Question

Analyse How Film Techniques Were Used To Present An Idea In The Text

Introduction

In each moment of a film, the director attempts to instal many ideas into the framework to capture the audience’s attention.  The Coen Brother’s use a number of film techniques in the film ‘Fargo’ to present the idea of greed and to display the range of types shown through each character, their behaviour and their actions. They use dialogue, the contrast between the high angle and low angle and Mis En Scene. There are many ranges of greed. Jerry is a simple man who is confused and muddled but he has amoral intentions for doing what he did and for what he deems a good reason but he is so hungry for the money that he gets too optimistic and doesn’t believe anything will go wrong.  Wade is a professional businessman who is studied and calm but he only wants money for the gain of his business as he is already rich. Carl and Gaear are mindless, brainless, vicious and animal-like and they only want the money to become richer.

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Dialogue is the first significant technique used by the Coen Brother’s in “Fargo” to show the idea of greed.  Dialogue is a crucial aspect of the film as it helps you to understand elements that would otherwise go unnoticed. Dialogue also helps to show the character’s personality as they express their thoughts and feelings throughout the film. Carl is an essential character through the whole movie, his opinion and personality was always on show especially when money can into play. Every decision and action he made was driven by the unfortunate desire for money. In the opening scene, Jerry says “See, these’re personal matters.” to which Carl replies “Personal matters.” Jerry then continues with” Yah. Personal matters that needn’t, uh –” Carl cuts in, fed up, with “Okay, Jerry. You’re tasking us to perform this mission, but you, you won’t, uh, you won’t—aw, fuck it, let’s take a look at that Ciera.” Carl’s greed makes him overlook Jerry’s secrecy about his motivations for the kidnapping, if he had dug a bit further he might have seen that Jerry was a pretty desperate and pathetic guy who hasn’t thought this through at all, but his greed drives him to make the wrong decision of helping him because he wants the car. This shows the effect of greed as Carl is so fixed on satisfying his own greed that he doesn’t care about who feelings gets hurt in the process. Not stopping to talk and figure out the full story is some time that goes wrong in everyday life the Coen Brothers have portrayed this very well in their film. People make mistakes that could have easily been avoided by stopping and digging deeper to get all the information to make sure you will succeed.

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Another significant technique used by the Coen Brother’s in “Fargo” to display the idea of greed is through the contrasting use of low and high camera angles.  This is shown in the scene where Jerry thinks he is closing the deal with Wade and Stan and debating the final specifics about his proposal for a new parking lot.  Wade and Stan find out he wasn’t intending of putting any capital towards the deal they decide to cut him out and continue with the project on their own. Wade says “Well, look, I don’t want to cut you out of the loop, but this here’s a good deal. I assume, if you’re not interested, you won’t mind if we move on it. Independently.”  We see Jerry go from a low angle to a high angle. This shows us that in the low angle Jerry thinks he has the proposal ‘sewn up’ with Wade and Stan that will get him a lot of money and also gain the respect from his father in law both of which he desires (work the word greed into here somehow) greatly and when the camera rises and puts him into a high angle shot he becomes smaller the weight of his greed for money and respect crushing him as he realises that the deal is about to fall through all chances for money and respect lost. (connect paragraphs)

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Another significant technique used by the Coen Brother’s in “Fargo” to illustrate the idea of greed is through Mise En Scene.  This is shown in the scene where Carl and Gaear are fighting over if Carl should pay Gaear for his half of the Sierra. Gaear says that they should split the car and Carl says “How the fuck do you split a car, ya dummy? With a fuckin’ chainsaw?”  to which Gaear replies “One of us pays the other for half.” Carl then shows his gun and says that it’s stupid, “are we square?’’ His body language is aggressive and it shows that even though he has the rest of the money hidden away to go back to his aggressive stance, and showing off the gun, shows that he is greedy and that he can’t bear to part with any of it.  Gaear’s body language and facial expression, on the other hand, shows that he is bored with the conversation, he is staring at the tv and eating his meal slowly, he looks as if he is ignoring anything that Carl is saying. Carl takes his passive body language and facial expression as a yes and walks away making it look like he has won the argument. He doesn’t think twice about Gaear as all he can think about is the Sierra and getting back to the rest of the money that he hid.  Gaear kills Carl after this argument, which is a big contrast to the passive body language he had when he was on the couch, over a car because Carl flips out and escalates the argument. But Carl just stole a million dollars. The car should’ve been a non-issue at that point. Greed has totally taken over. If he had stopped thinking of all the money and just gave Gaear the money for the half car he would be alive and still richer than Gaear but he’s now dead and nobody has the money he hid.

Conclusion

The acting and action are critical in the movie “Fargo” by the Coen brothers but the idea or theme of greed is enhanced through the use of film techniques.  Film techniques are used to further explore greed through each character’s perspective, behaviour and actions and to show how vastly spread and diverse greed can be.  In my response, I have drawn on 3 film techniques that have helped show greed. The first is the dialogue which shows us that we are too quick to take action when greed comes into play. The second is the use of contrast between high and low camera angles which shows us how quickly our wants can be crushed when you are driven by greed.   The final technique of Mise En Scene was used to highlight that if we get too greedy we lose the ability to be careful and properly think things through.  The Coen Brother’s help the audience to learn that money isn’t everything and to be grateful for what you have got. They show us that the more we desperately try to cover our losses, the worse things get. Everyone in the film who’s motivated by money comes to a violent end. Greed gets you into trouble and trying to fix it makes it worse for everyone.