Analysis of 'No Country For Old Men'

Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon some dead bodies, a stash of heroin and more than $2 million in cash near the Rio Grande.

Opening Scene:

In class we have watch a short opening of a film called 'No Country for Old Men', directed by the Coen Brothers'. This film was released in 2007 as an American crime thriller film adapted for the screen. The beginning built up tense very fast as there was not a picture with the voice-over so no-one knows who is talking at first as it's not revealed. A technique using a silhouette makes the opening scene very effective, this is because it makes the atmosphere seem dull and gloomy, this then adds on to the tension from the voice-over. The use of background music builds great tension as it's weary so goes with the scene shots. The film then goes into short shots of locations, these locations seem rather isolated and bare and this could give the audience an idea of what the film is going to be like and that something isn't right. 

The First Murder:

The man calmly walks up to the man in the car, asking him in a soft tone of voice to get out of his car. Even when he is about to murder the man he is still very calm and does it with no hesitation or emotion in his face. By not showing emotion in his face, this shows that the fact that he just killed someone doesn't bother him, this may make the audience believe he has a mental condition after knowing what he does. This then makes the audience want to carry on watching so they can find out 'why he did it?', 'will he do it again?' and 'who is he?'. This short scene was just to 'grab the viewers attention' right from the beginning, I believe the director did this well as when I was watching it I did not have a clue what was going to happen until it did.

This picture is when he tells the man to step out of the car, the expression on his face shows that he's kind of excited and overjoyed that he's about to kill the man but to the audience who haven't seen the rest of the scene he just looks like he's happy and wants to talk to the man in the car.

This shows when he is about to kill the man, it's almost as if he's enjoying the suspense himself by calmly killing the man.It shows that he wants to do it and can perhaps indicate that he has wanted to do it for a while and it's his first time, he can be linked to a child getting excited about doing something for the first time to show his mental state.