Nightcrawler – Dan Gilroy (2014)

Opening Scene: https://youtu.be/wZj7N9botgw

Title Sequence: https://youtu.be/sntgThEj1WY

The Nightcrawler by Dan Gilroy (2014) is a neo-noir film about a young man, Lou Bloom, who is ambitious to work and he discovers L.A. crime journalism. He then finds a group of freelance camera crews who film crime scenes, crashes, fires, etc. Lou mingles his way into night-crawling which is using accidents and police incidents to make money, and make money off of the victims included in each case.

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The movie starts out with this establishing scene. It has a gritty setting and takes place at night. This establishes shot, sets the atmosphere for the movie and the audience.

In the next scene, we see an overview of the city, this shows that the movie is going to take place in an urbanized place, one where crime is prominent. The opening scene jump cuts to different parts of this city at night time, implying that at night this urban city is slow and not as active.

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We then see a close up shot of some metal cutting pliers. This up close shot shows a characters malicious actions, cutting into a fence during the midnight. This shows action and demonstrating the night time crime that happens in a urban area.

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The camera then cuts to Lou Bloom played by Jake Gyllenhaal. We see in the background of this close up shot, that he is in a dark low-lit area. This portrays that this character us up to no good, crime, and is the anti-hero protagonist of this story.

The camera transitions to an over the shoulder shot or point of view shot of the officer in front of Lou. This confirms that Lou was taking part in crime and he is against the law, not for it. We also see the abandoned area he was in, very sketchy I must say, it was broken down and restricted area of town. In the next shot, we see a long shot of Lou launching and attacking the officer, giving the audience some action into the introduction of this film. Also, going to comment of the type of car that he has. Lou is seen in a older hoopty, when your a criminal you wouldn’t was to be in a flashy car, this makes him stealthy and prone to be involved in bad stuff. Overall, the opening of this film represents a nior film, the urban setting, anti-hero protagonists, the prominent crime are all factors.

Sound

The beginning of the film has off screen sounds from within the city, the cars on the highway, the construction workers noises from equipment. This shows that this takes place in a urbanized area, that may not be as bust during the daytime, but there is still activity during the night. In addition, we have the dialogue that is being spoken between Lou and the officer before he attacks him. Then the music in his hoopty as he is driving away from the sketchy background, this would be an onscreen diegetic sound since we can both hear and see where this sound is coming from.

Editing

The editing of the opening scene, kind of montages to different parts of the city during the nighttime. I would say this because it is a collection of shots that shows each part of the city at night. When Lou is talking with the officer, we can see a shot reverse shot of them yelling at one another and Lou’s point of view of the officer having the spotlight on him. The jump cut occurs after the officer is being attacked and he is driving away from the scene, implying the officer was taken care of.

Mise-en-scene

The props would be the tools that Lou uses to break into the restricted area. The costuming, Lou wears very simplistic clothes, it makes him blend into society as a criminal. The hoopty car would be another prop, he uses that to kind of go under cover, not flash himself around.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightcrawler_(film) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2872718/plotsummary