The section I chose to deconstruct from No Country for Old Men is 53 seconds long and starts at 40.30 with Llewelyn pulling up to his motel in a cab at night time. The scene starts with a medium close up on Llewelyn’s face with him looking concerned as he sits in the back of the taxi and appears to be focusing his attention out the window toward the motel that they are approaching. We then get a tracking shot looking out through the windshield and showing that they are approaching the motel and turning to drive past the motel rooms. They then use a match cut and a mid-close up shot from the front of the car looking into it that shows both the taxi driver and Llewelyn in the car. In the background we can see blurred movement out the window to illustrate that the car is making a turn. They then cut away to a dolly tracking shot which pans the motel rooms as they drive past. There is a cut away shot where we see the different motel rooms as they pass (sort of a look at shot as well) and then a match cut back to a close up of Llewelyn’s face as he looks, concentrated on the motel, out the window. Next we get another cut away shot that becomes a dolly tracking shot of the motel rooms as they drive by and the camera speed slows down as we pass one motel room with the window shades just slightly open. There is then a quick match cut back to Llewelyn’s face and then another cut away which this time is clearly a look at shot as the camera slows and slightly zooms in on the motel window which has the curtains slightly drawn, and then quickly back to Llewelyn who asks the driver to immediately take him to another hotel. This action sequence clearly signals that the motel window that we have just seen has caused Llewelyn’s reaction. There are a few quick match cuts back and forth between Llewelyn and the driver of the taxi as they talk for a few seconds and then the scene does a straight cut.
The straight cut brings us to a dolly down shot of a close up of the camera speeding over the highway which is used to emphasize the speed of a car as the road moves beneath it. We then get a match cut to a medium close up of Anton’s face looking forward as he drives. This creates cinematic tension as we can tell that Anton is fast on Llewelyn’s trail. There is then a match cut to outside the car, where the camera stays in one spot and we can see the car drive by and also see, on the right hand side of the screen, a Del Rio road sign which lets us know that Anton is heading in the right direction to find Llewelyn. Then they use a crane up technique as the car continues to drive, which pans out as the car gets further away from where it’s being filmed and allows us to see the car continue to travel towards Del Rio.
Visual Literacy 105-006 