Tom's Film Blog

There are multiple sections towards the end of Trainspotting that depict Renton trying to escape his previous lifestyle but being constantly pursued by his friends, all of which display Renton's ideology and show the audience why he wants to escape his friends through alignment and elements of film form. The scene where Renton moves to London showcases the audience the life Renton wants by creating a contrast with the previous settings of the film with mise-en-scene, camera angles and music. Firstly, throughout the entirety of the film Edinburgh is depicted as a horrible place: dirty, run down and chaotic, which was made clear to the audience through locations such as Renton's flat. This is juxtaposed with almost a stereotype of London. The montage at the beginning of scene showcasing London with the slow panning shots creates an fun and easy going atmosphere. The scenes are bright, colourful and vibrant, creating a more innocent aesthetic spiritually aswell as literally. This ...

 Alignment Film form rentons state of mind ideology Both scenes use surreal imagery and various camera angles, along with mise-en-scene and performance to align us with Renton's state of mind and struggle. The withdrawal scene is used to showcase the struggle that not only Renton is going through, but addicts overall. This makes the audience have a better understanding of their situation and allows them to have sympathy for them because we are already aligned with Renton and understands his ideology. Firstly, the scene starts with Renton's parents taking him into his bedroom. This is a familiar setting that anyone would recognise, furthermore normalising drug addicts to the general public, but also creates a contrast with Renton's apartment. For example, Renton's room is small, cramped and doesn't have alot of light in it: there's alot of brown in the room and if there is colour its dark shades of green and white. The brown can be symbolic of security, more spec...

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...