No Country for Old Men - G321 Section 2 - Opening Sequence

No Country for Old Men - G321 Section 2 - Opening Sequence

The opening of this title begins with black background, there is then non-diegetic sound passing over the background, explaining and giving a slight background information toward the characters voice that is overlaying the video, the protagonist begins by saying how he was “sheriff of this county when I was twenty-five years old”, the video begins to fade in from the black, the audience begins to see a sunrise over a mountain, this gives the audience a hint as it is an establishing shot over the scene, giving contextual background information on what county he was sheriff of.

The narrating continues as the protagonist explains his family background and gives the audience a feel for what the character is like. The establishing shots continue in a time-lapse motion as various shots of the desert pass by as the sun begins to rise over the desert, the images are visually balanced as you can see as an example to the side. Once the sun has risen we can see a contrast between the still life and as the scene of land come into the frame, the audience is able to notice the moving of the scorched grass and a subtle diegetic sound of the whistling wind comes in.

 

Mostly the opening shots of the desert are there to not only show an establishing shot and to introduce the scenery in which the movie is set in but also to highlight the loneliness that is throughout the landscape. The effect works as the audience is able to see vast area of still land that is unoccupied and the audience will notice the little movements, such as, the wind blowing the grass really highlights the isolation of the desert.

The camera then swiftly pivots on its tripod from showing the isolated landscape to a police car and a member of the force along with whom the audience later find out to be the protagonist in the movie. At this point the narration is still occurring over the top of the diegetic sound of their feet moving along the ground. It is only now that the audience can begin to refer from the narration of “I always knew you had to be willing to die to do this job” speaking in the context of being an officer of the law and so therefore we can begin to see a plot unveiling and seeing his arrest fold out.

As for props, costumes and make-up, there isn’t much to analyse so far because it has simply been a series of establishing shots over the desert watching the sun rise pan out. However in terms of costume, the police officer is dressed as your stereotypical western officer with a hat on and short sleeved shirts, this clearly makes the audience already see a person of power and recognise that through his costume and his cop car. Turning toward the protagonist we can see he is all in a dark (likely to be black) costume, the black already presents a presence of evil and isn’t a cheerful colour, this goes hand in hand with the fact that he is being arrested. “First impressions are everything” is extremely applicable to this opening sequence as it gives the audience the clear indication of good and evil.

Once he has been placed in the car in handcuffs, there is a close up of a cylinder chamber. The cylinder is put inside the officer’s car and so clearly this is of some interest and has a link with the protagonist, possibly even his weapon, as an audience you simply don’t know yet. Initially this places questions such as ‘what does the protagonist use this for’ and ‘who even is the man and why is he under arrest’ creating interest and making for a very good opening sequence.

The title sequence in terms of thrillers doesn’t conform to conventions and challenges them, leaving little narrative to the story line and is actually a fairly short opening sequence, it challenges thriller conventions by having a narration over the top of a series of establishing shots, this leaves little room for a story line and you get very little from the opening title but what you do get leaves you all with unanswered questions, which therefore conforms to thriller conventions but is very effective at doing so.

Going back to use of light in this sequence we can see that the protagonist once placed inside the police car he is in the dark and the audience cannot make out any prominent facial features , this conforms to thriller conventions by masking up the ‘bad guy’, this is a good use of suspense in many thrillers. Also by the use of lighting shows that he is (again) an evil or demonic person, he fades into the black because of his clothing and this hints that this is where he belongs, with his dark ways.