...against the vast scale and indifference that is the natural world of the American west, was I think in the 1980s, a western called Comes A Horseman.
It's dusk, in a valley in I think Colorado. The sky is rapidly darkening. People (Jane Fonda plays one of them) have gathered for a dance. They set up a dance square lighted by lanterns strung up on poles. You hear the fiddle music.
And then the camera pulls back. And back and back....and back.
The little square of light gets smaller and smaller, until you see that it's the only human civilization in the visible part of the valley, as the night continues to come on.
You powerfully feel their isolation, tinyness, and extreme vulnerability. So much that you're afraid for them, that this wild land might swallow them up, that they'll just disappear into it as easily as a firefly might be snuffed out.
"Show, don't tell." That visual packed a wallop, it jarringlly informed the viewer of humanity's small place in the overall scheme of things.
I've seen a similar thing done in movies a number of times since, but never again as effectively. They snuck it up on you, it was an unexpected momemt.
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