Narrative/visual pleasures

• Open ended narrative resolution + narrative ellipses allowing audience interpretation
•  “They retain the kind of narrative gaps that require audiences to invest themselves in the text.”
• What do the Coen Brothers say about the absence of non-diegetic soundtrack + dialogue?

  it 'removes the safety net of sound' --> cannot guide viewers emotion, removes expectations
• Colour palette:

  Desert scenes have burnt colour palette of blanched out browns, Urban scenes lit with fluorescent lighting accentuating artificiality 
• Why do the Coen's employ a 'use of excess'?

  To disturb viewers with too much visual satisfaction
• What's the meaning of the sparse landscapes?

  Sense of nowhere to hide
• Motif of boots represents...


  Old western/new western
• Extreme wide-angle LS's of characters used to...

  Dwarf characters --> insignificance, stresses harshness of environment
• Traditional cowboy costumes root characters in location and their classical characters archetypes: cowboy, sheriff, outlaw