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No Country For Old Men Essay

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No Country for Old Men (2007) is an American crime thriller film directed by the Coen brothers, based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel No Country for Old Men. This is a cat-and-mouse drama, telling the story of a hunter stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong, causing violence and death subsequently.
This essay analyses a 4 and a half minutes opening sequence of the film. The introductory sequence of the film simply starts with the names of the production companies, this is often what we have for the opening credits of a film. It is then followed by the title of the film.
The Coen presents the viewers with 12 establishing shots throughout the opening scenes before a police officer detains the villain Anton Chigurh into the police car. The establishing shots demonstrate the isolation and danger of the remote areas in the scenes. The mise-en-scene in the opening sequence shows the tension and threat in it while adding a sense of …show more content…

Both scenes do not show us a clear nor close up shots the villain’s face. This indicates the danger and threat of this unknown character that will bring to the story.
After murdering the police officer, there is a shot of the villain washing his bleeding hands, free from the handcuff. His wounded wrists show that he uses the handcuffs brutally. This bloody scene demonstrates the cruelty and merciless in him that will bring more violence and death subsequently.
Vladimir Propp (2006:99) once suggested eight ranges of character roles, as known as the ‘sphere of actions’, one out of eight is the villain. From this short 4 and a half minutes, Chigurh obviously acts as a villain role, he is clearly the ‘bad guy’ in this film. This film is one of a few films that portray a villain as the central character and even wins in the

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