in a way that didn't feel out of place with the rest of the film. Each of the characters go through failure at the end, transgressing the stoic and dominant roles they take throughout the film. More specifically, each of their characters goes through failures that break down their personalities. For example, throughout the film, Chigurh is depicted as a calm, methodical killers: each of his crimes are well thought out and intricate enough to allow him getting away with it. He also has no remorse for his killings, presenting him as a character who is not human and stops the audience from empathising with him. However this archetype is flipped when he goes to murder Carla Jean. You would think that Chigurh would just kill her, but Carla Jean states how "the coin doesn't have a say" and shows how Chigurh is the only one who does. The close up on Chigurh's face (he has tears running ...