Cold Mountain
The clip begins with an extreme long shot/establishing shot over a snow covered forest with a mountain range in the background as a man walks across the snow. At this point I was confused as I had never heard of the film before, after i watched the clip I researched a little bit into film. The scene has music to develop the emotional feeling of sadness as it starts off slowly and increases to high pitched notes on a stringed instrument throughout the shot.
It cuts to a mid up of the man walking up some snow and it pans up him as he's walking up the mountain. This scene shows off the mountainside in the background when the man has his back to the camera. The camera the cuts to the man as he sits down and cuts to the a mid close up of the man's face to show his emotion, the man then huffs as if to say he's fed up of all this. We then hear a female voice saying " my love, where are you?" creating confusion within to the audience, who watch this clip, the man then looks up as if he can hear this, then it cuts to a woman who doesn't speak but we can assume it is her who is narrating, she says "with no hope of reaching you, I write to you, which could imply that it is a letter with her narrating, like some films do with letters. The woman seems to have a quill in her hand and smudged ink on the bottom of her hand. the lighting in the scene is the candles that are in plain sight in front of her although not in focus. The woman seems upset due to her husband/boyfriend, unclear which, being away, this becomes more clear when we see a tear come from the woman's eye when she turns, which is probably done to make the tear more clear with the candlelit lighting.
It then cuts to the a night scene in the middle of the woods and several people are around a campfire. We see Brendan Gleeson singing, diegetic sound, as he puts more wood on the campfire, another person walks through when it cuts to the outside of the campfire, where we can all the area, and he has more wood. Then, someone else comes into the shot holding a dead pig and saying " Do you reckon we can eat this?" he says this the way he does to add comedy to the scene ,in my opinion because I found it funny. Others come riding to the ones around the campfire which gives them a little bit of mystery behind them, this whole scene is set at night with the only natural lighting being the campfire. More mystery is added when a kid is shown peering over a log, I found this to be confusing and all I could think was "why is this kid hiding from the rest of the group?" and "who are these people?" There's no music throughout most of the scene until they all start singing but the music remains diegetic. During the scene when they first meet the ones on the horse, one of them says "that your wife?" ,with a slight country accent, and Brendan Gleeson character responds with "that's a he" which adds comedy to the scene in my opinion. During the campfire scene right before the character that joins them sits down it shows a long shot that shows the amount of people around the campfire and the pig that is roasting over it. The sound of the fire can be heard to add the affect as it burns throughout the scene.
The man, who was asleep, wakes and is greeted by the person next with "evening Mrs" which also adds comedy. That man , to me seems to be not all there when Brendan Gleeson seems to lie about where they are heading and that man just tells the one he was lying to where they were going.
When they start playing I felt crept out and disgusted because I don't like the string instruments and the way they sound but it still didn't sound like they knew what they were playing. The words of the song don't seems right either "and the poor girl was dead and gone". During their song we get a look at a very creepy looking man, played by Charlie Hunnam with a mid close up and then a mid close up with Brendan. Then we see a medium shot of Brendan, the other player and the man, the man gets up to leave as Charlie's character watches, creepily in my opinion, as Brendan looks at the man with what looks to me as disgust. It then cuts to a mid shot with the man on the right in focus, but looks a bit suspicious as if he were going to do something really bad. It continues with the men singing and playing their instruments but then it cuts to the man again who looks even more suspicious but is a side on close up this time, then he begins to sing ,which puts me in edge as I don't like him because he seems wrong. Charlie Hunnam looks at him and this also puts me in edge because I don't trust these characters. The words to the song add more effect of creepiness. We then see a kid again, appearing throughout the clip, and he doesn't look trustworthy either because he is hanging at the back of the part they are, he's away from them, this is shown through the lighting of the shot and the unfocused log at the bottom of the screen. After the song is finished, Charlie's character says "broke my young heart" in a sarcastic tone and given what he looks like and he said it without changing his facial expression makes him seen more creepy to me. The characters that came in the scene earlier on, have now given commands to the others in a unfriendly manner and have now shown why they looked untrustworthy. The kid is shown, seemingly about to throw up, indicating that the is disgusted with what just happened. The man then tells the other person to "quit smiling" again, showing they are not nice people. The man then shoots the other person after telling him to put his hat over his face, this creates sadness and shock throughout me and the audience, Charlie shoots Brendan as he attempts to run also creating shock , even in the background we hear the horses screeching with shock.
We then cut to the morning and on a farm where a young lady is cutting wood and she looks over when we hear the kid shouting "they shot your daddy", the woman seems to be angry when we next cut to her walking to a barn with someone else in, she grabs a saddle soon after. The other woman she is with is clearly upset as you can hear it in her voice. The music then begins again after as they are talking to create more of a sad atmosphere.
