Movie Conventions Blog: Knives Out

 This movie contains many close-up shots on individual character's faces. Usually mystery movies consist of close-up shots to show facial expressions of the character. Typically fear, anger, and sadness are the emotions showed. However, In Knives Out, the characters tend to have confused facial expressions because they clues they run into do not make sense to them. Also, the diegetic sound in this film is similar to traditional mystery movies because of the startling ambient sounds. For example, when the detective is walking through the house, the floorboards creek and clock ticks loudly.

                    I really love the low angles in this movie because it shows me which characters are the powerful ones. Normally, low angles are used to portray superiority in a villain but in this case it can apply to the detective. Also, the establishing shot at the start of the movie sets the tone perfectly. It starts out by showing the old mansion in the middle of nowhere with gray skies. This let me know that the movie is going to relate to mystery immediately because typically that's how they start.
                   I was not a fan of the editing in this movie. As an example, they use a lot of jump-cuts which didn't add to the mysterious feel of the movie. I would've loved to see a split-screen showing the villain committing the crime while the detective is searching. Another thing is the non-diegetic sound they used, it was fast-paced background music. This would fit well if it was a thriller movie but its a mystery so it should've been slower paced or no background music at all.