Question: Analyse how film techniques were used to present an idea(Greed) in the text?

Introduction: In the Film ‘Fargo’ directed by the Coens Brothers, The Coen Brothers used three main film techniques to portray the theme of Greed. The three techniques consist of Low angle shots, Fill lighting and Dialogue. Greed to me is a strong and selfish desire to get something, anyone who is strong and selfish will show greed because they have power and their mindset on what they want. Low angle shots show dominance, and with dominance comes an intense desire for more and more things. Fill lighting shows the good and bad in the characters which will portray whether they are likely to be strong-willed or not. And last of all Dialogue which presents a character’s personality and traits which explains what type of person they are. We know this is reliable because it is the characters expressing their thoughts themselves and not through others.

Body Paragraph 1: The Coens Brothers presented the theme/idea ‘Greed’ by using a low angle shot during different scenes in the film Fargo. The low angle shot is a shot that is taken from a lower angle than the character to make them look stronger and more dominant than the rest of the characters in that scene will look weaker. It gives me the impression that they look bigger and more dominant than the other characters because when viewed from a low angle, the angle makes them look larger than they would be compared to when you are at eye level with them. This shows their dominance and power over the other characters. When a character is the dominant one, they will push their weight around to get what they want. They become greedy and want more and will start doing the wrong things to get stronger and more powerful. In the Film Fargo, When Jerry is at his car sales shop and is ripping people off he is shown in a low angle shot which portrays him as the more dominant one over the customers which then gives us an impression that Jerry is Greedy as Greed comes with Dominance. Jerry is not all bad but at times he believes he is better than others he starts to become greedy and pushes his weight around. The Coen brothers used a low angle shot as one of the main film techniques throughout the film when a character was showing dominance over the others. When a character was presented in a low angle shot it showed me that they had more power which means they are likely to have

Body paragraph 2: The Coens brothers reveal the theme of ‘Greed’ through using the film technique fill lighting on the characters throughout the film Fargo. Fill lighting is choosing to light up or darken a part of the characters faces. Using this technique helps to portray the characters traits. For example, if someone a ‘good’ person or had done something to help someone their face would be lightened up, but if they were ‘bad’ they would have a darkened face. If someone’s face is darkened it shows us that they want more power or have done something wrong which then reveals that they are likely to be selfish and only think about themselves. This links to greed as greed is having a selfish/strong desire to get something. In the film Fargo, Jerry was in the Pub making a deal with the 2 kidnappers. His face was half lit and the other half was darkened. The half-lit up face showed that Jerry is a good person at heart but then the dark side of his face showed us that he was also up to something bad which he may have got himself caught into and could not escape or get away from. The fill lighting reveals to me that Jerry has become very greedy and now has pulled himself into a sticky situation which he is now willing to do anything to get himself out of it. Fill lighting played a very important roll in presenting the theme of greed as it shows us whether or not the character is good bad or a bit of both. Fill lighting is presented in scenes where we did not know much about a character’s personality. E.g. when a character has changed or at the start of the film when we don’t know much about them. It confirmed to me whether or not a character has changed or revealed something new about the camera which became helpful creating a stronger understanding of the characters. This was how fill lighting was used to present the theme of greed in the film Fargo.

Body paragraph 3: In the film Fargo the Coen Brothers displayed the theme of Greed through Dialogue. Dialogue is the words used by the characters throughout the film. It helps us to understand them as a character better and what kind of a person they are. For example in a film when a character is speaking we can tell a lot about what type of personality and traits they have just by what they say. For example in the film Fargo when Jerry is talking with the Kidnappers he says “Well, that’s… that’s… I’m not go inta, inta… see, I just need money.” This dialogue coming from Jerry shows me that Jerry has got himself into a bad situation that he is not wanting to talk about because he has been greedy and unfair in the past and now has a large debt that needs paying off to someone so he is having to do anything dangerous and risky to get the money. The Cones brothers used Dialogue as one of the main techniques to portray the theme of Greed as Dialogue gives the viewer a very clear picture of what kind of a person the character is. The Coen Brothers gave clear hints through the Dialogue that showed the character traits like the Quote from Jerry which the Coen brothers deliberately kept the reason for Jerry needing the money obscure as it showed that he was up to something risky and dangerous. This was how the Coens brothers used dialogue to portray ‘Greed’ throughout the film Fargo.

Conclusion: In the Film Fargo, Directed by the Coen Brothers, The theme ‘Greed’ was presented and portrayed through 3 main film techniques. My first paragraph was explaining how a low angle shot portrays the character to look more dominant. The low angle gives us the impression that the character is more dominant because from that angle it makes them seem bigger. Dominance is linked to greed as it was giving us the impression that they had got to that higher position through being selfish, which to me is greed. My second paragraph was about how fill lighting was used to present the theme of greed. Fill lighting presents greed as it reveals to us the good and bad in people by lightening or darkening their face, If their face was darkened like Jerrys it reveals to us that he has done something wrong. When someone has done something wrong it is often linked to them having been selfish and greedy. And finally, my third paragraph was based on how dialogue presented the theme of greed. Dialogue gave us a first-person view/opinion about what they were thinking or planning which gave us an accurate and reliable source of information about their personality. This helped us understand the character better and revealed the theme of greed through their Dialogue.