No Country for Old Men

[Sven]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/movie%20pictures/bardemcountryoldmen.jpg

Pretty easily the best film of the year. Exceeds expectations in just about every way. Perhaps I'll write a bit more later. I can't wait to see it again. A possible Coen best.

[Kurosawa Fan]

:pritch: :pritch: :pritch: :pritch: :pritch: :pritch: :pritch: :pritch: :pritch: :pritch: :pritch: :pritch: :pritch: :pritch: :pritch: :pritch: :pritch: :pritch: :pritch: :pritch:

[Raiders]

:frustrated:

I have to wait until next weekend.

[soitgoes...]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/iosos/movie%20pictures/bardemcountryoldmen.jpg

Pretty easily the best film of the year. Exceeds expectations in just about every way. Perhaps I'll write a bit more later. I can't wait to see it again. A possible Coen best.
That's encouraging.

[Sycophant]

:frustrated:

I have to wait until next weekend.Likewise. But I should be seeing it a week from today. And that should rock.

[Kurosawa Fan]

:frustrated:

I have to wait until next weekend.

:|

I may have to wait for DVD, or a major award nomination.

[Philosophe_rouge]

I'm going to try and see this tomorrow, at the very latest Monday... hopefully.

[number8]

Indeed.

My review (http://www.justpressplay.net/movies/no-country-for-old-men/review/).

[MadMan]

I envy all who have seen this already.

[Bosco B Thug]

Awesome.

I'm still afraid. I'll be one of those wimps rotten tomato-ing it because they can't handle its stoic bleakness, as deductive as that is to say.

[origami_mustache]

Javier Bardem's Anton Chigurh is perhaps the most fascinating on-screen character since Bill the Butcher.

[Doclop]

The more I think about this movie, the more I like it. I want to see it again.

[Mysterious Dude]

Almost great. I might need some convincing, though. The first half seemed like Fargo in Texas. The second half was kind of confusing to me.

I think Llewelyn's demise could have been filmed with a little more clarity.

[origami_mustache]

I think Llewelyn's demise could have been filmed with a little more clarity.

The unconventional absence of action during typically "crucial" scenes, deconstructing the norms of narrative filmmaking and genre was the most brilliant part of the film in my opinion.

[number8]

Heh.


There’s a jump in time near the end of the film, right before the climax, and starts back up right after. It’s not as if you’re missing any vital information, and the coda is quite good, but the experience is not unlike having your lover jump out of bed right before the peak, only to come back and throttle you about what your relationship means to you—it’s kind of puzzling, and it’s understandably frustrating.

However, it is appropriate to Sheriff Bell’s concerns, and it’s consistent with how he always arrives a little too late.

The ending is what made me think that Sheriff Bell is the "real" main character from the very beginning, because he is the one always trying to catch up and failing. The film talks at length about how the world slips away from oneself, and that's more appropriate to Bell than Llewelyn.

[megladon8]

I still haven't seen it - probably gonna duck out of class early on Monday to do so unless I have a doctors appointment.

However, looking over some screenshots, it definitely looks to me like Bardem has some sort of silenced shot gun. Someone said on the old MatchCut thread when I brought this up that it was a cattle gun...but this definitely looks like a shot gun...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v496/megladon8/0718.jpg

[number8]

It is a Cattle Gun. It's used to kill cows. What it does it fire a bolt that stabs you like a bullet, but then retracts back into the barrel, leaving no bullets in the bullet holes.

[Mysterious Dude]

I think meg is right about that being a shotgun. He only uses the cattle gun on a person once, to my recollection, and the rest of the time he only uses it to open locked doors.

[megladon8]

It is a Cattle Gun. It's used to kill cows. What it does it fire a bolt that stabs you like a bullet, but then retracts back into the barrel, leaving no bullets in the bullet holes.


Yuck...that kinda sounds like double the damage.

So I take it this movie has some pretty violent content.

I'm actually debating whether or not I should read the book before seeing the movie...I own the book and haven't gotten around to it yet.

[number8]

I think meg is right about that being a shotgun. He only uses the cattle gun on a person once, to my recollection, and the rest of the time he only uses it to open locked doors.

Really? If that so, then I must have gotten them confused. Was he using the Cattle Gun for the doors? I thought it was just an air pressurizer or something. We never really got a good look. My knowledge of cattle guns is that they use rifle blanks to fire the bolt out, not an air tank. Now you've got me curious.

There's my excuse for a second viewing! :P

[Mysterious Dude]

Most of the people he shot at somewhat of a distance, and I would think a cattle gun would only be useful at very close range.

I do think this film calls for more than one viewing.

[megladon8]

Well, if it is a shotgun, I've still got to say that I had no idea there was such thing as a shotgun silencer.

Also he's holding it awful close to his face in that picture. I've shot a few shotguns, and the kick is enough that if someone was to hold it that close, I would think you would risk serious injury to your face.

[eternity]

Seeing it tomorrow.

[Mysterious Dude]

Well, if it is a shotgun, I've still got to say that I had no idea there was such thing as a shotgun silencer.

Also he's holding it awful close to his face in that picture. I've shot a few shotguns, and the kick is enough that if someone was to hold it that close, I would think you would risk serious injury to your face.
We'd better get Scar's opinion on this matter.

[Watashi]

For those who've seen it, how is Kelly Macdonald? She has been a cinematic crush of mine for quite some time.

[Sven]

Yeah, it's a Coen best.

Spoilers

The movie is about the illusion of security. It is not nihilistic, but rather, paints a universe of cosmic indifference, one where luck is both good (finding 2 million dollars) and bad (getting shot in the throat for helping someone). However, it is also a world where the strength of your moral conviction plays directly into your fate, a Coen trademark. Note what happens to a character because he decides to succumb to the wiles of a strange woman--note the fate of Bardem's character, a sociopath who lives stringently by his own warped morality. But mostly, as in Jones's eloquently delivered bookending monologues about dreams and reflection, it is a movie about the illusion of security. The safety of marriage with a strong man, the safety of a corporate office, the safety of the desolation of the desert, and, most notably, the safety of a green light.

This is a movie about the sheriff. It's about the weight of headline tragedies. It's about seeing horror after horror, day after day, telegraphed in the headlines. It's about the way we shake our heads, confused, trying to make sense of the random chaos of the world that we're so distant from. The way the third act felt was a stroke of genius. We don't see a major character's death, nor is there any tension, nor is it tied fatefully to the thriller aspects of the plot. It's random, confusing, and absolutely brilliant in the way it shifts the film into perspective.

From incredibly tense thrills to a shocking sadness, but not a melodramatic one, as in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, No Country for Old Men is genre alchemy of pure cinematic grace. The sustained frisson in the first half's experiments with aural tension and tight framing, while still capturing the same mood of phenomenal atmospheric hugeness that Mann toyed with in Miami Vice, is some of the best filmmaking I've ever seen period. It only becomes more unexpected in pleasurable, sad, and resounding ways. Technically, it's all tip-top, direction, editing, cinematography, etc. The whole cast is excellent, particularly Bardem who I feared was gonna be a one-note character, but instead turned out to be pretty much the fiercest, most unpredictable psychopath I've seen in a movie. Rather than employing him as a "force of nature", as one character puts it, the Coens and Bardem give him a disturbingly wet-eyed humanness (note the extended sequences where he's shown treating his own wounds), which ties the film's rebuke of hollow motions of amoral genre tropes (note one character's response to the idea that Anton is "the ultimate badass").

I think the complaint about its lack of dramatic conclusiveness, while an understandable disappointment, misses the greater rewards its ending is offering. If it was executed in a more traditional way, its themes of the weight of indifferent cruelty would be lost in all the conventional melodrama.
This is a special movie that I am convinced is the most considerate and momentous picture the Coens have made.

[ledfloyd]

i can't wait to see this. gotta wait til the 21st, if it ever shows up. but i'll drive an hour to see it if i have to.

iosos, in regards to your complaint about lack of dramatic conclusiveness. the book was pretty dramatically inconclusive. and from what i've read the film's ending is faithful to that of the book.

[Sven]

iosos, in regards to your complaint about lack of dramatic conclusiveness. the book was pretty dramatically inconclusive. and from what i've read the film's ending is faithful to that of the book.

I address the complaint, but do not share the complaint. I think it's awesome that they kept it so faithful to the book. It's what the picture is all about.

[number8]

Yeah, I pretty much agree. The relations of fate in the three characters was what pleased me the most as I walked out. Aside from the obvious good and bad as you said, it's interesting how they each reacted to them.

[ledfloyd]

I address the complaint, but do not share the complaint. I think it's awesome that they kept it so faithful to the book. It's what the picture is all about.
doh, i misread that.

[origami_mustache]

For those who've seen it, how is Kelly Macdonald? She has been a cinematic crush of mine for quite some time.

I actually didn't much care for her performance and thought it to be the weakest part of the film.

[Raiders]

Good lord, a 95 on Metacritic? Has anyone read a negative opinion on this film?

[Spinal]

Good lord, a 95 on Metacritic? Has anyone read a negative opinion on this film?

There's a couple out there according to RT. I haven't been reading any reviews at all for this, so I don't know what their complaints are. I haven't even read a plot description for the film. Coens, that's all I need to know.

[Raiders]

There's a couple out there according to RT. I haven't been reading any reviews at all for this, so I don't know what their complaints are. I haven't even read a plot description for the film. Coens, that's all I need to know.

Cormac McCarthy is all I need to know.

I see this in five days. I think it has actually usurped I'm Not There in terms of sheer anticipation for me. But then again when I see that film in two or three weeks, I'm sure it'll be like this all over again.

[Rowland]

Jonathan Rosenbaum is apparently less than impressed. Jim Emerson responds on his Scanners blog (http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2007/11/no_country_for_literalists.htm l).

[Raiders]

Jonathan Rosenbaum is apparently less than impressed. Jim Emerson responds on his Scanners blog (http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2007/11/no_country_for_literalists.htm l).

Goodness. I'm going to have to go back and read all that after I see it. That looks like a pretty awesome discussion at the bottom.

[Dillard]

David Ehrenstein at Criterionforum (http://www.criterionforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4312&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=75) doesn't like it:


Saw it last night. They've come full circle as this is a bigger, shinier Blood Simple -- ie. people we don't care about doing increasingly more stupid things for money they don't have a chance in hell of getting. Never read Cormac McCarthy and if this film bears any resemblance to his writings don't plan to. Comes off as an artier, more precious Jim Thompson. At least Thompson knew he was writing pulp. Not such what these characters think they're doing. Should be an "art house" hit abroad but won't be of much interest locally. Much prefer late period Peckinpah (eg. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia)

Out side of Fargo I've never really cared for the Coens. There's a kind of chilly, curdled smart-ass-ed-ness to them that I just don't like.

Tommy Lee Jones is pleasant. Javier Barden is The Terminator. Babs Brolin's stepson is just OK in a thankless role as the Lead Schmuck . Woody Harrelson comes in towards the top of the third act and gives the thing a little artificial respiration. But it's Cinema du Zombie anyway you slice it. And don't save a slice for me, thank you. I'm on a diet.

All tech credits pro.

Neither does Andrew Sarris of The New York Observer (http://www.observer.com/2007/just-shoot-me-nihilism-crashes-lumet-and-coen-bros):


As for the nihilism on display in No Country for Old Men, the collaboration between the Coen brothers and Cormac McCarthy was a marriage made in heaven or, more likely, hell. Mr. McCarthy has reportedly praised the movie for remaining faithful to the book, and well he might, if only for all the casting coups, starting off with Javier Bardem’s uncannily apt incarnation of evil as Anton Chigurn, a subhuman killing machine with a touch of whimsy in his expression and in his soothing funeral director’s voice. When the Coen Brothers appeared on the stage of Frederic P. Rose Hall in the Time Warner Center with the members of their cast, they introduced Mr. Bardem as their own Lee Van Cleef, a generally villainous character actor in the Sergio Leone Western cycle. But whereas Mr. Van Cleef’s bad guys always came to a bad end in the final draws of the Leone movies, Mr. Bardem’s Chigurn chugs through Texas like an unchecked force of nature. That is one of the reasons I prefer Leone’s oeuvre to that of the Coen brothers and Mr. McCarthy, despite their aforementioned casting coups with Mr. Bardem, and almost as impressively with Tommy Lee Jones as Sheriff Bell; Josh Brolin as Moss, Chigurn’s ill-fated main adversary; Woody Harrelson as the unflappable mob troubleshooter, Carson Wells, who also runs afoul of Chigurn; and Kelly Macdonald as Moss’ tormented wife, the only significant female presence in an overwhelmingly masculine epic with its lavishly detailed explorations of male survival skills.

Mr. McCarthy has won just about every literary honor while being likened to Ernest Hemingway for his minimalist style, and to Samuel Beckett for his volcanic bleakness of outlook on matters of life and death. I happened to find No Country for Old Men an absorbing read, but it left me all empty inside. I must confess that I couldn’t get very far into Blood Meridian, another of his books that was recommended to me. So, I suppose, I have chosen to live out my life without getting involved with Mr. McCarthy’s literary outlook.

Still, I suspect that his clouded vision of existence is somewhat too grim and dark for even the most noirish movie genre. He makes Elmore Leonard look like a barrel of laughs, and Faulkner a beacon of hope. Nonetheless, some of the pithiest exchanges in the movie were taken almost verbatim from the book. I may be clearly in the minority on this movie. It will almost certainly be number one on my list of movies that other people liked and I didn’t. I will not describe the narrative in any great detail both because I would be perceived as spoiling the “fun” of discovering the many surprises for yourself, and because I cannot look at it and write about it in any other way than as an exercise in cosmic futility. Yet, I’m not sorry I saw it over a running time of 122 minutes, just about the length of time I’d like to spend on a quick in-and-out visit to hell.

[Mysterious Dude]

The movie has definitely made me want to check out McCarthy's books. I probably won't start with No Country, though. Maybe Blood Meridian.

[Sven]

Where Sarris sees "futility", I see "indifference".

Ehrenstein's blurb is pretty worthless.

Anthony Lane (http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2007/11/12/071112crci_cinema_lane?current Page=2) didn't like it, but his comments border on Ehrenstein level logic. He even stoops to the old "Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykiller suck" schtick, which makes me want to gag, however much truth one may find in such a sentiment. And his last paragraph, about the morality of the film and Bardem's character, is completely off (in my opinion).

[megladon8]

Cormac McCarthy is all I need to know.


Yeh, pretty much.

I'm less than a fan of the Coens.

But reading "The Road" made me permanently interested in anything with McCarthy's name on it.

