The film Juno has a dark and dulcet storyline throughout the film, it mentions the pregnancy of a 16 year old girl who is considering abortion. Unconventionally, the music used in the opening credits is upbeat folk music. This creates a sense of irony.
A good example of a non-diegetic sound in Juno is right in the opening scene where it pictures Juno walking along with her Sunny D jug and the song “All I Want Is You” by Barry Louis Polisar playing over the scene. This cinemagraphic element is seen as non-diegetic because the music playing is obviously not being recognized by anyone on screen and there is no apparent source of the music. It is strictly for the audience only to add effect to what is being seen. What can be inferred from this non-diegetic sequence in particular is that the movie is going to be a teen film with a love story.
Moving on to diegetic elements, there was one scene that really stood out to me that displayed this aspect of film quite clearly. In the scene where Juno goes to the clinic to get an abortion she passes a friend from school standing outside the clinic protesting abortion. Her friend starts yelling facts about her “baby” and one that catches Juno’s attention is that it has finger nails. As she proceeds into the clinic and sits down she is swarmed with the sounds of people in the waiting room using their fingernails. All the tapping, scratching, biting, and painting of nails in the waiting room is creating very loud diegetic sounds for Juno and are closing in on her. They are causing her to think of the finger nails on the baby and convince her that it is alive. After having convinced herself that the baby is alive she can’t go through with the abortion and decides to have the baby.
