Read Between the Lines #1

If you look closely enough, you'll find everything has a purpose.

That is precisely what this series hopes to accomplish - through bit-sized segments, I will unmask the illusion that is filmmaking and reveal hidden gems the director has locked away for you to find. If you look in the distance, there is another version of you that is well-versed in film and not a complete plebeian. Now look down, there are some bread crumbs that lead you to your destination. Eat the bread crumb... EAT IT.

"PARKING LOT

We are high and wide on the office building's parking lot.

Jerry emerges wrapped in a parka, his arms sticking stiffly out at his sides, his breath vaporizing. He goes to his car, opens its front door, pulls out a red plastic scarper and starts methodically scraping off the thin crust of ice that has developed on his windshield."

That was an excerpt from the Coen brothers' masterpiece Fargo (1996). On paper, the segment describes an ordinary action that lacks colour. As a director, how do you translate this scene in an effective manner?

Now the first time I read it, I imagined it something like this. Wide shot, empty parking lot, snowing. Parka man enters frame from left and proceeds to scrape. Ordinary. Boring. Lacking colour.

Now this is the shot from the movie.

But look closer. There are snow tracks that make a "cross". In the context of the film, this choice is significant and purposeful. Our protagonist is an indebted car salesman who plans on having his rich wife kidnapped and ransomed to her father. At the last moment, he has a chance to make the money another way but the father-in-law thwarts the deal. Jerry is now at a crossroads moment. He can confess responsibility for the kidnapping that is already in motion, or see it to the end.

The tracks are the directors way of externalizing our character's choices and ideas - his "crossroads" moment. Many times, directors drop these hints for audiences to understand how close our character's are to attaining their goals, or how far they have yet to go!

Stay woke, people!