In Nope, the combination of tropes helps to build a sense of growing frustration. The scene where Mr. Haywood is hit by the quarter shows how tropes can build the dramatic scope of a shot. When his cowboy hat falls of his head and drifts to the ground by the gate, we recognize that he won’t survive this. Interestingly enough, right after this scene, we get our credits over the shot of the alien’s iridescent “mouth”. By giving us a foreboding credit sequence after the hat falls to the ground, the film tells us that the creature had something to do with it and disorients viewers even further. When the alien is first seen, however, the film does not treat it like a horror monster or pioneering foe. Instead, Peele employs sci-fi tropes like panning on the flying craft and electronic synth non-diegetic sound. To me, this specific sequence feels a lot like M. Night Shyamalan’s 2002 sci-thriller, Signs.
Compare when OJ first sees the alien in the clouds to when the family first sees the alien in their home. The camera pans on both subjects and the use of sound effects ties the two shots together well. I really enjoyed how the movie approaches a Western setting within the tonal framework of horror and sci-fi. The beginning of the movie is clearly more Western/horror-derived, but as we learn more about our characters’ world, are forced into a sci-fi-centric conflict resolution. The elaborate camera/motion capture system that our characters arrange turns the subject of our shots from the human characters to the aliens above which is made clear by the sweeping, glancing panning shots across the empty landscape.
When OJ is running and hiding under rickety sheds, the Alien is treated as a horror villain with its own menacing violin score. When the group has their “documentary” setup all put together, Peele uses camera movement and an empty score to “look” for the Alien using film syntax from the sci-fi genre. In this way, the shifting between genre tropes mirrors our protagonists’ fear and curiosity as they try to document the anomaly.
Hi! I thought your idea regarding the shifting between genre tropes mirroring the protagonists’ fear and curiosity to be. very interesting, and one that I had not that of. When watching Nope, I also felt that the vast landscape shots and skyline shots typically associated with Westerns definitely evoked a sense of curiosity even amidst the peril that the characters faced. Your thoughts on the subtle shift from the Western/horror to a sci-fi resolution made me think about the ending, and honestly, I agree with this idea regarding the gradual shift. The fact that the characters are chasing the photo/video of Jean Jacket rather than trying to “survive” is a clash between the driving motivation factors in the respective genres; discovery for sci-fi and survival for Western/horror (though this motivation might be a bit of a stretch for the Western genre as a whole). It’s also interesting how the score of the final “chase” scene adopts a more action-like build-up of sounds rather than the stabbing chords or other ominous tones typically associated with the horror genre, despite the “chase” definitely being a part of the iconography of horror.