Research - Fargo

Fargo (Coen Brothers, 1996)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI_4wvBHkrw

Camera

The over the shoulder shot of the two men.

• Shot Reverse Shot is used but without the close up of the two men
• Close ups of the cars headlights as it drives past
• Establishing shot of the bar

All of the camera shots listed above are used to help create narrative enigma for the audience, the shot reverse shot, creates a sense of illusion and a sinister feel towards the two men as we never get to see a close up of their face. The close up makes the audience wonder who the car belongs to making them want to carry on watching to find out their answers. The establishing shot helps to let the audience understand that the opening seems to be quite a normal natural setting.

Editing

• Title sequence, the titles fade in and out of the frame
• Car fades into view (as if it came out of nowhere)



The Car beginning to be seen.

• Small amounts of straight cuts (only when needed)

The use of the titles fading in and out makes them a lot more interesting to watch as it is something different to them just being there. The car fading into view makes the audience suddenly a lot more interested as it seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. The small amount of straight cuts used helps to reinforce the fact that these criminals are casually speaking about kidnapping someone in the middle of a busy bar.

Mise-en Scene

• Opens in a bar location (naturalistic, normal setting)
• Opening background isn't a clean shade of white, it looks almost dirty
• Car drives on and past you, narrative enigma

The naturalistic and normal setting is a convention of a Thriller film, this also makes the audience feel slightly at ease due to what the characters are talking about in such an open area. The opening background's dirty white colour makes the film seem slightly off putting and sinister as the audience can see this dirty white colour. As the car drives past it helps to create a large amount of narrative enigma as everybody is wondering who is in the car and what do they want.

Sound

• Repetitive Melody, played on the strings (creepy atmosphere)
• Basic dialogue between characters
• Ambient Sound in the background (links to the normal setting)

The repetitive melody at the very beginning creates a quite creepy atmosphere, along with the blank screen it helps to create a lot of questions for the audience to answer as they are all wondering what is going to happen next. The basic dialogue between characters helps to give the audience a slight understanding of the beginning of the narrative.

Creating Tension

All of the above link together to create a wide narrative enigma for the audience, this helps to create tension when the audience are watching the opening as the audience don't understand what is going to happen next.

The music that is played when the opening credits are on helps to create tension through the creepy atmosphere that it creates.

The beginning of the dialogue helps to create ideas of violence/violent tendencies which helps to create tension as the audience don't know what is going to happen next.

The Opening Titles

An example of one of the opening titles.

Polygram Filmed Entertainment Presents
In association with Working Titles Films
Frances Mcdormand
William H. Macy
Steve Buscemi
Harve Presnell
Peter Stormare
Fargo



This is all of the names that are named in the opening titles, the titles are:

• Faded in and placed towards the bottom of the screen, this is to allow more of the 'dirty' white skies at the top of the frame to be seen.
• The font's are very close together in the first names, but then the surnames are very spread out, this is used because more people know actors by last names rather than first.
• The size of the font changes, in the first 2 titles it is large, but through the rest of them the font is a lot smaller, this is because it is only actors names and not the large companies.