[Quick Summary: When a car salesman schemes to have his wife kidnapped from their small town, it all goes wrong.]
A Coen brothers trademark is not to use "EXT./INT." in the slug lines.
So how do they make sure that the reader is clear about changes in location? It's all in the transitions:
1) The narrative and dialogue work together to show us where we are.
ex. "MINNEAPOLIS SUBURBAN HOUSE
Jerry enters through the kitchen door....He is carrying a bag of groceries which he deposits on the kitchen counter. [Where are we? Whose house is this?]
JERRY: Hon? Got the growshries. [Ah-ha! We know we're in his house because a person would only use that kind of familiar language if he were in his own house.]"
2) Scene A ends and we SEE in Scene B that we have changed locations.
ex. Scene A - Over dinner at Jerry's house, Jerry asks his father-in-law Wade for a loan.
Scene B - "WHITE. A black like curls through the white. Twisting perspective shows that it is an AERIAL SHOT of a two-lane highway, bordered by snowfields. The highway carries one moving car."
The narrative of Scene B leads the reader into the outdoors with key words such as "aerial shot," "highway," and "snow."
WHAT I'VE LEARNED: I've depended too much on slug lines to change locales. Gotta orient the reader more with the narrative.
Fargo (1996)
by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
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