Man of the Woods

(John Krasinski as Lee Abbott in A Quiet Place)

No, I’m not talking about the hit fifth studio album ‘Man of the Woods’ by former *NSYNC member and current heartthrob Justin Timberlake. I want to discuss the bone-chilling scene (41:37-43:47) from John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place (2018) with the old man in the woods. Through intelligent acting and impeccable sound design, Krasinski composes a scene full of immense loss and incredible terror.

In order to fully understand the emotion conveyed in this segment of the film, we have to first take a look at the actors and their character counterparts involved. First on screen, we have Lee Abbott, played by actor/director John Krasinski. He is tall and well built, with grown out hair and a full beard. You get the sense that he is the strong and silent type. Krasinski is a fatherlike figure physically, and a counterpart to the next character seen. His child Marcus follows after him, played by Noah Jupe. He is a younger boy, and a bit scrappy at that. Throughout the movie, we can see that Marcus looks up to his father, but is afraid of a lot of the world. This fear is furthered in this scene as when they walk past an abandoned house, Marcus is seen focusing on it, before hesitantly catching up with his father. In a nice touch to one of the shots, yellow flowers frame Jupe’s character, and follow him as he hurries towards his father. Yellow is often associated with cowardice, which fits Marcus’s disposition well up to this point of the film, visualized partly in his fear of going fishing with his father. We as the audience get about 4 more seconds of the child looking back apprehensively at the dilapidated homestead before we are startlingly introduced to our third character in the scene.

The man of the woods. Played by Leon Russom, the old man is a shocking reminder of the human condition. He is pictured standing up after kneeling next to his dead wife (presumably). Russom’s acting shines through here, as the look he gives Lee and his son is that of a man who has lost everything. Just like a man with a gun to his head, someone on the top of a bridge looking down, or that character on top of the chair with the noose round the neck, this old man in the woods has accepted the fate he will bring upon himself. The look he gives Krasinski is extremely desolate, and when he looks up from his wife’s dead body, his eyebrows go up and his eyes begin to water. As an audience member, you can’t help but feel sad for him, but also extremely terrified of what he is capable of. Leon Russom begins to contort his face as if he is trying to make himself scream and Krasinski’s Lee pleads with him through his eyes. The gunshot goes off, the bridge is leapt from, the chair is kicked out from underneath. The old man screams a sound of grief-stricken anguish, and Lee is immediately off with Marcus. They take cover behind a nearby tree, and Lee covers Marcus’s mouth in an attempt to keep him from screaming in fear. Lee tilts his head to look, and his eyebrows subtly go up. You see Marcus freak out, and over Lee’s shoulder you can see him give Marcus the “everything-will-be-fine-if-you-don’t-speak father look”. The creature comes for the old man, and we see him accept his fate. The acting displayed in these 2 minutes is incredibly well done. The way Leon Russom is able to convey the feeling of incredible loss in just his facial expressions and one yell, as well as Krasinski and Jupe’s ability to express fright for their lives attests to the incredible acting as well as direction of the film as a whole.

While there’s no denying that this scene was intelligently directed and acted, I’d also like to discuss something not seen but heard. The sound design of this segment is what truly brings these two minutes together. In the first shot, we have the rusty swing, and the sound of it travels across the screen from right to left. This use of sound perspective brings the audience further into the film. We hear the footsteps of Lee and Marcus, and the non diegetic soundtrack becomes more foreboding as it foreshadows the dangers ahead. We then get that good horror jump scare from the old man, as there is no music until the old man pops up into frame, accompanied with a loud couple drum beats. As Krasinski and Jupe’s characters stare at the old man, a bee is put into frame. We can hear its buzzing over the soundtrack, indicating the stark silence of this moment between the three of them. Leading up to Russom’s outburst, the non diegetic music is ramping up slowly to build tension in the viewers. After the scream, the music reaches its build up and plays out intensely until Lee and Marcus reach their hiding point. In the moments behind the tree, you can hear a prominent beat sounding like that of a heart. Combined with the look Lee gives Marcus, the sound of the heartbeat and heavy breathing expresses the fear felt by our two main characters. The score ramping up in tempo and volume in intense parts and completely disappearing in other parts creates tension for the viewer, as well as provides context for the emotions in the scene. The way this whole scene is orchestrated sound-wise complements the performances given.

Overall, this one scene in A Quiet Place sets the tone of anticipation and dread seen throughout the last half of the movie. From the incredible performances given by Krasinski, Jupe and Russom, to the well arranged score of music and sound, this scene conveys the extreme loss of man as well as the incredible fear of the known and unknown.

Works Cited

Krasinski, John. Director. A Quiet Place.