They're trying to tell us something here

I've given examples of László Kovács' deep focus cinematography in Paper Moon. There are video tutorials on it. But here, for the first time in the entire film that I have noticed, the background is blurred.

And this is an easy shot: foreground subjects and background are perfectly still. The print and images (notice the cops chasing) on Addie's magazine in foreground are crisp and legible, but the car in the near background is blurry and the shop across the street moreso. I thought, "Is it because this is a nighttime shot?", but no. This is the famous scene that Banks of the Ohio narrates.

In a much longer shot, the support post in near foreground, Addie, reconnoitering, in near background, and the edge of the woods in far background are in the same deep focus.

 

 

Across the street and looking back at the hotel, all sharp. Even the same car as in the porch scene, from a much longer distance, is in sharper focus.

                                             Even with Moze and Addie moving across the camera's plane, the overhead wooden slats are in the same focus as the characters' faces.

It is intentional. Perhaps Kovács wanted to open so fraught a scene with clear vision compromised by frisson foretelling, but it is deliberate.