No Country For Old Men

No Country for old men opening


As the clip begins, the audience are able to hear a narration over a pan of the landscape. This already creates a narrative enigma for the audience, as they wonder. Who is the narrator? And what part does this man play throughout the story? Throughout the narration, the character reveals information about his life and what he does for a profession. This narration helps the audience familiarize with the character, however no main plot is revealed, other than the facts about the man’s life. The narrator’s voice is also somewhat soft and comforting to the audience, this allows the audience to see that the man is the protagonist in the story, and is therefore someone that we the audience should look up to and support throughout the story. As the narration is ongoing the audience is able to see a pan of the landscape, in order to familiarize themselves with the surrounding landscape.
The first camera shot we see is a long shot of the landscape in either a late night or early morning setting, we then see a straight cut to another shot of a different part of the landscape. Although a straight cut may give the connotations of action and messy editing, this is not the case in No Country for Old Men as we get a sense of continuity.
Straight from the beginning of the clip the audience can see that the setting of the clip is not of the modern day, we are able to see old styled hair and clothes on the first characters that we come into contact with as we see a police officer in an old fashioned style Police costume, and also the antagonist of the film, with a very old fashioned ‘bowl cut’ again, the introduction of these two characters create a narrative enigma for the audience, as we wonder who the antagonist is and what he has done in order to be arrested.
Towards the end of the clip the audience is able to see a crane shot, as it follows the Police car down a hill, during this crane shot we the audience are allowed to see the surrounding landscape and setting of the movie, but again this insight does not reveal any of the plot to the story, but we are however able to see that the surrounding area is very rural, and due to the accents heard in the narrative voice over, we are able to presume that the story takes place in a rural part of America.
We are also able to see during the opening sequence the antagonist of the film being placed under arrest, this is a common connotation of the thriller genre and something that the audience have come to expect.