[Melville]

I guess I'm the only one who thought that the shift in tone, pacing, and protagonist after Brolin's death was completely bungled. Nothing in the first three quarters properly set up that last quarter, and I didn't think the last quarter properly tied its philosophical musings into the previous narrative threads (nor did I think those musings were particularly meaningful). It seemed almost like the finale to a totally different movie.

[Sven]

I guess I'm the only one who thought that the shift in tone, pacing, and protagonist after Brolin's death was completely bungled. Nothing in the first three quarters properly set up that last quarter, and I didn't think the last quarter properly tied its philosophical musings into the previous narrative threads (nor did I think those musings were particularly meaningful). It seemed almost like the finale to a totally different movie.

Narratively, the film is unconventional. You are sad because it doesn't satisfy in a traditional way. But to me, that's the genius of the thing. Rather than churning out another genre piece, with all its melodrama and catharsis, we get a bold vision that puts things in terms of actual human experience. The thrills are set up nightmarishly (Anton's relentlessness, that chase scene in the desert with the dog, the gruesome discovery of the botched drug deal, the isolated compilation of baddies at the motel where he hides the money, etc), the way that the audience (of the sheriff) would imagine them if they'd read about them in the newspaper. Then, after Brolin's death (I won't say "climax" because I don't think the film has one, really), it's the sheriff's role that stands in for the audience explicitly, demonstrating the way that headline nastiness presses weightily down over time, however removed we are from the actual incidents. To me, it's a movie about the way I take in news articles about car bombs in Baghdad--it makes me so sad, but moreso, it makes me realize the futility of my own position to do anything about it. All I can do is sit around and keep seeing the car bomb headlines roll in. And No Country for Old Men is expert in relaying that distance, and relating it back to the inevitable tragedies that invade our own lives. All that is made possible by it's tonal and narrative shift. But then, remember the opening monologue? It's spoken by the sheriff. The whole thing is told from his vantage point, after all. Maybe the shift is not so dramatic as we're making it out to be.

As I said, it may not be conventionally satisfying, they may have bungled your expectations of what a thriller is supposed to do. But in my opinion, they did something that made it better than a thriller. They elevated it into human terms.

[origami_mustache]

I agree with this...

"in terms of filmmaking and storytelling craft, it is a work destined to be studied in film schools for generations to come."
-Scott Foundas of The Village Voice

[Robby P]

Judging by the comments I've read, it seems that the film ends similarly to the manner in which McCarthy concludes his novel. I'm not so sure that's a good thing. The book's ending was its weakest component (a geriatric hodgepodge of nostalgic, old-testament nonsense that borders on the edge of self-parody).

Then again, I won't know for a while, since this movie refuses to open anywhere near me. That makes me want to hurt things. With a cattle gun.

[Ezee E]

six hours or so. I'm pumped.

[Sven]

Judging by the comments I've read, it seems that the film ends similarly to the manner in which McCarthy concludes his novel. I'm not so sure that's a good thing. The book's ending was its weakest component (a geriatric hodgepodge of nostalgic, old-testament nonsense that borders on the edge of self-parody).

I didn't think there was anything really "old testament"y about it, nor was there any air of parody. It was elegiac and graceful. I'm speaking of the movie, not the book.

[Robby P]

I didn't think there was anything really "old testament"y about it, nor was there any air of parody. It was elegiac and graceful. I'm speaking of the movie, not the book.

It's possible that it looks (sounds) better in the visual form. In the written form, the book's ending essentially amounts to a never-ending series of long-winded, buzz-killing interior monologues that completely overshadow the climactic payoff. Some people found this unconventional approach edgy and profound, but it really just comes off as McCarthy lazily mimicking the style of his previous books that were much, much better. To my secondhand knowledge, this is more or less how the movie ends.

The rest of the book is tits, though.

[Sven]

It's possible that it looks (sounds) better in the visual form. In the written form, the book's ending essentially amounts to a never-ending series of long-winded, buzz-killing interior monologues that completely overshadow the climactic payoff. Some people found this unconventional approach edgy and profound, but it really just comes off as McCarthy lazily mimicking the style of his previous books that were much, much better. To my secondhand knowledge, this is more or less how the movie ends.

The rest of the book is tits, though.

Well, do keep in mind that the film has no "climactic payoff" either, but I loved that about it.

[kamran]

Man oh man... that was so much fun. Maybe even better than Fargo.

I don't know why so many people are calling this a "serious Coen(s)", when in fact I was suppressing giggles throughout (that is, when I wasn't holding my breath in fright and wanting to cover my eyes.) It veers back and forth between zany dark humour and unbearably tense chase scenes, which the brothers pull off very well. It doesn't always play fair in terms of storytelling, and the third act was kind of... off. But iosos, you've made me think a little more about the ending and the importance of the sheriff character.

I'll definitely be watching this again in the theatre. The entire cast is phenomenal (with Bardem earning every one of those raves), but Kelly MacDonald really anchored the film for me in many ways.

Her final scene with Bardem is just devastating.

[Sycophant]

Damn! This got pushed back from Friday to next Wednesday in my area. :(

There go my weekend plans.

[Melville]

Narratively, the film is unconventional. You are sad because it doesn't satisfy in a traditional way. But to me, that's the genius of the thing. Rather than churning out another genre piece, with all its melodrama and catharsis, we get a bold vision that puts things in terms of actual human experience. The thrills are set up nightmarishly (Anton's relentlessness, that chase scene in the desert with the dog, the gruesome discovery of the botched drug deal, the isolated compilation of baddies at the motel where he hides the money, etc), the way that the audience (of the sheriff) would imagine them if they'd read about them in the newspaper. Then, after Brolin's death (I won't say "climax" because I don't think the film has one, really), it's the sheriff's role that stands in for the audience explicitly, demonstrating the way that headline nastiness presses weightily down over time, however removed we are from the actual incidents. To me, it's a movie about the way I take in news articles about car bombs in Baghdad--it makes me so sad, but moreso, it makes me realize the futility of my own position to do anything about it. All I can do is sit around and keep seeing the car bomb headlines roll in. And No Country for Old Men is expert in relaying that distance, and relating it back to the inevitable tragedies that invade our own lives. All that is made possible by it's tonal and narrative shift. But then, remember the opening monologue? It's spoken by the sheriff. The whole thing is told from his vantage point, after all. Maybe the shift is not so dramatic as we're making it out to be.

As I said, it may not be conventionally satisfying, they may have bungled your expectations of what a thriller is supposed to do. But in my opinion, they did something that made it better than a thriller. They elevated it into human terms.
I think you may have misunderstood my complaint. I don't mind that the shift exists—actually, I think it's great in theory—I just think that its execution was bungled. A single, precise scene with the sheriff would have made the point that you are arguing for; instead, we get a string of messy scenes making the same point in a drawn out, awkward fashion. I don't think the sheriff's character was developed enough to bear the weight of the last few scenes, I don't think those scenes made their point very well, and I don't think they properly commented on what came before. Also, the sheriff disappeared for long stretches of the film, and the perspective was clearly that of Brolin's character during those stretches, so I don't think you can really say that the perspective is always the sheriff's.

[Ezee E]

I want to see this again. Immediately.

For the first time I can think of, there's a movie that perfectly follows its book, but manages to be better. Although there's a few Coen add-ins, such as the scene with the Mexican Borderman (that wasn't in the book right?), it still remains in perfect tone with Cormac's intentions. I knew what would be happening, but it was so-well directed that I was tense through each scene. By the end, it's very devastating. I'm curious to see how the ending will work with people.

For me, the ending in the book did not work. I'm not sure if its because I was expecting something else, or if it just wasn't the right time for it to affect me personally. I've recently been on a lot of calls that make me think of how Bell thinks. Sometimes there's nothing we could do because we were too late. It hasn't affected me like it has him, but I could see how it would.

Great stuff. Most likely masterful.

[Duncan]

I'm seeing this tomorrow, but I am strangely unhyped considering the praise it's receiving. I've never read a McCarthy novel, that could explain the ambivalence.

[Ezee E]

I'm seeing this tomorrow, but I am strangely unhyped considering the praise it's receiving. I've never read a McCarthy novel, that could explain the ambivalence.
I'm curious to see what you'll think of the ending without reading the book.

Regardless, I don't see anyone not getting thrilled by the first 100 minutes. Phew.

[Duncan]

Hmm, I don't know. I just don't know. I'll have to think about it a bit more, but I think my problems are more with McCarthy than the Coens.

[Duncan]

Lately I've been having a lot of trouble writing anything. For now I'll say that the film was close to perfect technically, but I'm pretty sure I didn't like it much.

[Duncan]

Rosenbaum (http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/moviereviews/2007/071108/)has some interesting things to say. I don't fully back his review, but I certainly agree with him about the disconcerting sense of awe we're supposed to feel towards Chigurh.

Here's what I've come up with SPOILERS:

No Country for Old Men (Coens, 2007)

Some films are impossible not to admire. Their level of craftsmanship is simply too high to dismiss. No Country for Old Men is one of those films. The sound design, I thought, was especially impressive. Simultaneous telephone rings, the lack of footsteps, milk down the esophagus, etc. Many of these sounds have the curious effect of falling dead immediately. No echo. A shotgun blast ends with the blast. The cry of pain a split second later is a separate event altogether. It’s as if the relationship between cause and effect has broken down. It’s called fate, I suppose.

Fate does not write musicals. It has no harmonized pattern; no form of human construction. Neither does the plot of this film, so it makes sense that there is almost no music. The bizarre outburst by a mariachi band is quickly silenced by the sight of blood. One’s fate can be hard to bear, but fate must be forgiven its indifference because it is governed by chance. Worlds turn without cruelty or maliciousness. They just turn, and sometimes they roll right over the unfortunate.

People, however, are ethical creatures capable of choice, and their indifference should not be so easily accepted. Indifference to whether or not a person lives is certainly a form of cruelty, and there is no greater example of this than Anton Chigurh. I do not think the film (or McCarthy) recognizes this difference between man and fate, and for this reason I believe it fails thematically.

The crucial scene for me is the murder of Carla Jean. About to be killed, she tells Anton that he doesn’t have to go through with it. He offers a coin flip, and she refuses to call it saying the coin has no say. That it’s only Anton who has a say. And she’s right. Anton kills her by choice. With this action the film slips from a bewildered, but responsible elegy into nihilism. Reading this film allegorically, Anton has fully assumed the role of fate, and fate has suddenly assumed the privilege of will. I would argue this combination posits a frightening universe indeed. Here is a universe in which worlds do turn with cruelty.

I understand that this is a fragile argument, and much of it rests on the assertion that Chigurh becomes a stand in for fate. I wouldn’t contend as much if it wasn’t for Bell’s helplessness and eventual retirement. His rationale for quitting seems to be that no matter what he does, evil will still persist. True. Fair enough. However, in this case he is after only one man, and I believe he extrapolates his experience with Chigurh as it applies to fate. He equates the moral failures of people with fate's iniquities. In this one man Bell sees a universe bent on indifferent cruelty. Again, what I take issue with is that fate should be allowed a will to act with.

I confess that these are finicky arguments desiring of more development. Yet, there was something about this film’s moral standing that did not sit well with me. This is what I came up with. Or, it may just be that I found the whole thing a brutal, hopeless exercise in technique.

[Duncan]

Link (http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/screenreviews/americangangintncfom.htm)


Tommy Lee Jones, in his best performance ever, hangs up his gun because the solution to the problem is that there's nothing to solve. The world as we know it is ash--it was always ash.

He considers the film a masterpiece, but I agree that the film is arguing that the world is ash.

Chaw has always had a nihilistic streak to him, but I find it very strange that so many other critics don't seem to mind this film's bleakness. Skimming around and from the ridiculous descriptions of Chigurh, I get the sense that they feel kind of cool reveling in just how depressing No Country for Old Men really is. It's as if they think that by acknowledging suffering on this magnitude they are part of it, and can find some sort of exaltation in that. Like goth kids or something. I dunno. Suddenly I feel very cynical.

[number8]

I talked to Josh Brolin. (http://www.justpressplay.net/viewarticle/interview-josh-brolin-talks-no-country-for-old-men.html)

[Melville]

Rosenbaum (http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/moviereviews/2007/071108/)has some interesting things to say. I don't fully back his review, but I certainly agree with him about the disconcerting sense of awe we're supposed to feel towards Chigurh.

Here's what I've come up with SPOILERS:

No Country for Old Men (Coens, 2007)

Some films are impossible not to admire. Their level of craftsmanship is simply too high to dismiss. No Country for Old Men is one of those films. The sound design, I thought, was especially impressive. Simultaneous telephone rings, the lack of footsteps, milk down the esophagus, etc. Many of these sounds have the curious effect of falling dead immediately. No echo. A shotgun blast ends with the blast. The cry of pain a split second later is a separate event altogether. It’s as if the relationship between cause and effect has broken down. It’s called fate, I suppose.

Fate does not write musicals. It has no harmonized pattern; no form of human construction. Neither does the plot of this film, so it makes sense that there is almost no music. The bizarre outburst by a mariachi band is quickly silenced by the sight of blood. One’s fate can be hard to bear, but fate must be forgiven its indifference because it is governed by chance. Worlds turn without cruelty or maliciousness. They just turn, and sometimes they roll right over the unfortunate.

People, however, are ethical creatures capable of choice, and their indifference should not be so easily accepted. Indifference to whether or not a person lives is certainly a form of cruelty, and there is no greater example of this than Anton Chigurh. I do not think the film (or McCarthy) recognizes this difference between man and fate, and for this reason I believe it fails thematically.

The crucial scene for me is the murder of Carla Jean. About to be killed, she tells Anton that he doesn’t have to go through with it. He offers a coin flip, and she refuses to call it saying the coin has no say. That it’s only Anton who has a say. And she’s right. Anton kills her by choice. With this action the film slips from a bewildered, but responsible elegy into nihilism. Reading this film allegorically, Anton has fully assumed the role of fate, and fate has suddenly assumed the privilege of will. I would argue this combination posits a frightening universe indeed. Here is a universe in which worlds do turn with cruelty.

I understand that this is a fragile argument, and much of it rests on the assertion that Chigurh becomes a stand in for fate. I wouldn’t contend as much if it wasn’t for Bell’s helplessness and eventual retirement. His rationale for quitting seems to be that no matter what he does, evil will still persist. True. Fair enough. However, in this case he is after only one man, and I believe he extrapolates his experience with Chigurh as it applies to fate. He equates the moral failures of people with fate's iniquities. In this one man Bell sees a universe bent on indifferent cruelty. Again, what I take issue with is that fate should be allowed a will to act with.

I confess that these are finicky arguments desiring of more development. Yet, there was something about this film’s moral standing that did not sit well with me. This is what I came up with. Or, it may just be that I found the whole thing a brutal, hopeless exercise in technique.

