Cinematography

Cinematography

Shannon St. George

80th academy award winning movie, No Country for Old Men, was the film we decided to use for our content critique team. When evaluating the cinematography I decided to look up some of the various awards the film received for that category.

• 2008 American Society of Cinematographers Award: nominated 
• 2008 BAFTA Film Award: won
• Boston Society of Films Critics Award: 2nd 
• 2008 British Society of Cinematographers: won
• Central Ohio Film Critics Award: 2nd 
• Chicago Films Critics Award: nominated
• San Diego Films Critics Society: won

After watching this feature film, I now know first hand why this film one so many awards. Not only did it have an excellent script, an edge of the seat plot, and talented actors, it also had outstanding cinematography. The cinematographer for this movie is Roger Deakins. The beginning of this thriller starts out with beautiful scenes of West Texas. It really captures the scenery of the deserts and wind mills. It portrays the landscape of Texas with wide long shots, and bright blue skies. 

One thing that I noticed while watching the film is the cuts of the shots. Normally in a thriller they use many fast cuts to intensify the action. That is not the case in No Country for Old Men. In my opinion they film in kind of a slow manner, but it keeps you at the edge of your seat. I noticed it most in the scenes with the murderer. They drag the action out until the very last second. They also like to play a lot with shadows. They use that extra element to emphasize and heighten the suspense. I noticed it mostly when they had scenes with the murderer. One example is the scene where the main character, Llewlyn, finds the tracking device in the brief case. He then realizes that Anton is standing outside his door. They convey that with the lighting under the door frame. They also play with the the full body shadow of Ed Bell when he is on his search at the motel for Anton. Also I noticed few times that mirrors played a role in the film. That asset is a tool that the audience can use to figure out a bit of information without the camera actually showing them. Overall I thought this film was very well done and I would recommend anyone to who hasn't seen it to watch it!

Here is a scene analysis of the filming of a random clip from No Country for Old Men.

It starts with a close up shot of wrapper,

Then close up shot of the man,

Close up shot of the murderer, 

Medium Reaction shot of the man, 

Medium shot of murderer while he flips the coin

Close up of murderer setting coin on table

then they continue between over the shoulder and reaction shots of both the man and murderer while they have a conversation about the coin flip