Mis-en-Scene

The film I chose was No Country For Old Men, This is a great movie that I think did extremely well in keeping you at the edge of your seat. The Director of Photography was none other than Roger Deakins, who is one of the most famous DP's out there. The DP's job is that he is in charge of the camera crew and making sure the lighting works and that the frame being shot is in a way that the director wants it to feel like. Roger Deakins has been doing DP since the 70's and has worked on almost all of the Coen brothers' movies. He does an amazing job on No Country For Old Men and it shows because it won best Cinematography at the BAFTA's and best motion picture at the Academy Awards.

The scene I am referring to is when Lleweyn (Josh Brolin) Suspects Anton (Javier Bardem) is at the hotel looking for him. It looks like he is only using natural light and keeping it dark to give a mysterious mood. Shadows are very big in this because Lleweyn doesn't want his shadow to be seen but at the same time sits across the bed waiting for someone to either walk past the door or stop in front of it.  Not much detail in the room but you can clearly see the window in the background giving the possibility of a place to escape. He sees a shadow in front of the door and the camera goes to a close up of the gun slowly clicking back to try and not make a noise. The shadow moves away and he thinks he is safe until a shadow completely covers the light and then the lock shoots out at Lleweyn and he shoots the door to escape out the window.

There is great use of rule of thirds in this whole scene as well as side lighting used a lot and giving off a mysterious silhouette which only adds to the creepiness. Roger Deakins wanted this to be as stressful as it can be, and choosing to use minimal lighting rather than adding color to the scene really helped add the the tension.