I agree with some of your complaints, but I'm not so sure that Chigurh is meant to be a stand in for fate. His weary, sad eyes seem to belie that—it seems more like he is casting himself in the role of servant of fate. The car crash at the end suggested to me the fallibility of his self-proclaimed role. Still, nice write up.

[Ezee E]

I watched this again yesterday, and the scene that intrigues me a lot on the second watch is when Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) goes into the hotel room, and sits on the bed. Do you think he knows that Chigurh is there? Does he know that there's nothing he can do, or is he scared for the first time? This is one of the few differences from novel to movie, and I like it a lot.

I've read a few interesting approaches to the movie that make it very religious, such as that Bell is "The Father", Brolin is "The Son", and Chigurh as "The Holy Spirit." I can explain more later.

[megladon8]

Damn you, E...seeing it twice before it's even available for me to see it once.

:(

[Rowland]

This is finally opening in my area this Wednesday along with I'm Not There. I'm pumped.

[trotchky]

Pretty sure the two shots of Chigurh and Bell, respectively, reflected in a turned-off television are the key to the film. Your thoughts?

[Derek]

I agree with some of your complaints, but I'm not so sure that Chigurh is meant to be a stand in for fate. His weary, sad eyes seem to belie that—it seems more like he is casting himself in the role of servant of fate. The car crash at the end suggested to me the fallibility of his self-proclaimed role. Still, nice write up.

I agree that the car crash is key here. They specifically show two green lights suggesting that Chigurh is dutifully following his fate, only to have it abruptly interrupted by yet another cruel chance event. The Coen's use the camera to create a sense of constant momentum and forward movement attached to all of the character. Despite what role Chigurh assumes, there are greater forces at work even upon him.

[Boner M]

Why do I always somehow manage to deliberately read spoilers of films I'm anticipating. :(

[Philosophe_rouge]

I may see this again Monday, or Jesse James...

[Sven]

Chaw has always had a nihilistic streak to him, but I find it very strange that so many other critics don't seem to mind this film's bleakness. Skimming around and from the ridiculous descriptions of Chigurh, I get the sense that they feel kind of cool reveling in just how depressing No Country for Old Men really is. It's as if they think that by acknowledging suffering on this magnitude they are part of it, and can find some sort of exaltation in that. Like goth kids or something. I dunno. Suddenly I feel very cynical.

I agree with this consideration. I very much don't like the chic-ness of Coen badassness, as though we're supposed to react to Chigurh the way we were supposed to react to Jesus in The Big Lebowski. I think I addressed my impressions of him in my thoughts on the first page-ish: that line about how he's "the ultimate badass" is immediately countered by a more truthful observation by Harrelson's character. I see that (and many other gestures throughout) as the Coen's attempting to repudiate those kinds of shallow impressions.

As for the film's bleakness, again, I'm not so sure "bleak" is the right word. It's certainly not happy-go-lucky, but the suggestion I got from it was that of an incredible pressing weight of random fate and injustice. Bleak implies a point of view, where I don't think there's anyone (camera included) that doesn't try to retain hope. To me, it's about the illusion of security and how no matter how much we want things to make sense, unexpected and inexplicable acts of violence and confusion and chance will prevail. I wouldn't say "bleak".

And I do agree that this is Tommy Lee Jones's finest hour.

[Ezee E]

Chigurh is the same as Jesus in The Big Lebowski? No way. More like Buscemi's friend in Fargo times ten.

[Mysterious Dude]

Chigurh is the same as Jesus in The Big Lebowski? No way. More like Buscemi's friend in Fargo times ten.
Yes, I got that as well. It's actually fairly similar to Fargo in a number of ways, especially in the beginning (in which two police officers discover the scene of a crime, and then explain everything they see).

[Sven]

I merely posited it as an example of a character-turned-iconographic. Jesus is a force, not a person, like Stormare's character from Fargo. I just disagree with the inhuman approach to Chigurh, is all I'm saying.

[Briare]

SPOILERS

I was blown away by the gut churning intensity of the violence. It was almost unsettling. I was also struck by the characters, and how not one of them was pure. Bell is something of a coward, always wanting to stay one step behind Chigurh, most effectively illustrated earlier on as he sits and drinks the still cold milk in Moss' trailer rather than go after Chigurh, the deputy sees he's one step away. Bell would rather not die and overall, I think Bell's character is the most interesting in the film. He mentions the old days when the old timer sheriff's wouldn't even need to carry a gun. Perhaps its with the nostalgia why he took the job. For the glory, but he doesn't want to take the risk of getting killed. A good comparison, noted by others before is with Marge Gunderson in Fargo, and how she arrives on the crime scene and goes after the killers alone at that film's climax. The effective use of camerawork and detail is painstaking. Every single thing on the screen is presented in a way that it has some kind of effect; the boot scuffs on the floor in the opening scenes; the needles going into Chigurh's leg during his first aid scenes and the fade to black that leads into Moss' death. The Coens have made a film that applies to all sensibilities and it is smart, breathtakingly effective. One of the best movies in years, literally.

[Mysterious Dude]

SPOILERS

I was blown away by the gut churning intensity of the violence. It was almost unsettling. I was also struck by the characters, and how not one of them was pure. Bell is something of a coward, always wanting to stay one step behind Chigurh, most effectively illustrated earlier on as he sits and drinks the still cold milk in Moss' trailer rather than go after Chigurh, the deputy sees he's one step away.
That's a good point. I hadn't thought of that. When I watched it, I assumed Bell knew what he was saying, that Chigurh was long gone, and the deputy was acting so goofy that Bell seemed like he must be the more realistic of the two. But now that you mention it, it does seem a little like cowardice on Bell's part.

[Briare]

I at first also thought Bell was simply being practical, but after seeing his reluctance to visit crime scenes, go through grisly details and thinking about his monologe during the opening of the film [about an America where a sheriff needn't wear a gun] as well as the way he receivd the story by the old timer in the wheelchair at the end of the movie I couldn't help but chalk it all up to Bell being a coward, afraid of death and violence.

[Ezee E]

Hmm... Interesting. I don't think I've read that anywhere, but it does make sense.

[Duncan]

As for the film's bleakness, again, I'm not so sure "bleak" is the right word. It's certainly not happy-go-lucky, but the suggestion I got from it was that of an incredible pressing weight of random fate and injustice. Bleak implies a point of view, where I don't think there's anyone (camera included) that doesn't try to retain hope. To me, it's about the illusion of security and how no matter how much we want things to make sense, unexpected and inexplicable acts of violence and confusion and chance will prevail. I wouldn't say "bleak".

But everything that prevails in this film is evil. By the end, there's no good at all. Even Bell's dream description (which I suppose is meant to be hopeful even though I'm fairly certain it's about death) ends with, "And then I woke up." Seems pretty bleak to me.

[Duncan]

I've read a few interesting approaches to the movie that make it very religious, such as that Bell is "The Father", Brolin is "The Son", and Chigurh as "The Holy Spirit." I can explain more later. Do you have a link to this? I'd like to read it. I have difficulty seeing the characters as anything but stand-ins for ideas. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing.

[Duncan]

iosos, about the security thing, the repeated destruction of locks seems to support it. Just thought I'd mention that.

[Dillard]

A great article from Matt Zoller Seitz (http://mattzollerseitz.blogspot.com/2007/11/point-blank-no-country-for-old-men.html) at "The House Next Door." He talks about morality (and a bit of philosophy/theology) in No Country and the Coen's filmography as a whole.

[Watashi]

Yeah... one viewing is hardly enough to swallow this film whole. I'm amazed at Matt could remember so much from that one viewing. I had old ladies jabbering in my ear all during the runtime.

[Ezee E]

I have now seen it three times. It's only gotten better each time, watching the subtle reactions on characters faces. The best is Chigurh and Bell. The most overlooked is Woody's final scene. He sweats, and nearly gets ready to tear up, then gets frightend by the sound of a phone.

I still wonder about the scene with those two in the hotel room. Why does Chigurh let Bell go? Why did Bell even show up, after that discussion with the town's sheriff?

It's definitely a masterpiece now.

[Rowland]

What was the story told by the old friend Tommy Lee Jones visits in the last act? And where exactly was Bardem when Jones entered the hotel room in the scene prior?

This initial viewing tells me that the last act is flawed, for reasons beyond the one typically cited. I'm still gathering my thoughts, but for now I can only admit to myself that I was underwhelmed in proportion to the overall consensus.

EDIT: I'm bumping up my rating half a star. I simply can't ignore how proficient and engrossing most of it is, and even if the last 15-20 minutes didn't work for me at the time, I'm growing to understand and respect them. Still, I'm not convinced that it's a masterpiece.

[Melville]

This initial viewing tells me that the last act is flawed, for reasons beyond the one typically cited.
Which one is that?

[Rowland]

Which one is that?I haven't read this entire thread yet, but I had the impression that the lack of an anticipated on-screen climax for Brolin's character was what has caused the most controversy. After reading around a bit since writing that, I admittedly may have been mistaken.

[Rowland]

A great article from Matt Zoller Seitz (http://mattzollerseitz.blogspot.com/2007/11/point-blank-no-country-for-old-men.html) at "The House Next Door." He talks about morality (and a bit of philosophy/theology) in No Country and the Coen's filmography as a whole.Thank you, this article and the accompanying reader replies are a fantastic read.

The last act may have struck me as incongruous and unearned, but I'm really looking forward to seeing this again. I think MZS is right on the mark when he says that most Coen movies require at least two viewings to really come to terms with.

[Watashi]

I thought the guy Ed visited was his dad?

Was I mistaken?

[Mysterious Dude]

I thought the guy Ed visited was his dad?

Was I mistaken?I thought so too, but later, he says his dad is dead (and that he was older than his dad ever was).

[Watashi]

I thought so too, but later, he says his dad is dead (and that he was older than his dad ever was).

Yeah, in his dream he was dead. I don't think it was ever stated outside that one monologue that his dad was deceased.

[Duncan]

Pretty sure that guy was his uncle.

[Ezee E]

Pretty sure that guy was his uncle.
I believe that's what it is, both in the movie and the book.

[Rowland]

I knew it wasn't his father, because the tone of the opening voice-over suggested his father was dead, and the dream he described at the end derived all of its power from the notion that the only sure thing left in his life was that his father was waiting for him in the afterlife. Ed even notes how his father was younger than him in the dream, because Ed has lived a longer life (a memorably poignant detail). So that was his uncle, eh? Does anyone remember what the story was that the uncle told Ed at the end of the scene? I spaced out for a moment and missed it.

[Mysterious Dude]

Does anyone remember what the story was that he told Ed at the end of the scene? I spaced out for a moment and missed it.
So did I. I have to admit, I found that scene pretty boring.

[Rowland]

So did I. I have to admit, I found that scene pretty boring.Yeah, by that scene, every trace of tension in the movie had been sapped out, for better or worse, depending on how you reason it.

[Rowland]

I don't think I've seen anyone mention it, but my favorite "Coen moment" was the dog chasing Llewelyn downstream. That had me grinning like an idiot.

[Briare]

So did I. I have to admit, I found that scene pretty boring.

I didn't quite follow the relationship the man from the story had to Bell either, but the jist of it was that a fella stood on his porch, four indians ride up on horseback and unload on him, but stick around to watch him die, then his wife buries him the next morning.

[Rowland]

I didn't quite follow the relationship the man from the story had to Bell either, but the jist of it was that a fella stood on his porch, four indians ride up on horseback and unload on him, but stick around to watch him die, then his wife buries him the next morning.Indians? So it was a story about the old frontier? If that's the case, the story was probably making the point that terrible, inexplicable violence has always existed, and all we can hope to do is gracefully clean up the aftermath, which would posit Bell as the equivalent of the wife in the story.

[Briare]

Indians? So it was a story about the old frontier? If that's the case, the story was probably making the point that terrible, inexplicable violence has always existed, and all we can hope to do is gracefully clean up the aftermath, which would posit Bell as the equivalent of the wife in the story.

If I also remember right, it took place in 1909 [could be wrong]. I think the point of the story was to illustrate there had always been violence in America and that Bell was simply an idealist. Nothing much had changed.

[Ezee E]

If I also remember right, it took place in 1909 [could be wrong]. I think the point of the story was to illustrate there had always been violence in America and that Bell was simply an idealist. Nothing much had changed.
Yes. The story took place in either 1908 or 1909. The Grandfather was gunned down, died into the night, and buried the next morning. They made the point that violence had always existed, and that it was tough on people. That kills Bell's philosophy that he makes at the beginning of the movie.

It's sort of why the whole movie exists...

It's much slower then the rest of the movie, but the scene gets better the second time you watch it. And then even better the third.

[Spun Lepton]

The movie is about the illusion of security. It is not nihilistic, but rather, paints a universe of cosmic indifference, one where luck is both good (finding 2 million dollars) and bad (getting shot in the throat for helping someone).

Very nice, I agree wholeheartedly. The absence of background music throughout the movie supports your "universe of indifference." I really need to see this again.

[Derek]

Yes. The story took place in either 1908 or 1909. The Grandfather was gunned down, died into the night, and buried the next morning. They made the point that violence had always existed, and that it was tough on people. That kills Bell's philosophy that he makes at the beginning of the movie.

It's sort of why the whole movie exists...

The movie exists to tell us that violence has always existed and was tough on people? All that stuff about fate was just window dressing I suppose?

EDIT: Why do Rowland's posts keep disappearing?

[Derek]

I don't think I've seen anyone mention it, but my favorite "Coen moment" was the dog chasing Llewelyn downstream. That had me grinning like an idiot.

Yeah, that was the one scene my friend and I were laughing about afterwards. We both wished it went on a little longer.

[Boner M]

Pushed a month back from Dec 26th to Jan. 24th here. :frustrated:

[Duncan]

I saw this again last night post-Thanksgiving dinner, because the people I was celebrating with really wanted to see it. My previous ambivalence has turned to active dislike.

This time I found the film insufferably boring. Whereas on my first viewing I was impressed by the film's technical merits, here I found the direction distractingly self-conscious. For example, in the scene where Chigurh is chasing Moss through the street, I'm was not imagining what Moss should do to survive and hoping he would do so. I was thinking where the Coens should place Moss so that the audience would be most thrilled by his actions, and then considering whether or not his placement effectively evolved from the dynamics of the situation. It's pure film school. I do not believe that this second layer of detachment from the situation was intended.

