2.4 “Analyse how film techniques were used to present an idea in the text”

Fargo is a movie that was released on the 8th of March 1996 and was directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, more commonly known as the Coen brothers. The movie is set in the U.S state of Minnesota in the year of 1987. In this essay I will be analyzing how the Coen brothers used film techniques such as lighting, camera angles and Focus to portray key ideas and the overarching theme of greed throughout the duration of the film.

There are many different types of lighting in film; ambient lighting, practical lighting, key lighting, soft lighting and hard lighting just to name a few. Film makers use light to subtly express character traits, show a change in a character or the scene, or just to simply Illuminate the scene an the characters. In this paragraph I will be illustrating how the Coen brothers use lighting to portray the theme of greed in the film

Gaear is one of the people that Jerry hired to kidnap his wife and the Coen brothers use lighting to portray him as an evil and greedy character by shrouding his face either partially or completely in shadow.

There is a scene in Fargo that takes place after the kidnapping of Jerry’s wife, Carl and Gaear are driving at night with Jerry’s wife in the back of the car during the night to stay at a secluded cabin until the ransom is paid, a policeman pulls them over and Jerry attempts to bribe the officer and get him to look the other way for not having dealer plates on the car, the officer refuses the bribe and is then shot and killed by Gaear, Gaear then pursues and kills 2 witnesses in after they crash their car in a ditch. this whole scene is lit naturally with the only illumination coming from the bright headlights and tali lights of the cars almost emphasizing the blackness of the night and shrouding Gaear in darkness showing that he is completely consumed by greed and is a very one dimensional antagonist.

The directors purpose in this scene is to show that greed is something that can consume you and cloud your judgement, forcing you to make poor decisions just for the chance of personal gain, this is shown by Gaear being completely in the dark as if greed has clouded his judgement.

Camera angles in film can be used to display feelings of power and dominance or weakness, the Coen brothers use this film technique multiple times in the film to show how characters are equal or are whether one is dominant over the other or how dominance shifts as a scene plays out.

Jerry is the first character that the audience is introduced to in Fargo and is thought to be the protagonist up until 30 minutes into the movie. The Coen brothers use camera angles to show that he is equal to the two people that he hired to kidnap his wife, Gaear and Carl.

In the opening scene of Fargo the Coen brothers use camera angles to show dominance and power in the scene, like when Jerry first meets Carl and Gaear, Jerry is seen as having more power over the others because he was filmed in a low angle, as the scene progresses and Jerry sits down they are all shown in an eye level shot, showing that they are all equal and that no-one has more power over the others at that point in time.

The purpose of using these camera angles is to show the power that Jerry has when he first enters the bar is slowly diminished as he succumbs to his greed and becomes nothing more than a lowly criminal much like Carl and Gaear hence why they are shot with eye level angles after Jerry sits with them.

The Coen brothers used film techniques in Fargo such as camera angles and lighting in order to convey the theme of greed with things like characters being shrouded in darkness to show that greed had consumed them and angles being used to show how when people let greed get the better of them they have the same status as another person who is also greedy.