EXAM QUESTION 1 B No Country For Old Men/ Captain Fantastic

 How far do your chosen films demonstrate the importance of visual and soundtrack cues in influencing spectator response? Refer in detail to at least one sequence from each film

The importance of visuals and soundtracks are important because they can be used to align with the film. For example in No Country For Old Men there is rarely any music soundtrack to be used as a build up for any action scenes or anything pretty much, the visuals are normal and often used to show the aesthetics of a western genre, usually you'd expect there to be some sort of country music in the background to go along with the scene in order to tell us that this is a western film however, No Country For Old Men leaves out gaps for the audience to fill in themselves, in this case being that the audience should assume themselves that the film is aiming to be a western genre using the visuals instead of using both soundtrack and visuals. 

On the other hand Captain Fantastic has a lot of music soundtrack, pretty much filling out all of the gaps for the audience, sad music when something sad is happening, intense building-up music for when something's about to happen, etc. In short summary Captain Fantastic could be considered an opposite of No Country For Old Men, being that Captain Fantastic pretty much tells everything to the audience where as No Country For Old Men leaves gaps for the audience to figure out themselves. Visuals in Captain Fantastic are self-explanatory, they match the film and the characters for example the opening scene when they're in the forest hunting the deer.

Film form used in No Country For Old Men demonstrates how important the use of visuals and soundtracks are in influencing spectator response. One scene that I think shows this very deeply is the coin toss scene where Chigurh walks into a gas station store, the use of film form in this scene aligns with how the audience is made to not empathise with Chigurh, but the empathise with the store-owner, the camera usage seems to be showing over the shoulder perspectives of both characters, however the camera only switches perspectives when the store-owner is speaking and looking at Chigurh, even though Chigurh is one of the main characters we are made to empathise with the store-owner and not Chigurh. The soundtrack in this scene mirrors the way Chigurh speak, there was barely any soundtrack and it was tense, this is because as an audience we don't know how Chigurh actually thinks, we are left with a gap to fill out ourselves.

Contrastingly, film form used in Captain Fantastic presents how important the use of visuals are in influencing spectator response is different to No Country For Old Man's. A scene that displays this usage of film form is the opening scene. The visuals in this scene and what happens in this scene is pretty much self-explanatory, the audience barely has to fill out any gaps because we can make various assumptions of the film based off just the start. The soundtrack in this scene is very little but from what we can see it's almost clear as to what's going on. A family living off in the wilderness and a dad with a particular way of raising his children. The spectator response is different to No Country For Old Man's because in No Country For Old Man the audience is left in curiosity and trying to fill out the gaps that were left out empty, whereas in Captain Fantastic they can just make assumptions and essentially fill out the tiny gaps that are left.

In conclusion the spectator response in both films is different since in No Country For Old Man the audience gives active response, constantly left in curiosity due to the big gaps that often don't make sense in the film which makes them constantly involved with the film. For example, where did Chigurh come from? Why's he dressed like that? What does he want? Does he have a family?, etc. In comparison to Captain Fantastic who's audience response is passive, constantly being told everything with the film as they make constant assumptions of what is going on, we are pretty much told everything throughout the film, from what the character's beliefs are to their family situation.

The audience is constantly aligned with characters their supposed to empathise with in both films, this is done through the use of film form, for example in Captain Fantastic right off the bat we can tell who the main characters are based off that out of the blue start deer scene. In No Country For Old Man we are aligned with Moss as the camera constantly switches whenever he looks in a direction doing reverse-shot reverse. Another example in No Country For Old Man is the little alignments between the main characters, from Moss using a boot to lay his sniper rifle on, to Chigurh cleaning blood off his boot, the little things like this align characters together and are made so that active audiences can catch them out.