I don't think the car crash works to destabilize Chigurh's place as fate. It has all the trappings of a deus ex machina, but the mechanism fails. The cogs get jammed or something, and he doesn't die. He's barely even slowed down. In fact, I think you can argue that it reconfirms the Chigurh as fate supposition. In the previous scene, Bell's uncle (Who is never confirmed as his uncle, I believe. I probably just read that somewhere. Sloppy storytelling.) states that "you can't stop what's coming," referring to fate of course. Now, in the very next scene, it is confirmed that Chigurh cannot be stopped even by a brutal car accident.

And, here's an even stranger proposal, I don't think much "fateful" happens in this film. The initial discovery of the money is a pretty big coincidence, granted. The car crash is another one, but it has no consequences for Chigurh's character. There are plenty of other people that die, but all of them are killed by Chigurh or the Mexicans. In other words, these deaths are the consequences of human decisions. For example, it is a coincidence that the man who is shot in the neck after allowing Moss into his truck is this one man of all the other people in the world who could have died. Yet, he doesn't die but for Chigurh's violence. The deaths in this film are not from freak weather patters, or from a lack of knowledge about the importance of heat dissipating tiles in a space shuttle. The deaths aren't even from an unavoidable car crash - the other driver was clearly negligent. The deaths are from human cruelty and stupidity.

I think this film is basically an evil version of Forrest Gump. I am reminded of Hank's monologue at the end of that film where he patly concludes that the world is filled with both unavoidable fate and human action. Well, thanks for stating the obvious Forrest. No Country for Old Men, for all its attempts at obfuscation, is essentially making the same point. The only difference between the two films is that Forrest Gump is cartoonishly good, whereas No Country for Old Men is cartoonishly evil. Neither has much depth.

[Duncan]

All that said, I sort of like Forrest Gump.

[Watashi]

I don't think the car crash works to destabilize Chigurh's place as fate. It has all the trappings of a deus ex machina, but the mechanism fails. The cogs get jammed or something, and he doesn't die. He's barely even slowed down. In fact, I think you can argue that it reconfirms the Chigurh as fate supposition. In the previous scene, Bell's uncle (Who is never confirmed as his uncle, I believe. I probably just read that somewhere. Sloppy storytelling.) states that "you can't stop what's coming," referring to fate of course. Now, in the very next scene, it is confirmed that Chigurh cannot be stopped even by a brutal car accident.


I dunno... I liked the fact that he didn't die from the car crash because it only confirms the doubts in Ed's closing monologue. Chigurh is the ultimate evil and evil will always catch up to us when we give up searching. I look at No Country how I look at most Coens films. Their universe is not the same as ours. They create new laws, new boundaries, and their villainous creations features an "angel of death" dominance over everything in their path.

I have no idea what you're speaking of in the first paragraph. I don't remember the individual placement of Moss in the street chase, so I don't understand your criticism of the Coen's "film school" techniques. Any particular examples in that individual scene?

[Ezee E]

The movie exists to tell us that violence has always existed and was tough on people? All that stuff about fate was just window dressing I suppose?

EDIT: Why do Rowland's posts keep disappearing?
Among other things. The movie has a lot to say. I was just pointing out what that particular speech was about. Bell's speech at the very end deals with the idea of fate, and life after death.

[Rowland]

The movie exists to tell us that violence has always existed and was tough on people? All that stuff about fate was just window dressing I suppose?

EDIT: Why do Rowland's posts keep disappearing?Which post, the one where I responded to the same E post as you did here with sarcasm? I deleted it, figured I was being unnecessarily hostile. :)

[Derek]

Among other things. The movie has a lot to say. I was just pointing out what that particular speech was about. Bell's speech at the very end deals with the idea of fate, and life after death.

Oh ok, it sounded like you were reducing the film's message to that one simple line, but I guess you were referring just to that scene in particular.

Anyways, I kind of agree with Duncan that the film's message isn't terribly deep, but I don't really look to the Coen's as much for deeper meanings as I do for their fascinating ways of delivering them. I'll try to see this once more in the theater so I can respond to the criticisms in some detail.

[Derek]

Which post, the one where I responded to the same E post as you did here with sarcasm? I deleted it, figured I was being too mean. :)

Yeah, that one. I didn't realize we could completely delete our posts here...sorry to give you away. ;)

[Duncan]

I dunno... I liked the fact that he didn't die from the car crash because it only confirms the doubts in Ed's closing monologue. Chigurh is the ultimate evil and evil will always catch up to us when we give up searching. I look at No Country how I look at most Coens films. Their universe is not the same as ours. They create new laws, new boundaries, and their villainous creations features an "angel of death" dominance over everything in their path. I think you may have misunderstood. I was expanding on my earlier post in which I argued that Chigurh was a stand in for fate. I agree that he is not quite human and that he is something of an "angel of death." And that, to me, is the problem. As I said earlier, if he is both human and fate, then fate has a will. And Chigurh's will is an indifferent, violent one. It makes a caricature of fate's many intricacies.


I have no idea what you're speaking of in the first paragraph. I don't remember the individual placement of Moss in the street chase, so I don't understand your criticism of the Coen's "film school" techniques. Any particular examples in that individual scene? Well, let's consider how that chase begins in the bedroom.

Moss sits on the bed in front of the door with his shotgun. Instantly, the audience remembers what happens when Chigurh uses his cattle gun on a lock. We know that the lock is going to hit him right in the chest when it flies out of the door. The intended audience response is suspense. We know that Moss has made what could turn out to be a fatal mistake, so we should be worried about him. It's like Hitchcock's dictum that you should always show a bomb before it goes off. That way, the audience is in a state of tension as characters move in and out of the potential blast radius.

Anyway, I'm sure this worked fine for a lot of people. They saw the danger inherent in the staging of Moss, they were worried for his safety, the titular moment came, then Moss jumped out the window and the chase continued onto the street.

However, all I was thinking about was the methods the Coens used to achieve this response in the audience. I was actually thinking that Hitchcock would approve. This is not really what I should have been thinking.

So, the chase continues and the Coens switch things up on us. Now Chigurh is a phantom. The hotel geography is unclear as he shoots at Moss through upper story windows. When Chigurh is shooting at Moss in the truck, we only know his position by the angle of the bullets through the window. It's the exact opposite of Hitchcock's dictum. The guy's neck being shot out is shocking because we have no idea it's coming. Instead of slow burning tension, it's instantaneously visceral.

Finally, the position is reversed. Now Moss is hidden behind a car and Chigurh approaches with his safety at hazard. It is the same situation as Moss sitting on the bed, but now instead of hoping he doesn't die, we're hoping he makes the kill. The magnitude of the tension is the same, but in the opposite direction.

The idea is that by switching up the rhythm and technique the sequence will remain consistently engaging. I understand it worked for a lot of people, and I understand why it worked for a lot of people.

I was doing this scene reading in my head as I watched the film. The direction is so magnificently calculated (it's very, very good) that I couldn't help going into a detached mode of analysis. The consequences stopped having meaning for me, only the directorial technique.

[Ezee E]

I don't get it Duncan. Are you criticizing or praising the scene?

[Melville]

I don't think the car crash works to destabilize Chigurh's place as fate. It has all the trappings of a deus ex machina, but the mechanism fails. The cogs get jammed or something, and he doesn't die. He's barely even slowed down. In fact, I think you can argue that it reconfirms the Chigurh as fate supposition. In the previous scene, Bell's uncle (Who is never confirmed as his uncle, I believe. I probably just read that somewhere. Sloppy storytelling.) states that "you can't stop what's coming," referring to fate of course. Now, in the very next scene, it is confirmed that Chigurh cannot be stopped even by a brutal car accident.
I guess that interpretation works, but the tone of that scene was a bit too jovial to make me think it was reinforcing Chigurh's unstoppable killing power. It definitely seemed to be reinforcing his humanity to me.


And, here's an even stranger proposal, I don't think much "fateful" happens in this film.
That proposal doesn't seem so strange to me. I really think that Chigurh is the only one insisting on the fatefulness of the whole thing; in a sense, his philosophy is self-fulfilling, since he keeps killing everybody. But the horror, the absurd joke revealed by the car crash, is not that he represents the unavoidable force of fate; the horror is that he keeps insisting on killing everybody regardless of whether he is fated to or not.

[Ezee E]

Halloween is on TV right now. And I really like the comparison of Michael Myers and Anton Chigurh. Both in a character sense, and how the directors positioned them, staged, etc.

[Melville]

I don't get it Duncan. Are you criticizing or praising the scene?
Yeah, I'm a bit befuddled by the criticism. It seems like you, Duncan, were already bored with the film and so started thinking about its technique. Nothing in your description makes that technique seem particularly simplistic or obvious, so I'm not sure what the problem is.

[Rowland]

Halloween is on TV right now. And I really like the comparison of Michael Myers and Anton Chigurh. Both in a character sense, and how the directors positioned them, staged, etc.Heh. There are scenes in the pan-and-scan version where they actually had to cut Michael out of the frame. Carpenter's use of the entire 2.35:1 ratio must have been a nightmare for whoever it was who had to butcher it for television.

[Rowland]

I think Duncan is saying that the technique is so good that it calls attention to itself, thus pulling him out of the moment.

[Duncan]

Yeah, I'm a bit befuddled by the criticism. It seems like you, Duncan, were already bored with the film and so started thinking about its technique. Nothing in your description makes that technique seem particularly simplistic or obvious, so I'm not sure what the problem is.

I'm just saying the scene is calculated to the point of lifelessness, as is the whole film. A couple quotes from Werner Herzog:

"Coincidences always happen if you keep your mind open, while storyboards remain the instruments of cowards who do not trust in their own imagination and who are slaves of a matrix... If you get used to planning your shots based solely on aesthetics, you are never that far from kitsch."

"Your film is like your children. You might want a child with certain qualities, but you are never going to get the exact specification right. The film has a privilege to live its own life and develop its own character. To suppress this is dangerous."

I think they can be aptly applied to No Country for Old Men. Except, I don't know if I'd call the Coens cowards. That's just Herzog being awesome.

Here's my theory. After their last two films were such critical failures, the Coen brothers decided that they were going to make a film that was formally sound. So they sat down and decided exactly how they were going to film each scene. The directing is so precise that the film never has the chance to "develop its own character."

[Spun Lepton]

My friend Tim told me a joke the other day about a chicken crossing the road. It was hilarious, I couldn't stop laughing. His delivery was spot on, it was awesome.

Just a few minutes ago, he told me the joke again. I was so bored! I started watching how his tongue moved around in his mouth and throat, creating sounds, creating the joke. I'm not so convinced that the joke was that funny, after all. I mean, I could see his lips moving.

[Duncan]

My friend Tim told me a joke the other day about a chicken crossing the road. It was hilarious, I couldn't stop laughing. His delivery was spot on, it was awesome.

Just a few minutes ago, he told me the joke again. I was so bored! I started watching how his tongue moved around in his mouth and throat, creating sounds, creating the joke. I'm not so convinced that the joke was that funny, after all. I mean, I could see his lips moving.

If you read back in the thread you'll learn I didn't like it much the first time either. I don't know what's so weird about liking it less this time. I even end my original review by proposing that the film is an empty exercise in technique.

[Melville]

The directing is so precise that the film never has the chance to "develop its own character."
Ah, I see. Like Rowland, I thought you were suggesting that the direction was so good it was bad, which didn't seem to make much sense to me. But, yeah, I can understand the complaint of it being too conservative in its techniques—too lifeless or something.

[Spun Lepton]

I re-read your review again, Duncan and I see my mistake. That's what I get for reading forums when I'm also busy with work. :P I haven't read the book, so I may not have the depth of understanding needed to fully interpret the adaptation. (It has, however, jumped to the top of my to-read list.)

I never once thought the Coens were overworking the technical elements, because the Coens have always shown a certain meticulousness in their shot compositions and planning.

I can't help but wonder, though, if the choice to keep the movie virtually free of incidental music (one made, probably, to enhance the indifferent tone that the book apparently has), makes it easier for the audience to detach themselves from the action. While I had no problem immersing myself in the story, I could see how it could happen to somebody else -- especially when they already know what's coming.

[Ezee E]

Here's my theory. After their last two films were such critical failures, the Coen brothers decided that they were going to make a film that was formally sound. So they sat down and decided exactly how they were going to film each scene. The directing is so precise that the film never has the chance to "develop its own character."

The Coen's are notorious for storyboarding every single shot in their movies. They've always done it that way. I think that they just took a different approach to what kind of movie to make. The last two movies were quirky, taking off on what made O Brother and Big Lebowski popular. Now they went back with the dark Fargo/Blood Simple approach.

Barton Fink is the one movie that goes in between their two styles.

[Ezee E]

heh, Ebert's response to a question that compares Anton Chigurh to Death in The Seventh Seal:

Merely death personified? Death gets billing above monsters, in my book. There is something relentlessly supernatural about the way he just keeps coming. We haven't seen the last of him. At least Bergman's Death didn't make the knight risk his life on a coin toss but had the chess pieces there on the board.

[Henry Gale]

Fantastic. Just.... aaah man, so good.

MILD SPOILERS

I'm going to need a lot of time to gather my thoughts on it for sure though. My friends asked me what I thought or got out of the final scenes about 10 minutes after it ended, and what I told them then may not be what I still think now. One of the most entertaining things was the wave of noticably wide-ranging reactions when it ended. From one of the people I came with resorting to an obvious "Are you serious?", to someone else simply saying "Bastards..." as Joel & Ethan's credits appeared, but more common were the others just still sitting there with big grins on their faces as long as to the time I exited. Everyone clearly had a different take on it. I was shocked too at the wide range of people in the audience as I left. There were teens even younger than myself to the type of older crowd you'd expect to see lined up outside of Enchanted or something, but every crowd seemed to be drawn to it (but that may have had something to do with our wacky rating of 14A for it over here).

Either way, it really surpassed my expectations and was completely gripping the entire way through. Not that I expected it to be bad, it's just there's a lot of films like this every once in a while that tend to get huge heap of praise early on and then I end up seeing it a little bit after and am not nearly as taken by it (if at all). Examples being stuff like The Departed, Mystic River, The Queen, etc. But this, THIS is just brilliant.

The whole thing was just exactly the kind of amazingly intense, beautifully constructed and executed piece of thrilling and gritty cinema that I haven't felt in too long of a time. It's violent but it takes it seriously. It's funny but the humour is never forced or unrealistic amongst the other chaos happening in it. The performances are all entirely impressive and moving without resorting to big emotion in scenes of dialogue or intense moral decisions having to be verbalized. It's everything it had to be to be perfect, and it comes damn near it without taking any typical routes to effective storytelling.

Sure its choices of what to show and what not to seem risky as they initially unfold. But the risk is more in how it's testing the audience to leave them to realize later on that a story like that of No Country For Old Men can still shift between who the "lead" character may be as well as the heroes and villains and what details to reveal about each of those people's lives in these crucial and defining moments. But just because what's there may not always be what you expect, and what's missing would often just give emotional satifaction and overall just shades to a picture that you should already have a good idea of, when it ends, it doesn't where every law of Comprehensive Film 101 says it should, but where it goes from that is both entirely told to the audience and let for them to decide at the same time.

For me the credits appearing after essentially a two hour chase had winded down to quiet and personal scenes was somehow the most exciting point of the movie because I knew it was the point that all had officially come together and offered what it had to, but also that that was where my interpretation and reviewing of what had happened the masterful hours before would begin and not end for a long time.

**** / ****

[Sxottlan]

Absolutely amazing. Magnificent.

I honestly did not think I'd ever see another Coen Bros. film on the level of Fargo or Blood Simple, but here we are.

[Bosco B Thug]

Wow, pitch perfect. And getting me to say so is something, considering I had read the book and watched the film searching for flaws to allow me to pull myself out of this decidedly un-crowdpleasing story. The tone the Coens chose to hit is perfect for the story and I thought the third act was built beautifully. The performances I think are really important here, and all 5 leads are outstanding, leaving just the impression they're supposed to leave to create cohesive dramatic underpinnings with the characters' seemingly very few, fleeting interactions with one another.

[Raiders]

I need to see this again. It was a bit faster and more tense than I expected. I think preconceptions, based on both the book and the Coens, might have lead me to expect something a little more absurd and off-kilter, but they stayed surprisingly faithful to the text.

It's a near great film and certainly features some pretty flawless craftsmanship. I do wish Bell had been featured a little bit more, though. I don't want a sledgehammer, but at the same time he seemed to have a little too small of a part until the very last act. As the (misguided and cowardly) moral compass, the film's broken narrative structure that cut the fat off the story seemed to leave Bell a little in the dust.

[Rowland]

I need to see this again. It was a bit faster and more tense than I expected. I think preconceptions, based on both the book and the Coens, might have lead me to expect something a little more absurd and off-kilter, but they stayed surprisingly faithful to the text.

It's a near great film and certainly features some pretty flawless craftsmanship. I do wish Bell had been featured a little bit more, though. I don't want a sledgehammer, but at the same time he seemed to have a little too small of a part until the very last act. As the (misguided and cowardly) moral compass, the film's broken narrative structure that cut the fat off the story seemed to leave Bell a little in the dust.I think it was the lack of an impact Bell's character makes throughout most of the movie that made the last act shaky for me, so I'm with you in that respect. I'm hoping that another viewing will amend this.

[Bosco B Thug]

I think it was the lack of an impact Bell's character makes throughout most of the movie that made the last act shaky for me, so I'm with you in that respect. I'm hoping that another viewing will amend this.
I'd say his impotent role in the first 2/3rds is exactly what makes the foundation for the third act. I think we had just the right amount of him - I mean, he doesn't do much else except sit in the diner considering the newspaper and making old codger-ish quips. Sets up the 3rd act well, now focused on him and his retirement and nuances.

[Rowland]

I'd say his impotent role in the first 2/3rds is exactly what makes the foundation for the third act. I think we had just the right amount of him - I mean, he doesn't do much else except sit in the diner considering the newspaper and making old codger-ish quips. Sets up the 3rd act well, now focused on him and his retirement and nuances.As soundly argued as it can be from a thematic standpoint, I still think the shift could have been built up to with a stronger foundation. I've been told that in the book (which I haven't read), Bell has many more scenes throughout the entire story to philosophize and whatnot, which makes the transition we're talking about less dramatically destabilizing. If that's true, I think the Coens made a mistake in cutting out so much potential screen time for him.

[Raiders]

Spoilers...

The more I think about it, the more the last scene almost seems like a bit of a joke from the Coens. Clearly, the film has nowhere else to go and Bell's dream is very much thematically important (not to mention this is faithful to the book), but it is such an amazingly anticlimactic moment and so obtuse in its construction that I can just see the two brothers sitting and picturing the confused expressions of thousands of film-goers.

I think they were sincere in their construction of the scene, but not many other filmmakers would have the hubris to take a tense quasi-action film and make the final scene a quiet little table conversation between a man and wife about a dream that has no tension, no relation to the immediate narrative and no ready answers for the viewers.

It is one of the best closing moments of any film I can think of. There is no closure, no action that can be taken to rectify what has happened before. The events unfolded with an unstoppable perseverance, and Bell's final comments point only to another certainty, one where he will see his father. I think it ties in beautifully to the scene where he spoke about his uncertainty of God and his purpose. I think also it very much redeems a little of the film's (and book's) bleakness. His final line of "then I woke up" feels to me like a realization and acceptance that perhaps there never were "good old days." The title is key in its insinuation that this is not country for old men, there is no place for nostalgia of childhood dreams of stopping crime and fighting the inevitable. Some may see this as being even more hopeless and bleak, but I think that finally facing reality, and mortality, offers a calm that cannot exist when your conscience fights against what is and always was.

I don't think it qualifies as a twist ending, but it is one that alters perception on the construction of the film. It shifts Bell into more focus than he was before, suddenly making it seem like "his" story. I don't think the film or book intends to shift perspective of the film to Bell's eyes, but rather one of enlightenment and realization to the events. No longer do the other characters seem important and it almost single-handedly relegates everything that has happened before as a sad reality, another notch in a long line of tragedies. That Bell's dream in the final utterance in the film creates a void on everything else, pushing his own arc front and center. In fact, he is the only character with an arc. Everyone else are just characters, and by the end, nothing has changed except in Bell's own perception on everything that happened. It isn't a film about changing events. It is about changing how we interpret their meaning and importance upon the grand scheme of things.

As sad as Bell's "waking up" is, in this story, it is ultimately the happiest thing the film could offer.

[Sven]

I didn't see anything jokey in the last scene. It seemed entirely organic to me. Plus, you go to great lengths justifying its place in the film's central presentation, so how could it be a joke?

Good review, though.

[Raiders]

I didn't see anything jokey in the last scene. It seemed entirely organic to me. Plus, you go to great lengths justifying its place in the film's central presentation, so how could it be a joke?

Good review, though.

I didn't mean "joke" as in they were being playful. I meant that its construction (it feels almost completely isolated from the rest of the film), its intense quiet and its obscurity, and the quick fade to black all lead me to believe the Coens were deliberately leaving that hanging in the air, knowingly screwing around with audience expectations and perceptions. Scenes like that feel more organic to me in written form, especially in this book since it does do a little more "preaching" than the film does (outside two scenes, the film doesn't really speak to this stuff as the book does).

[Robby P]

I finally watched this tonight and I just wanted to make a few quick observations:

* I realize that one can only be so faithful to a novel when adapting it for the screen, but the Coens do in fact make some fairly significant changes in chronology, character and circumstance, and they even throw some extended patches of dialogue of their own making into the mix. Some of these changes bothered me more than others, but most of it comes down to nitpicking, I suppose. Still, having only recently read the novel, I couldn't help but notice the small differences, and that became actually quite distracting. I think another viewing is in order, probably at a later date when the book is less fresh in my mind.

* The Coens' interjection of light-hearted-dark humor is better served in certain instances than others. Some of their decisions to seemingly belittle the intelligence and integrity of the story's side characters gives fuel to the common criticisms of detached elitism and condescension. I don't ordinarily find the brothers' to be all that snobbish and cruel, but they seem to take some delight here in depicting the "simplicity" of those southern commoners who are presented as either slack-jawed comedic relief or helpless half-wits. I think the intent is more malicious here than in, say, Fargo, where the satirical elements are more clearly in play.

* I just don't think the ending works. I really don't. In the novel, the reader has the advantage of beginning every chapter with one of Sheriff Bell's interior monologues that helps tie some of the story's themes together while also reminding one of his characters' metaphorical omnipresence. In the movie, Bell is almost completely absent for the first two acts, and unlike the novel, we don't fully gain an appreciation for his perspective or circumstance in the entire affair. The opening monologue is all-but-forgotten once the narrative between Brolin and Bardem fully develops. This might make for some unconventional, genre-breaking cleverness, but I don't necessarily think it makes for a particularly good storyline.

* The complete absence of music is just a tad bit pretentious, isn't it? There's something about the film's meticulousness that is just so self-aware that it becomes somewhat annoying at a certain point. The ending is particularly emblematic of this problem. The filmmakers are clearly all-too cognizant of the mind-fuck that they're unleashing, and this really takes some of the fun out of it. The manner in which the particular scene is constructed is just so obscure and artificial as to feel almost comical. "Tell me about your dreams, Ed Tom"? I mean, come on. You opened with a voice-over, why are you suddenly too good to end with one?

* I wouldn't go so far as to call the movie nihilistic. I think that's a gross oversimplification. But I'm getting tired of people arguing that "realistic" movies don't need to be "moralistic", or some such. There's almost no message to be gleaned from the movie, whatsoever. At times it can feel just like a clever technical exercise. The book does an infinitely better job of conveying some basic philosophical ideas about the numbing effects of mindless violence, while the movie occasionally seems to hold the acts of violence themselves upon a pedestal to be marveled at.

* Ed Tom is portrayed as a complete pansy in the movie, almost to the point of ridiculousness. In the novel, McCarthy is much more subtle in his ability to convey the impression that Sheriff Bell is simply overmatched and incapable of performing his job. In the movie, the Coens simply resort to the sludgehammer, even having the character go so far as to say, quite bluntly, "I'm feeling overmatched". I couldn't help but roll my eyes at that one. And the omission of Ed Tom's "heroic" WWII revelation was inexcusable. That's an essential element of his character.

* I don't think the movie fully grasps the importance of the climactic encounter between Ms. Moss and Anton. This scene is important not only because it wraps up the narrative between the main characters, but because it also profoundly affects Sheriff Bell, but in ways that the movie never quite clearly conveys. I was supremely disappointed in this segment of the movie, and it seemed like the brothers' simply took more joy in crafting a shocking and innovative finale than in fully exploring the impact of this pivotal moment.

Despite all these reservations, I thought the movie certainly had its finer moments, and I wasn't disappointed in the slightest, although I think the glowing praise it has been generally afforded is perhaps a bit much. Upon an initial viewing, I hold the opinion that the book is much more enjoyable and understandable, and encourage those who have not yet read it to do so.

[Milky Joe]

* I don't think the movie fully grasps the importance of the climactic encounter between Ms. Moss and Anton. This scene is important not only because it wraps up the narrative between the main characters, but because it also profoundly affects Sheriff Bell, but in ways that the movie never quite clearly conveys. I was supremely disappointed in this segment of the movie, and it seemed like the brothers' simply took more joy in crafting a shocking and innovative finale than in fully exploring the impact of this pivotal moment.

I thought it was a great film, but I really do agree with you here. I read this scene in the book with what felt like a bowling ball in the pit of my stomach. I knew it was coming because I knew how Chigurh operates, and I really dreaded it. In the movie... not so much. This also goes for the scene with Chigurh and Carson. Maybe it's the lack of McCarthy's creepily mundane description of his brains on the wall, but these scenes just weren't disturbing enough. They went with the shock&jump-kill, off-screen, and it just seemed like something of a copout to me.

[Rowland]

I finally watched this tonight and I just wanted to make a few quick observations:Fantastic post, a fascinating perspective for someone like me who hasn't read the book. I agree with you that the ending doesn't quite work, and I don't think that "it's supposed to be disorientating" (the most common defense) is enough of an excuse, at least as of my first viewing.

[ledfloyd]

i saw this last night and am still more or less collecting my thoughts. i agree with everyone who said it was brilliant. as a fan of the book i was a little taken aback at first at how small a role ed tom had in the beginning. but by the end he was the main character. i almost feel the need to reread the book and watch it again to sort out my thoughts on how i feel about that. but as a film. it's near perfect.

[Watashi]

Here (http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2007/11/no_country_for_old_men_out_in. html) is a great, great analysis of the film's themes and mostly Ed's bookend monologues.

[Boner M]

Australian release changed from the 24th of Jan back to Boxing Day again. Just so you all know.

[Ezee E]

Here (http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2007/11/no_country_for_old_men_out_in. html) is a great, great analysis of the film's themes and mostly Ed's bookend monologues.
Great article indeed. Thanks for that.

[baby doll]

It was pretty good.

[lovejuice]

it's still a great movie, but i like it much less than you guys. i don't know. perhaps have to sit on it for a while.

[origami_mustache]

My friend and I were discussing the film, and we both enjoyed it, but he brought up the point that he felt the film could have been tightened up, by trimming some areas. In particular he mentioned the sequence where
Llewelyn (Brolin) buys the tent poles and proceeds to go through an elaborate process merely to make something to reach through the vents to get the briefcase. I argued that the scene was obviously an intentional tension builder, but more than that essential to the genre deconstruction and overall structure of the film. As we watch in anticipation wondering what Brolin is going to do with the tent poles, we are eventually let down when we discover their actual use. I wondered if anyone else had any thoughts about this one way or another?

[Rowland]

My friend and I were discussing the film, and we both enjoyed it, but he brought up the point that he felt the film could have been tightened up, by trimming some areas. In particular he mentioned the sequence where
Llewelyn (Brolin) buys the tent poles and proceeds to go through an elaborate process merely to make something to reach through the vents to get the briefcase. I argued that the scene was obviously an intentional tension builder, but more than that essential to the genre deconstruction and overall structure of the film. As we watch in anticipation wondering what Brolin is going to do with the tent poles, we are eventually let down when we discover their actual use. I wondered if anyone else had any thoughts about this one way or another?I wouldn't argue that it is "essential". I don't even remember the scene, but if he felt it was too long, then obviously he wasn't feeling the tension that you thought was obvious. As for your genre deconstruction argument... *shrug* It merely set up the sequence where Anton is closing in on the briefcase while he's trying to quietly get it out of the ducts. I wasn't let down. What was I supposed to expect him to do with them? Make a Home Alone booby trap?

[origami_mustache]

I wouldn't argue that it is "essential". I don't even remember the scene, but if he felt it was too long, then obviously he wasn't feeling the tension that you thought was obvious. As for your genre deconstruction argument... *shrug* It merely set up the sequence where Anton is closing in on the briefcase while he's trying to quietly get it out of the ducts. I wasn't let down. What was I supposed to expect him to do with them? Make a Home Alone booby trap?

Whether or not someone reacts to tension building scenes is insignificant and doesn't change the fact that suspense is the most overt purpose for the inserts. His argument wasn't that the scene was too long, but rather altogether unnecessary. Taking your stance that it just sets up the next sequence, I'd have to agree that it could be cut, however I think the filmmakers had something more in mind here. I wasn't particularly let down either, but the result didn't meet my expectations. More than suspense or tension the sequence at least created curiosity for me. Kudos if you happened to know what he was going to use the tent poles for.

[number8]

I thought it was more about focusing on the stuff that the average crime drama glosses over, to show the lateral human thinking process behind it. Same goes with the bullet dressing scene and the hotel room picking.

[Duncan]

Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971), which was released during the Vietnam war and regards a milk-drinking sociopath with an almost equal level of Nitzchean awe. Nietzsche was not perfect, but I usually take it upon myself to defend him when need be. In what way does Chigurh resemble Nietzsche's overman beyond "existing outside of conventional morality"? I would say none, and even your one association requires an interpretation of his philosophy completely free of nuance.

[origami_mustache]

I thought it was more about focusing on the stuff that the average crime drama glosses over, to show the lateral human thinking process behind it. Same goes with the bullet dressing scene and the hotel room picking.

I like this idea and I think this goes along with the deconstruction process as well. I suppose you could also throw in the two characters nursing their wounds; Bardem's trip to the pharmacy along with Brolin buying the jacket and passing out on the pavement.

[Bosco B Thug]

I like this idea and I think this goes along with the deconstruction process as well. I suppose you could also throw the two characters nursing their wounds; Bardem's trip to the pharmacy along with Brolin buying the jacket and passing out on the pavement. Yeah, that, and I think it wanted to make a point of how Brolin's character is way over his head, both pragmatically and philosophically, compared to Bardem. Ponderously following their movements conveyed a lot about how they both seem to be "going through the motions," competently, but Brolin's somewhat lost, doesn't clearly know why he's doing what he's doing (unlike Bardem), and is thinking excessively (thus the whole process to come up with a simple drawing hook and stick).


I thought it was a great film, but I really do agree with you here. I read this scene in the book with what felt like a bowling ball in the pit of my stomach. I knew it was coming because I knew how Chigurh operates, and I really dreaded it. In the movie... not so much. This also goes for the scene with Chigurh and Carson. Maybe it's the lack of McCarthy's creepily mundane description of his brains on the wall, but these scenes just weren't disturbing enough. They went with the shock&jump-kill, off-screen, and it just seemed like something of a copout to me.
Yeah, the film definitely toned down the book's graphic dispatchments, though I suppose I was too busy being grateful to notice it being less effective.

I'm really curious how I'd see the film without reading the book. The power of the book came from the shock of its subversion of expected developments, and I wonder if the film provokes viewers to expect conventional plot developments or if the piece-meal, unhurried structure and pacing tipped people off to its unconventional story.

I especially wonder if non-readers of the book expected the Carson Wells character to be removed from the picture so quickly.

Also, has anyone mentioned that the film excised the extended run-in with Moss and a girl hitchhiker? I was looking forward to that scene and their casual exchange, and I think it would've added to the picture before he leaves it.

And I don't know if it's again a side effect of having read the book, but was Ed Tom really that absent from the first 2/3rds? I felt like the film was structured to have him in, like, every two or three scenes.

[Melville]

Nietzsche was not perfect, but I usually take it upon myself to defend him when need be. In what way does Chigurh resemble Nietzsche's overman beyond "existing outside of conventional morality"? I would say none, and even your one association requires an interpretation of his philosophy completely free of nuance.
Indeed. Nietzsche's overman dances and laughs. Plus, Nietzsche thought that Goethe was the closest thing to an existent overman... and I don't see much resemblance between Goethe and Chigurh. If anything, Chigurh resembles Nietzsche's "blond beast," not his overman; but even that is a huge stretch.

[Melville]

My friend and I were discussing the film, and we both enjoyed it, but he brought up the point that he felt the film could have been tightened up, by trimming some areas. In particular he mentioned the sequence where
Llewelyn (Brolin) buys the tent poles and proceeds to go through an elaborate process merely to make something to reach through the vents to get the briefcase. I argued that the scene was obviously an intentional tension builder, but more than that essential to the genre deconstruction and overall structure of the film. As we watch in anticipation wondering what Brolin is going to do with the tent poles, we are eventually let down when we discover their actual use. I wondered if anyone else had any thoughts about this one way or another?
I thought it helped build tension, but, like Rowland, I'm not sure why one would be let down by what Brolin does with the tent poles.

[baby doll]

Nietzsche was not perfect, but I usually take it upon myself to defend him when need be. In what way does Chigurh resemble Nietzsche's overman beyond "existing outside of conventional morality"? I would say none, and even your one association requires an interpretation of his philosophy completely free of nuance.You're quite right about my interpretation lacking nuance. I've only taken one philosophy course in my life and I got a D, so don't expect me to know much about metaphysics.

[lovejuice]

ok, after sitting on it one night, i'll say i like the tensions. the movie is expertly directed in that respect. this is surprisingly the brothers' only third film i've seen, and i still cannot get the hang of cohenism. i enjoy the narrative deconstruction; the genre-bending and the way they play with our expectation. yet i can't see how they add up to the theme or the story.

i still regard it as a great movie. perhaps not my cup of tea. that's all.

[Melville]

i enjoy the narrative deconstruction; the genre-bending and the way they play with our expectation. yet i can't see how they add up to the theme or the story.
Yeah, my thoughts exactly.

[baby doll]

i enjoy the narrative deconstruction; the genre-bending and the way they play with our expectation. yet i can't see how they add up to the theme or the story.Yeah, I was looking at Jonathan Rosenbaum's review of Barton Fink in which he describes it as a kind of Jodorowsky-esque midnight movie: lots of neat effects with no attempt at coherence. It's been too long since I've seen the film to know if I agree, but it's definitely an opinion worth thinking about if only for its larger implications.

[lovejuice]

Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) - 8.5

just to streth this discussion further, joe's a master of genre-bending and fourth-wall-breaking. tropical malady is, i think, a more accomplished piece than no country for old men for what the film-makers're trying to do. The tone shift comes right in the middle, so we have time to cherish the effect of narrative deconstruction. the last quarter of no country for old men feels more like a never-ending coda.

i criticize this film with much reserve because i haven't read the novel. perhaps all cohen's do might simply be a forward adaptation.

[Rowland]

Regarding all this talk of genre-deconstruction, I'm always a bit weary when this comes up a lot, if only because people tend to use it as an argument as if the very fact that it's (arguably) genre-deconstruction is an immediate self-justification.

I loved the hell out of Barton Fink when I saw it a few years ago... I thought it added up just fine.

[Melville]

just to streth this discussion further, joe's a master of genre-bending and fourth-wall-breaking. tropical malady is, i think, a more accomplished piece than no country for old men for what the film-makers're trying to do. The tone shift comes right in the middle, so we have time to cherish the effect of narrative deconstruction. the last quarter of no country for old men feels more like a never-ending coda.
Definitely. I think the last section of No Country would be better if it were either longer or shorter.


i criticize this film with much reserve because i haven't read the novel. perhaps all cohen's do might simply be a forward adaptation.
I think that Robby P. and Raiders convincingly argued that the novel's tonal shift is more meaningful and well justified.


Regarding all this talk of genre-deconstruction, I'm always a bit weary when this comes up a lot, if only because people tend to use it as an argument as if the very fact that it's (arguably) genre-deconstruction is an immediate self-justification.
Agreed. I'm all for genre deconstruction, but only (or at least primarily) if it ties in with a film's thematic goals.


I loved the hell out of Barton Fink when I saw it a few years ago... I thought it added up just fine.
Me too. Although I can't remember that movie all that well.


Edit: after thinking a bit more about genre deconstruction, I retract my above statement. Any true deconstruction is already thematized, so it will inherently tie in with the the film's thematic goals. What I don't necessarily like is a film just playing with genre for no particular reason.

[origami_mustache]

I thought it helped build tension, but, like Rowland, I'm not sure why one would be let down by what Brolin does with the tent poles.

I was just speaking hypothetically, not that I was personally "let down," but my friend apparently was. I suppose he felt cheated by the lack of payoff in terms of action or violence? I enjoyed it as a sort of misdirection tactic.

[megladon8]

I thought it was very good.

I'm still letting it sink in, and while I'd really like to watch both of them again (because of my friends and their overly obvious signals of boredom), I actually think I liked The Mist more than this.

The dialogue was great and morbidly witty. The acting was all top notch, as well - Bardem was genuinely frightening.

But there were times when I felt it dragged a wee bit. It's funny because while I say that, I do admit there's not really anything I think could be removed from the film.

Overall it was a very good movie, and the Coen brothers may have finally won me over.

[Ezee E]

I thought it was very good.

I'm still letting it sink in, and while I'd really like to watch both of them again (because of my friends and their overly obvious signals of boredom), I actually think I liked The Mist more than this.

The dialogue was great and morbidly witty. The acting was all top notch, as well - Bardem was genuinely frightening.

But there were times when I felt it dragged a wee bit. It's funny because while I say that, I do admit there's not really anything I think could be removed from the film.

Overall it was a very good movie, and the Coen brothers may have finally won me over.
Finally? What's wrong with you?

[megladon8]

Finally? What's wrong with you?


I'm not a Coens fan at all.

I've seen almost all of their movies, and the only ones I find particularly great are The Big Lebowski and Fargo. I remember liking Barton Fink as well, but it's been so long I can't say for certain.

I've never understood why they are considered so special.

But, I can now add No Country For Old Men to that list.

[Ezee E]

I'm not a Coens fan at all.

I've seen almost all of their movies, and the only ones I find particularly great are The Big Lebowski and Fargo. I remember liking Barton Fink as well, but it's been so long I can't say for certain.

I've never understood why they are considered so special.

But, I can now add No Country For Old Men to that list.
I wish I was more of an asshole then I already was, because I would neg rep you for not liking Coen's. Hell, I can understand not liking Scorsese films, but Coen movies?

Nothing is justified.

[number8]

There's something wrong with somebody who doesn't like Miller's Crossing.

[megladon8]

There's something wrong with somebody who doesn't like Miller's Crossing.

By my count, Miller's Crossing and Intolerable Cruelty are the only Coen films I have not seen.



I wish I was more of an asshole then I already was, because I would neg rep you for not liking Coen's. Hell, I can understand not liking Scorsese films, but Coen movies?

Um...are you talking about someone else? Because I definitely like Scorsese.

And go ahead and neg rep me for it, I figure this is where rep is going ot end up anyways.

I already got negative repped for my post about not liking Heroes.

[Ezee E]

I didn't say you didn't like Scorsese. I can understand why someone in general may not like Scorsese. They're insane, but I can understand.

[DavidSeven]

Good film. It's certainly no less than a three star picture. However, it's not on the level of a Fargo or a Miller's Crossing. The whole thing wears a bit thin toward the end as feelings of repetitiveness and predictability become more palpable. The first chunk of the film is some great cinema though. There's some great detail work by the Coens. In relation to their other work, it's a worthy addition, but still falls somewhere in the middle of the pack.

[Raiders]

Good film. It's certainly no less than a three star picture. However, it's not on the level of a Fargo or a Miller's Crossing. The whole thing wears a bit thin toward the end as feelings of repetitiveness and predictability become more palpable. The first chunk of the film is some great cinema though. There's some great detail work by the Coens. In relation to their other work, it's a worthy addition, but still falls somewhere in the middle of the pack.

Predictable in what sense? Narratively? The inevitability of the film's narrative is almost the entire point of the film.

[megladon8]

I thought there was a lot of clever dialogue that was quite funny.

Even just the moment when Llewelyn gets home with the money, sits down and tells his wife that "if [she] keeps on nagging, [he'll] have to take her in the back and screw her".

It's written well and the acting was fantastic from everyone involved - with dialogue like that, the delivery is almost everything.

[Mysterious Dude]

My favorite exchange:

- "Where'd you get that pistol?"
- "The gettin' place."

[megladon8]

My favorite exchange:

- "Where'd you get that pistol?"
- "The gettin' place."


:)

Yeh that was great.

There's a lot of very clever dialogue.

And Bardem was very frightening. He did a really great job.

[number8]

I laughed out loud when Llewelyn walked into a clothing store in his hospital gown.

"You get many people walkin' in here with no clothes on?"
"No, sir. It's unusual."

[Watashi]

My favorite exchange:

"Sir, that's a dead dog."
"Yes. Yes, it is."

[Milky Joe]

"Ah, hells bells, they even shot the dawg."

Garret Dillahunt should play a part in every movie, I think.

[Sycophant]

I can't think of a film where I've spent so much of it laughing while simultaneously consumed by dread and a pervasive ickiness.

[Sven]

I can't think of a film where I've spent so much of it laughing while simultaneously consumed by dread and a pervasive ickiness.

That's, like, almost exactly what Kristen said.

[Mal]

Simply put, I dug it. The camera work was fantastic... and Josh Brolin was awesome. But goddamn Javier Bardem... I doubt I'll ever look at him the same.

[DavidSeven]

Predictable in what sense? Narratively? The inevitability of the film's narrative is almost the entire point of the film.

You can convey fatefulness without being predictable. That's like saying a film has to be mind-numbingly boring to be about monotony. The predictability and the repetitiveness of the latter part of this film doesn't necessarily come from the narrative itself anyway. I'd say it has more to do with the progress (or lack of) in these characters. No one changes in this; they just die or they don't. Perhaps that is the point of this whole thing, but if you know how every character is going to act and react from scene to scene, it's going to get wearisome after a while.

[Spun Lepton]

I hate it when movies have "feelings of predictability" ... I tend to leave the auditorium and buy feelings of sodability.

[Ezee E]

I never really felt that No Country was predictable. Once we understood that Anton killed anyone that got in his path, we no longer saw him kill. It just cut to the next scene.

[number8]

I never really felt that No Country was predictable. Once we understood that Anton killed anyone that got in his path, we no longer saw him kill. It just cut to the next scene.

Not true. They showed him killing the Mexicans in the hotel room and Woody Harrelson. Llewelyn was a complete omission and the hotel manager was simply a scene dressing. The only time they really cut to the next scene was with Llewelyn's wife.

[megladon8]

While the actual cold-blooded killing done by Anton was quite frightening, I actually found the discussions of him and his ominous past to be scarier than anything that was actually shown.

I particularly liked when Woody Harrelson came to the hospital to see Llewelyn, and said something along the lines of "...even if you give him back the money in full, he'll kill you just for the inconvenience."

I thought that line was really effective in showing just how much of a threat Anton posed to these people.

[Rowland]

The discussion rages on:

http://glennkenny.premiere.com/blog/2007/11/a-ghost-and-a-d.html

[Rowland]

Charlie Rose discussion with the Coens, Bardem, and Brolin:

http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2007/11/16/1/a-discussion-about-the-film-no-country-for-old-men

[Raiders]

The discussion rages on:

http://glennkenny.premiere.com/blog/2007/11/a-ghost-and-a-d.html

Yeah, he points out the one scene I think that I remember above all others in the film.

It is left ambiguous whether Chigurh is actually in the motel room when Bells breaks in. There's a build up, possibly in Bell's mind, of a showdown--of finally catching up to the killer, stopping him and proving that justice can be served. But, the scene is as anti-heroic as you can get, Bell's deflated look is agonizing, and Chigurh's bizarre disappearance begs the question whether he was ever there or not.

[Milky Joe]

I thought it was pretty clear that Chigurh was inside the room, hiding behind the door. You can see his reflection in the blown out keyhole (and so could Bell) just before Bell enters the room, just like Chigurh can see Bell's reflection from inside. I thought the ensuing shot of the heads up coin was indicative of Bell's fate, much like it was for the gas station clerk at the beginning. Bell knows he is in the room, but he apparently pretends to not see him, just as Chigurh would have it, and thus he lives.

[Raiders]

I thought it was pretty clear that Chigurh was inside the room, hiding behind the door. You can see his reflection in the blown out keyhole (and so could Bell) just before Bell enters the room, just like Chigurh can see Bell's reflection from inside. I thought the ensuing shot of the heads up coin was indicative of Bell's fate, much like it was for the gas station clerk at the beginning. Bell knows he is in the room, but he apparently pretends to not see him, just as Chigurh would have it, and thus he lives.

The coin was heads up? I didn't even notice. I thought it was just the dime used to open the air vent. Also, Bell doesn't see Chigurh in the reflection, otherwise he would have known he was behind the door. Besides, how could Bell have won a coin toss he didn't call?

[Rowland]

I thought it was pretty clear that Chigurh was inside the room, hiding behind the door. You can see his reflection in the blown out keyhole (and so could Bell) just before Bell enters the room, just like Chigurh can see Bell's reflection from inside. I thought the ensuing shot of the heads up coin was indicative of Bell's fate, much like it was for the gas station clerk at the beginning. Bell knows he is in the room, but he apparently pretends to not see him, just as Chigurh would have it, and thus he lives.http://glennkenny.premiere.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/11/24/nc_ending_5.jpg

I think it's safe to assume that the coin was used to remove the screws from the screen. If the coin was used to decide Bell's fate, how would it be over there if Chigurh was hiding next to the door (which I don't believe he was)? Besides, I'm pretty sure he only uses the coin toss when directly addressing someone. And no, I don't think Bell sees Chigurh's reflection. The room was pitch black.

[Milky Joe]

The coin was heads up. It was the dime used to open the air vent, but I'm seeing it here as serving a plot point but also as a sort of symbol at the same time. It is the last image in the scene, and it fades out on it, so I don't think it's too much of a stretch. I'm not suggesting that Bell won an actual coin toss. And I think Bell did see Chigurh, and I think he did know exactly where Chigurh was, which is why he made a point of throwing the door open the way he did. It's definitely ambiguous, but that was my interpretation.

[Rowland]

No way did Bell know Chigurh was in there, let alone that he was behind the door. That's just silly. Why include the shot of Bell checking the bathroom window, which is locked from the inside? The point of the scene is that Bell finds an empty room, deduces where the money was, realizes that it was taken, and essentially admits defeat.

[megladon8]

I'm definitely in the "Chigurh was in the room" camp.

[Milky Joe]

Maybe you're right, Rowland, but I don't think it's as clear-cut as you describe. I thought this on my first viewing, and I was watching specifically for it on my 2nd viewing and came to the same conclusion. Just watch the shots of Bell approaching the door, looking at the keyhole, seeing the reflection, cut to Chigurh inside the room, looking at Bell's reflection in the keyhole, then back to Bell who is visibly scared to death, he pulls his gun out for the first time in the film, then enters the room by throwing open the door which just awkwardly clanks against the "wall" without bouncing back, and then he makes no attempt to check behind the door where he knows Chigurh is hiding. If I'm right, it certainly changes Bell's stance as a cowardly figure.

[Rowland]

Maybe you're right, Rowland, but I don't think it's as clear-cut as you describe. I thought this on my first viewing, and I was watching specifically for it on my 2nd viewing and came to the same conclusion. Just watch the shots of Bell approaching the door, looking at the keyhole, seeing the reflection, cut to Chigurh inside the room, looking at Bell's reflection in the keyhole, then back to Bell who is visibly scared to death, he pulls his gun out for the first time in the film, then enters the room by throwing open the door which just awkwardly clanks against the "wall" without bouncing back, and then he makes no attempt to check behind the door where he knows Chigurh is hiding. If I'm right, it certainly changes Bell's stance as a cowardly figure.I think it's more poignant that he goes in not knowing what to expect. Granted, he clearly senses something, but I don't believe he knows Chigurh is in there. Would he really slump down on the bed all casually like that if he knew Chigurh was hiding behind the door? The very notion of this scenario is silly.

[megladon8]

They see each other in the blasted-out lock of the door. I really don't see how that can be debated...they do.

And I saw it as Bell just gracefully sitting down and accepting his fate. He knew how dangerous Chigurh was, and figured since he's this close to him he's going to die.

[Milky Joe]

They see each other in the blasted-out lock of the door. I really don't see how that can be debated...they do.

And I saw it as Bell just gracefully sitting down and accepting his fate. He knew how dangerous Chigurh was, and figured since he's this close to him he's going to die.

Exactly. It's Bell confronting everything he'd basically been trying to avoid the whole film/life: Chigurh/death. He doesn't go in and try to surprise Chigurh, which would have surely gotten him killed. He goes in, and pretends not to see Chigurh, which is all Chigurh wants out of anybody, apparently, as indicated by the scene in the corporate office ("That depends... do you see me?" and the kids at the end). Bell takes a chance, rolls the dice, flips the coin, if you will, and wins.

[Rowland]

They see each other in the blasted-out lock of the door. I really don't see how that can be debated...they do.Of course it can be debated. What are we doing? Even if he does see Chigurh, he searches the room and doesn't find him. Why would he search the room if he knows Chigurh is crouched behind the door? I think it's more interesting to just accept Chigurh as disappearing. Imagining Chigurh squished behind the door is kinda hilarious.


And I saw it as Bell just gracefully sitting down and accepting his fate. He knew how dangerous Chigurh was, and figured since he's this close to him he's going to die.No, he was accepting that he has lost, that he isn't up to the challenge. He is officially outmoded. This is why he seeks console in the next scene. Why would it just fade out if he was sitting down waiting to be killed? That doesn't make any sense.

[megladon8]

Exactly. It's Bell confronting everything he'd basically been trying to avoid the whole film/life: Chigurh/death. He doesn't go in and try to surprise Chigurh, which would have surely gotten him killed. He goes in, and pretends not to see Chigurh, which is all Chigurh wants out of anybody, apparently, as indicated by the scene in the corporate office ("That depends... do you see me?" and the kids at the end). Bell takes a chance, rolls the dice, flips the coin, if you will, and wins.


Yes, definitely. And this scene ties into several pieces of dialogue from earlier in the film - as you said, that Chigurh only seems to kill those that have seen him. Also, the conversation between Chigurh and Carla Jean, when she says that it doesn't matter what side of the coin comes up, because in the end, it's his choice that decides the matter.

This is a theme that runs through the whole film, beginning with Llewelyn's choosing to take the money from the crime scene.

[megladon8]

Of course it can be debated. What are we doing? Even if he does see Chigurh, he searches the room and doesn't find him. Why would he search the room if he knows Chigurh is crouched behind the door? I think it's more interesting to just accept Chigurh as disappearing. Imagining Chigurh squished behind the door is kinda hilarious.

He was acting. He knew Chigurh was there, and he was just trying to add to the illusion that he didn't know Chigurh was there, hoping against hope that Chigurh would spare him...which he did.



No, he was accepting that he has lost, that he isn't up to the challenge. He is officially outmoded. This is why he seeks console in the next scene. Why would it just fade out if he was sitting down waiting to be killed? That doesn't make any sense.

I have to see the movie again because I don't quite remember the sequence of events leading to the final fade.

But I definitely believe he was expecting to be killed.

[Raiders]

:|

He does. not. see. him.

I don't even see how this is debatable. What light is Chigurh reflecting? The film makes a point of showing Bell's reflection, but it never does for Chigurh.

[DavidSeven]

He's not even in the room.

[Milky Joe]

Imagining Chigurh squished behind the door is kinda hilarious.

Indeed. And so is Chigurh squished between those two assholes in the truck, who he blithely murders moments later.


I don't even see how this is debatable. What light is Chigurh reflecting? The film makes a point of showing Bell's reflection, but it never does for Chigurh.

You can clearly see his reflection in the brass of the missing lock, as well as the light on his face in the shot of him inside the room.

[Rowland]

:|

He does. not. see. him.

I don't even see how this is debatable. What light is Chigurh reflecting? The film makes a point of showing Bell's reflection, but it never does for Chigurh.Thank you.

[megladon8]

:|

He does. not. see. him.

I don't even see how this is debatable. What light is Chigurh reflecting? The film makes a point of showing Bell's reflection, but it never does for Chigurh.


I disagree. Completely. :)

[Spun Lepton]

Bell does not see Chigurh in the motel room.

[Ezee E]

Bell never sees him, but I do suspect that someone is there. Whether it be in that room or the one next to it, there is someone around. He doesn't do a detailed look as he simply looks in the bathroom and that's it. He gets scared, and sits down, basically conceding it, while never finding him.

I'm still curious about the extended shot on the bathroom window.

[Rowland]

I'm still curious about the extended shot on the bathroom window.That was to emphasize the window being locked from the inside, so Chigurh could not have escaped through there. We are meant to be looking for him, just as Bell is, but he has vanished, like a ghost.

[Ezee E]

That was to emphasize the window being locked from the inside, so Chigurh could not have escaped through there. We are meant to be looking for him, just as Bell is, but he has vanished, like a ghost.
I also considered the thought that while Bell was in the bathroom, Chigurh quickly leaves. Does he ever kill a cop in the movie?

[Sycophant]

I also considered the thought that while Bell was in the bathroom, Chigurh quickly leaves. Does he ever kill a cop in the movie?
The first kill of the film, if I remember correctly.

[Ezee E]

The first kill of the film, if I remember correctly.
::smacks head::

Duh.

[megladon8]

I didn't even notice but this discussion of whether or not Bell saw Chigurh isn't really what I was trying to say at all.

I may be mistaken about the keyhole shot and whether Bell saw Chigurh...my point was that I believe Chigurh was really there.

[ledfloyd]

i thought chigurh was in the next room. this scene plays out differently in the book. it's somewhat interesting to compare the two. i'll hold off on the spoilers though. you guys have me wanting to see it again now. but i don't see any possible way bell knew chigurh was in there.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Brilliant. Just brilliant. Captured all the themes of fate and faith in McCarthy's novel.

Oh, and you clearly see Chigurh's head in the reflection of the missing lock, and you even see it move slightly. I went to see it with my dad and he noticed it as well. Now, whether he was in the other room and that shot was just to fuck with you, I don't know. If he was in the room that Bell entered, Bell had no clue he was there.

[megladon8]

Brilliant. Just brilliant. Captured all the themes of fate and faith in McCarthy's novel.

Oh, and you clearly see Chigurh's head in the reflection of the missing lock, and you even see it move slightly. I went to see it with my dad and he noticed it as well. Now, whether he was in the other room and that shot was just to fuck with you, I don't know. If he was in the room that Bell entered, Bell had no clue he was there.


Ding Ding Ding!

Thank you. I knew I wasn't just hallucinating that his reflection was in the lock as well.

[Raiders]

Brilliant. Just brilliant. Captured all the themes of fate and faith in McCarthy's novel.

Oh, and you clearly see Chigurh's head in the reflection of the missing lock, and you even see it move slightly. I went to see it with my dad and he noticed it as well. Now, whether he was in the other room and that shot was just to fuck with you, I don't know. If he was in the room that Bell entered, Bell had no clue he was there.

:|

I watched it again and saw nothing of Chigurh. The only reflection I saw was Bell's.

[Kurosawa Fan]

:|

I watched it again and saw nothing of Chigurh. The only reflection I saw was Bell's.

There isn't a doubt in my mind. The outline of that goofy haircut was as clear as day, and I hadn't read this thread and knew nothing of this discussion.

[Rowland]

Captured all the themes of fate and faith in McCarthy's novel. What themes of faith were there?

[Kurosawa Fan]

What themes of faith were there?

Well, for most of the film/book, it's a lack of faith. Faith in humanity and faith in God. Bell talks about the assumption that as he grew older God would have become closer to him, but how that hadn't happened. The darkness of humanity around him as he aged has shut him off from his faith in a higher power. But after he retires, he recounts a dream of his father carrying fire on a horse, riding into the darkness. And that he knew that when it was his turn to step into darkness his father would be waiting there. That speaks to me as someone who is rediscovering their faith, and that this is God reaching out to him.

I think the book and the film has the two opposing forces. Chigurh represents fate and the chaos and fragility of life. Bell comes to represent faith in God. These two confront each other in that motel room. I think Chigurh was behind that door, and he couldn't bring himself to come out and gun Bell down. For Bell, it was faith in himself and the good of his profession that gave him the courage to walk through that door and confront the possibility of Chigurh. It was the last brave act he had in him, and faith was stronger than fate. Afterward, away from the constant reminder of how ugly human nature can be, Bell found the sign of God he was looking for.

[Rowland]

Maybe I'm just cynical, but I took the last line "and then I woke up" as driving home the point that his dream was just that... a dream, no more. But I suppose that wouldn't negate the reading of his dream as a reaffirmation of faith, as faith itself is intangible.

[Raiders]

If I remember correctly, the line "then I woke up" is not in the book. I think the Coens added this line.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Maybe I'm just cynical, but I took the last line "and then I woke up" as driving home the point that his dream was just that... a dream, no more. But I suppose that wouldn't negate the reading of his dream as a reaffirmation of faith, as faith itself is intangible.

Even if this is true, just because Bell hasn't regained his faith after one dream doesn't mean the process hasn't started. The dream was powerful enough for him to repeat it to his wife, even though, by his own admission, dreams usually don't mean anything to anyone other than the one who dreamed it. The line of communication was opened with that dream, and Bell is in a place now where he's more able to accept it.

[ledfloyd]

If I remember correctly, the line "then I woke up" is not in the book. I think the Coens added this line.
i reread the book last weekend. "then i woke up" was definitely there.

i took it to mean the same thing rowland did. but i'm also a cynic.

if it is interpreted as a sign of hope, it's a very faint one. but i guess a faint glimpse of hope is enough to keep you going sometimes.

[Rowland]

Even if this is true, just because Bell hasn't regained his faith after one dream doesn't mean the process hasn't started. The dream was powerful enough for him to repeat it to his wife, even though, by his own admission, dreams usually don't mean anything to anyone other than the one who dreamed it. The line of communication was opened with that dream, and Bell is in a place now where he's more able to accept it.I guess you can read it that way, but it strikes me as sort of hopeless. The only light he sees in this world of oppressive darkness is the torch his father has carried into the next life, waiting for him... and even that bit of hope is now reserved for dreams.

[Raiders]

i reread the book last weekend. "then i woke up" was definitely there.

It didn't feel right it not being there, but for some reason I just didn't remember it in the book.

[Kurosawa Fan]

I guess you can read it that way, but it strikes me as sort of hopeless. The only light he sees in this world of oppressive darkness is the torch his father has carried into the next life, waiting for him... and even that bit of hope is reserved for dreams.

But we aren't talking about hope for this world, but hope for a world after death, for eternal life. That God is still there.

[Rowland]

But we aren't talking about hope for this world, but hope for a world after death, for eternal life. That God is still there.Does he talk about God much in the film? I thought it was more about the past as myth, an idealized time for old men who can no longer handle what the world deals them. He grows to realize that he can't make a difference, and worst of all, that the past was no different for his beloved "old-timers". His faith in his father (and what he represents) as a torch-bearer has been shattered. All that exists now is reality, and he has "lost", as the first dream signifies. I don't see any hope, whether for this world or the next, in that last jarring cut to black.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Does he talk about God much in the film? I thought it was more about the past as myth, an idealized time for old men who can no longer handle what the world deals them. He grows to realize that he can't make a difference, and worst of all, that the past was no different for his beloved "old-timers". His faith in his father (and what he represents) as a torch-bearer has been shattered. All that exists now is reality, and he has "lost", as the first dream signifies. I don't see any hope, whether for this world or the next, in that last jarring cut to black.

You and I have different outlooks on the message of that dream. Simple as that. He speaks about God and his feelings of rejection with his friend after everything is over. It's no coincidence that the final speech in the film is about a symbolic dream about death (darkness) and his father carrying the fire, waiting for him, nor is it a coincidence that this dream takes place after he's left the pain of that profession. That dream speaks of an afterlife to me, that death isn't the end, and that there's more waiting in the darkness. Seems fairly straight-forward to me. And sure, as I said, he may not be totally convinced after one dream that there is life after death (who would be?), but it's a step in the right direction.

[Duncan]

A film that offers no hope for this world, regardless of whether or not it offers hope for another, is still pretty worthless as far as I'm concerned.

[Rowland]

You and I have different outlooks on the message of that dream. Simple as that. He speaks about God and his feelings of rejection with his friend after everything is over. It's no coincidence that the final speech in the film is about a symbolic dream about death (darkness) and his father carrying the fire, waiting for him, nor is it a coincidence that this dream takes place after he's left the pain of that profession. That dream speaks of an afterlife to me, that death isn't the end, and that there's more waiting in the darkness. Seems fairly straight-forward to me. And sure, as I said, he may not be totally convinced after one dream that there is life after death (who would be?), but it's a step in the right direction.Oh, the dream is surely about death. I just don't see it as the symbol for a reaffirmation in faith, is all. Rather, I see it as the death spasm.

[Kurosawa Fan]

A film that offers no hope for this world, regardless of whether or not it offers hope for another, is still pretty worthless as far as I'm concerned.

I think it speaks more to what the world has to offer for, as the title says, old men, than it does anyone at all. It says more about how the "elderly" feel lost and forgotten. Wendell isn't nearly as affected by what he sees because his own mortality isn't confronting him like Bell's. He's the perfect contrast to Bell. It's the reason he exists in the story. He's eager, and while a bit dim-witted, he rolls with what he sees and wants to help. Bell resists at every turn. The story is about the futility Bell feels in his world, not the futility of the world in general.

[Raiders]

A film that offers no hope for this world, regardless of whether or not it offers hope for another, is still pretty worthless as far as I'm concerned.

I don't get this. Where does hope for the world come into the equation? Would you prefer a film that ignores evil or rather suggests evil and violence as something eventually tamed and gotten rid of altogether? This film is much more of a personal journey for Sheriff Bell. It is his character that changes. His character that ultimately must face that senseless violence does exist and heroism isn't always going to be a part of the solution. The title tells us everything. There is no country for old men, those with ideals of a simpler, easier time that likely never even existed.

Actually, if we are talking about the whole world, I find it quite hopeful that the film posits this violence and evil as constant forces of nature, always present from the start of things. Therefore in the end, nothing inherent in human behavior is different now than it was ages ago, and it will continue on. The individual may be unable to change and cope, but as a civilization we still manage to push ahead.

[Melville]

I don't see how the execution of that last scene can be interpreted as hopeful. Its overwhelming somberness, the "Then I woke up" line, and the sudden cut to black all paint a pretty damn gloomy picture. I also agree with Duncan that the fact that Bell's dream is specifically about flight from the world makes it somewhat bleak to begin with, even if the character is hopeful, or has the potential to become hopeful (although the look on his face certainly did not suggest that to me).

Edit: but I also agree with Raiders that this doesn't really make the film worthless. Why should a film have to offer hope to be of value?

[Kurosawa Fan]

I don't see how the execution of that last scene can be interpreted as hopeful. Its overwhelming somberness, the "Then I woke up" line, and the sudden cut to black all paint a pretty damn gloomy picture. I also agree with Duncan that the fact that Bell's dream is specifically about flight from the world makes it somewhat bleak to begin with, even if the character is hopeful, or has the potential to become hopeful (although the look on his face certainly did not suggest that to me).

Again, you seem to be approaching it from the view of the world rather than Bell's world. He's in the twilight of his years, nearing death with each day. I don't see anything more comforting than feeling that your father is waiting for you in that darkness. To me, that's hopeful.

[Raiders]

Again, you seem to be approaching it from the view of the world rather than Bell's world. He's in the twilight of his years, nearing death with each day. I don't see anything more comforting than feeling that your father is waiting for you in that darkness. To me, that's hopeful.

Well, yeah, but then he wakes up. If the film had ended with his dream, I would agree with you. But, it doesn't. It ends with his awakening from that dream. That paints a far less hopeful vision.

To me, the dream very much represents the childhood ideal, the father providing light at the end of a cold tunnel, that no matter how dark and bleak something appears, light (read: goodness) will always be there waiting at the end. But, after the story Ellis tells him and after having dealt first hand with a case as horrific, senseless and inevitable as this, Bell's ideals may ultimately be nothing more than a dream.

This is bleak and sad for Bell. But, I don't see how the world is affected. If anything, it as I said before, not the world that is in trouble, but the misguided ideals of those elderly men who hark back to times that never existed in the hope of securing an easy end to their days on earth.

However, one could also say that Bell's awakening from this dream could be a good and hopeful thing. I don't think disillusionment is necessarily a bad thing. It ain't a happy ending, but I think if we infer the meaning of Bell's waking up, then perhaps he can live in more clarity and realization of the world around him rather than cowardly walking through a dream, holding his father's days up as a beacon of light.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Well, yeah, but then he wakes up. If the film had ended with his dream, I would agree with you. But, it doesn't. It ends with his awakening from that dream. That paints a far less hopeful vision.

To me, the dream very much represents the childhood ideal, the father providing light at the end of a cold tunnel, that no matter how dark and bleak something appears, light (read: goodness) will always be there waiting at the end. But, after the story Ellis tells him and after having dealt first hand with a case as horrific, senseless and inevitable as this, Bell's ideals may ultimately be nothing more than a dream.

This is bleak and sad for Bell. But, I don't see how the world is affected. If anything, it as I said before, not the world that is in trouble, but the misguided ideals of those elderly men who hark back to times that never existed in the hope of securing an easy end to their days on earth.

However, one could also say that Bell's awakening from this dream could be a good and hopeful thing. I don't think disillusionment is necessarily a bad thing. It ain't a happy ending, but I think if we infer the meaning of Bell's waking up, then perhaps he can live in more clarity and realization of the world around him rather than cowardly walking through a dream, holding his father's days up as a beacon of light.

But you have to wake up from a dream, no? I didn't place nearly as much importance in that final line. Perhaps he was disappointed because he didn't want to wake up. He wants the peace he felt in that dream. Perhaps that's bleak for the time being, but when coupled with his conversation with his old friend who was shot in the line of duty, his attitude was that God had turned his back and there was nothing to look forward to in death as well as life. That dream contradicted that feeling.

[Melville]

Again, you seem to be approaching it from the view of the world rather than Bell's world. He's in the twilight of his years, nearing death with each day. I don't see anything more comforting than feeling that your father is waiting for you in that darkness. To me, that's hopeful.
Yes, we are definitely disagreeing about what is hopeful. If everybody ends up disillusioned and clinging to the hope of escaping from the world, I don't see much hope in such a picture. But my main point was that the execution of the scene itself evokes bleakness, regardless of whether you find the character's particular fate hopeful or not.

Regarding Raiders' interpretation, I'd say that the ending doesn't suggest that the world is in trouble (i.e. that trouble has come to the world as an external agent) but that world in itself is troubled.

[Melville]

That dream contradicted that feeling.
But what about the sudden cut to black? Doesn't that suggest a tone of finality? There's nothing "after" that; there's nowhere for the character to go, no open-endedness.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Regarding Raiders' interpretation, I'd say that the ending doesn't suggest that the world is in trouble (i.e. that trouble has come to the world as an external agent) but that world in itself is troubled.

Is this not true? Isn't the world troubled? Why does it bother you that that point of view is conveyed in the film?

Also, to me death is only a negative thing if you feel that there's nothing after death. Death is inevitable and coming to terms with death shouldn't be seen as a "hope of escaping this world". We're all escaping this world at some point, and seeing a fire in the darkness is a positive thing.

[Melville]

Is this not true? Isn't the world troubled? Why does it bother you that that point of view is conveyed in the film?

Also, to me death is only a negative thing if you feel that there's nothing after death. Death is inevitable and coming to terms with death shouldn't be seen as a "hope of escaping this world". We're all escaping this world at some point, and seeing a fire in the darkness is a positive thing.
It doesn't bother me at all. I don't think it's a problem that the movie ends on a bleak note. And it's only within the context of the movie that a transition to the next world seems negative. If Bell was just afraid of dying, then a dream of the next world would be hopeful. But Bell isn't afraid of dying, he's afraid of the world; he's not coming to terms with death, he's fleeing towards it.

[megladon8]

I really need to see this film again, because this entire discussion is going right over my head.

[Kurosawa Fan]

It doesn't bother me at all. I don't think it's a problem that the movie ends on a bleak note. And it's only within the context of the movie that a transition to the next world seems negative. If Bell was just afraid of dying, then a dream of the next world would be hopeful. But Bell isn't afraid of dying, he's afraid of the world; he's not coming to terms with death, he's fleeing towards it.

Oops. Sorry, it was Duncan who said the film had no value. I got a bit confused there. My apologies.

I don't know, I don't see it as fleeing life, more like fleeing his profession and the images that coincide with it. He's lost his sense of worth as a sheriff amid all the violence, but the endearing way he speaks of his wife on occasion throughout the film leads me to believe he hasn't given up on all of life, and isn't fleeing toward death. He can find peace on that ranch with her, away from the Chigurh's of the world, and he's beginning to find peace in death, as evidenced by the dream.

I don't know, perhaps I'm too big an optimist. I just didn't see that as bleak. Maybe another viewing will change my mind.

[Duncan]

I don't get this. Where does hope for the world come into the equation? When is it ever not part of the equation? What equation are you talking about?


Would you prefer a film that ignores evil or rather suggests evil and violence as something eventually tamed and gotten rid of altogether? No, and I never said that. But I do want a film with philosophical aspirations to give the world a fair treatment. This film does not. It's just one evil act after another. As I mentioned earlier, I honestly don't believe this film's morality is any more complex than Forrest Gump's. It's just at the other end of the scale.


This film is much more of a personal journey for Sheriff Bell. It is his character that changes. His character that ultimately must face that senseless violence does exist and heroism isn't always going to be a part of the solution. The title tells us everything. There is no country for old men, those with ideals of a simpler, easier time that likely never even existed. Bell barely changes at all. The only difference between Bell at the beginning and at the end is that at the end he's quit. His experience with Chigurh only reinforces what he already believes. I mean, his opening voice over is basically a microcosm of the whole film. Right from the beginning he's bewildered by that unconquerable evil.


Actually, if we are talking about the whole world, I find it quite hopeful that the film posits this violence and evil as constant forces of nature, always present from the start of things. Therefore in the end, nothing inherent in human behavior is different now than it was ages ago, and it will continue on. The individual may be unable to change and cope, but as a civilization we still manage to push ahead. Of course violence and evil have been present from the beginning. Sometimes these are even the very forces that push us ahead. What I'm saying is that, in this film's equation, all other forces are negligible. Which is ridiculous.

[Duncan]

Maybe I should clarify that by "hope" I don't mean I hope that good will prevail over evil, or something equally idealistic. Hope, for me, is merely one's faith in a perpetual interaction of good and evil. No Country for Old Men ends that interaction with Bell's retirement and final speech.

edit: Or maybe even before that with the uncalled coin flip.

[Spun Lepton]

First, I don't believe that the beacon, the fire his father will build is necessarily supposed to be in the afterlife. Bell never says his father is building the fire at the end of the path, just somewhere out there.

"...I knew that he was goin' on ahead and that he was fixin' to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold..."

If anything, this dream is a bleak look at life, not death. Bell has been travelling in this dark, hostile world, "hard country," keeping his father's spirit and hope along with him. The events in the film have caused he and his father's spirit to split off, he's lost his hope, but his father's spirit keeps forging ahead. Bell knows that up ahead, somehwere, his father will have created a beacon of hope for him to find.

"Then I woke up," is not a statement of hopelessness, it's one of doubt. He has been deeply scarred by the events of the story. But ... that doesn't mean he still doesn't have some hope.

And I don't think "faith" enters into this at all. The story is steeped in nihilism, a godless philosophy. Maybe my view on this will change after I read the book.

[Spun Lepton]

Bell barely changes at all. The only difference between Bell at the beginning and at the end is that at the end he's quit.

Bell's opening speech suggests that he thinks that the world is becoming worse and worse. He mentions how some lawmen back-in-the-day didn't even wear guns. Then he uses the story of the kid he sent to the electric chair as an example of how bad things have gotten recently.

At the end, he is resigned to the fact that the world has not actually changed, it's remained the same bleak and violent place it always has been. