Eye control

[roadrunnertwice]

Right, so anyway, I did end up watching No Country For Old Men. As a story, I suppose it was decent enough, but as a movie, it was stunning. Every single frame was a thing of beauty, but it was more than that; it seemed like the Coen bros. were able to make the camera catch more than it should have been able to.

Through the entire film, I was somehow granted a nearly synesthetic sensitivity to texture and color and light. The moment my mind keeps going back to was when the sheriff was walking into one of those shitty motel rooms. The carpet in the room was cheap and nearly worn out, and whoever'd laid it hadn't been very conscientious about the job, and as the sheriff walked across it, it bunched up into a wave in front of his feet, rolling in front of him with each tread. I've seen that in real life; the brown carpet in our living room does that. It's probably happened on-screen many times. But would I have seen it in any other movie?

I've only the vaguest idea of how that sort of thing might be accomplished; film is largely a foreign language to me. But I can recognize magic when I see it, and whatever combination of lighting and framing and movement they did that with qualifies. If you care about what it means to operate near an art form's limits, find some time to see this movie.

Comments

[gyladia.livejournal.com]

It's been a few months since I've watched it, and I don't know if it's the kind of movie I can ever watch again- and still feel into- so I don't know if what I remember is actually true or not.
I remember not hearing music, and hearing all the sounds. Was there music?
I can picture the part you are talking about, with the motel and the rug...

I lied, I could probably watch it again and still be riveted, because I found my favorite scene on youtube (the one with the coin toss in the texaco) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAVEXE6ADcs.

If I were to pay attention to the light it would be weird for only daylight to shine inside a store (don't they have lights on?). It's highlighting contrast, right side, left side, good and evil, heads and tails.

But the noise, it's just background noise- a hum of life, a dog barks, you can hear a bit of traffic, some weird noises I can't figure out- stuff I wouldn't pay attention to until it was gone and when he tells him to call the quarter all that noise fades away. If you weren't waiting for it you wouldn't know it happened, but I bet you'd feel a little more uneasy. And then it comes back, after only a second, a creepy innocuous hum. I loved it.

But I bet they do that in a lot of films and I just heard it in this one because it affected me here.

On a side note: I watched this with my parents, who I remember being silent throughout most of it, except at the end when they were practically irate "That's it? Where's the end?". And I loved the story of the movie.

[roadrunnertwice]

You remember right; nearly no music, for the whole thing. (I think it was nominated for an Oscar for sound design.)

Y'know, sometime in 2004 I was introduced to the writings of Michel Chion, whose primary concern is figuring out just how sound in movies works. You might like him, or you might not; it's "theory," sure, but on the other hand, he explained some really startling things about Apocalypse Now, which brought me plenty joy, and I think he'd probably have many smart things to say about No Country. As for me, I'd say the sound design in the gas station scene affected me pretty intensely without me actually noticing it. It's a neat trick—or, no, a neat art. (Magic?)