Narrative technique · used in 3 films
Placing an object, color or background detail in early scenes that later turns out to be tied to a death. It warns you before the characters notice.
Examples
Francis Ford Coppola · 1972
Oranges show up around the film's deaths. They're in the market where Vito is shot, on the billboard Sonny passes before he is killed and in the bowls at the summit of the dons. The symbol sits in the mise-en-scene (what's in the frame), and nobody ever points it out.
Where to see it: The fruit market shooting. Vito buys oranges before the assassins appear.
Kathryn Bigelow · 2008
James keeps a box of triggers, wires and personal items from the bombs he has defused, the box of 'things that almost killed me'. Bit by bit, it shows what the job has cost him mentally under his apparent fearlessness.
Where to see it: The scene where James shows Sanborn his 'death box'. It is a collection of the near-misses that give his life its meaning.
Martin Scorsese · 2019
The film keeps cutting to brief text cards that announce how and when men we have just met will die. After that, every handshake and conversation carries the weight of what is coming, and it builds into dread.
Where to see it: The title cards appearing over living characters. They name how and when each man dies before he has finished speaking.
Questions
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