Practice Candidate Response 1: Fargo
Griffin Johnston P.6
Camerawork:
They use many different angles such as over-the-shoulder, eye-level, and close-up
When the wife goes down into the basement, they use an over-the-shoulder shot to show what Pearl is seeing when she is arguing with Lester.
When Lester and Pearl are arguing about how her mom said not to marry him the camera flipped back and forth between both at eye level.
When Pearl first entered the house, the camera panned across the dirty living giving the effect of her walking across the room.
When Lester hits Pearl with the hammer and she falls to the ground, the camera shifts to her show her lifeless foot jerk as he continues to smash her face with the hammer.
Sound:
When Pearl goes to test the washer, Lester had tried to fix, it starts to rumble very loudly and starts to smoke.
When Pearl realizes that Lester had broken the machine instead of fixing it she begins to raise her voice and insult him about their sex life and how he isn’t a man.
The music intensifies and they are yelling now.
Mis-en-Scene:
The washing machine that Lester was working on was in their basement and that forced Pearl to have to go the basement to check on it.
The hammer that Lester used to kill Pearl was sitting right next to them in the toolbox and was the closest weapon to him.
When Lester was hitting Pearl with the hammer while her body was on the ground, he looked up at the post that read “What if you’re right, and they’re wrong.” At this point Lester realized what he had done and started to clean himself up.
When he grabbed the shotgun, he started to blame himself for killing her and was slamming the door in his own face.
Editing:
When Lester started to take off his bloody clothing there were edited cuts for every article of clothing, he took off.
When he was trying to find a place to hide the knife the camera cut off right before he put it down, this caused the viewer to be unaware of where he may have hidden it
When the camera cut to him on the phone there were cuts to catch different angles which allowed his emotion of panic and confusion to come through.