A minister at a small historic Dutch Reformed church in upstate New York counsels a young environmental activist. The young man's despair about the planet radicalizes the minister, who moves toward an act of violence. Paul Schrader's film is the diary of a man whose faith is in crisis.
First Reformed is a 2017 drama and thriller film directed by Paul Schrader. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (1 sound, 1 narrative and 2 cinematography), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, Winter Light uses several of the same techniques.
Using silence and ambient sound, with no music, as the answer to the film's central spiritual question. The lack of any reply from God is given the weight of a spoken answer.
How this film uses it
Schrader uses almost no music in First Reformed. You get the quiet of the church and the stillness of the upstate winter. Toller's prayers get more and more desperate and God doesn't answer, and the silence is how the film lets you hear that.
Where to see it
Toller praying alone in the empty church. The silence is complete. A building designed for worship holds nothing except the background sound of a world that hasn't been saved.
Narrating the film through a character's diary entries that sound thoughtful and self-aware. As the words drift further from what you see, you realize the narrator's mind is breaking down.
How this film uses it
You hear Toller's journal as voiceover, and it is measured, theological and precise. It begins as spiritual reflection and moves toward a justification for violence. The diary form stays the same the whole way. That makes the radicalization more disturbing, because the voice never sounds unhinged.
Where to see it
Toller's journal entries about the 'terrible swift sword'. The language of faith gets reused as the language of political violence. The change happens in the same measured rhythm as the spiritual reflection before it.
Holding a close-up on an actor's face long enough to catch tiny changes in expression. You read what the character is thinking from details a wider shot would miss.
How this film uses it
Alexander Dynan's camera stays close to Ethan Hawke's face throughout. It records the small steps by which a man becomes certain. The tiny expressions in the performance tell you more than the voiceover running alongside them.
Where to see it
Toller's face after each encounter with Michael. In the minister's expressions, you can follow the young man's despair moving bit by bit into his own body and his view of the world.
Placing characters with care inside a wide frame that is mostly empty space. The emptiness makes them look small, isolated or boxed in by the place around them.
How this film uses it
Schrader shoots in Academy ratio, the nearly square frame of old Hollywood films. It is a deliberately old-fashioned choice that makes the frame feel like a cell or a confessional. The boxy shape shuts Toller into a world with no side vision. There's no escape into the wide open frame of American optimism.
Where to see it
Toller standing in the empty church nave. The square frame holds him alone inside the architecture. The building's space dwarfs him and offers no grandeur.
Questions
First Reformed: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does First Reformed use?
CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in First Reformed (2017): Theological Silence Design, Deteriorating Diary Voiceover, Deliberate Close-Up Performance and Minimalist Widescreen Staging.
Who directed First Reformed?
Paul Schrader directed First Reformed, released in 2017. CineCode also covers The Card Counter (2021).
What films are similar to First Reformed?
Films that share techniques with First Reformed include Winter Light (1963), 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026), Harakiri (1962), Taxi Driver (1976).
