Analysis of 2 Film Opening Sequences: Fargo (1996 - The Coen Brothers)

Fargo is a contemporary noir film made in 1996 by the Coen Brothers. It is filmed in colour in the Upper Midwest of America, around the area of Minnesota. It is a story about a man who has hired two men to kidnap his wife. He is in debt, and believes that if his wife is missing a big sum of money will come his way, since his wife’s father is a million-dollar businessman.

The opening sequence is very interesting. A harp is played during the titles, and the words telling the viewer that the film is based on fact appear on a black screen, then fade-out to a pale blue screen. The “blue” is then depicted as a cold fog, as you can just see the headlights of a car.

The scene with the car’s headlights lasts for about twenty seconds as it approaches the camera. The cameraman has been very clever about the camera position. The car seems to vanish behind a hill, the harp is still being played slowly. This music at first seems dreary and sad, as if someone has died. As soon as the car is visible again, drums from the orchestra play five beats before the rest of the orchestra begins to play. The music that we now hear is not dreary and sad anymore, but instead happy and lively. This is a clever use of sound and is also a good contrast between sad moods and happy moods, where lively music is used to show happiness and slow, dreary music that is often used at funerals.

The shot in use is a Wide Shot. The car approaches the camera, and the cameraman pans left to follow the car, which is towing another car. Once the camera has stopped panning left and the car is out of frame, the name of the film is shown on the pale blue background. The only sound that is used, apart from the music, is the noise of the car engine, the tyres on the road, and the noise of the trailer as it is towed across the bumps in the road. The typeface is simple, in capital letters, and each letter is spaced apart evenly to fit across the centre of the screen. As with the titles shown before the name of the movie, all words are in black, in capitals, and are spaced evenly. There is one clever use of the titles - with the names of people in the movie, their first names are normally spaced, yet their surnames are situated to the bottom right of their first name and is spaced-out to fill the screen, just like the name of the movie.

The name “Fargo” vanishes, and the first shot is of a building in the distance in the background, and the camera pans to the left, on a wide-shot, to follow the car. The editing of camera shots can be spotted because the camera stops panning and the car is out of frame. Then we have another shot of the road ahead, and the car enters the frame from the right-hand side. But the switch between the two camera shots is done quickly without any delays, so that on first viewing you don’t realise it as much. The noises from the car fade away as the car itself travels away from the camera. This could be natural sound or the sound could have been faded-out through the use of editing in post-production.

The camera stays in position and doesn’t move physically or zoom in, pan or tilt. The orchestra still plays the happy music, which has now turned into a serious-sounding, sinister piece of music. The editing of the film can be seen again: the car travels on the road, away from the camera, then the shot fades-out to a black screen.

The next camera position is on the corner of a slip-road coming off the road, on the outskirts of a snow-covered town. The camera stays still as the car enters the frame, travelling from left to right, still towing the other car. The camera stays still, on the same shot, until the car turns right into the car park of a roadside café. The roadside café has been in the frame since the shot fades-in from a black screen. The musical orchestra stops playing as the car travels from the middle to the right-hand side of the frame. Before we go inside the café, Country & Folk music can be heard very lightly as it is faded-in. It is the music that is being played inside the café.

There is a shot from inside the café, of a man walking into a bar. The Country & Folk music is consequently louder because it is coming from some sort of music player in the background in the café. He stops, and within the next shot are two men playing snooker. Centre-right of the frame, but in the background and hardly noticeable are the two kidnappers he has hired. They are out of focus, and the snooker players are consequently in focus.

There is a close-up shot of the man, who is to the right of the screen. All we can see is his head and his shoulders, but because he is on the right-hand side of the screen we are meant to believe that he is looking at the two kidnappers, as he looks to the left of the screen and past the camera.

A sequence of shot-reverse shot starts after he has walked across the room and had sat down opposite the two hired-kidnappers. The 180 degree line rule is used for the shot-reverse shot camera angles, with an over-the-shoulder shot on William H. Macy as his character discusses the terms of the kidnapping. The sequence finishes when the lead-kidnapper decides to take a look at the car, the car that the William H. Macy character has just towed; and the screen fades-out to black. The opening scene ends here.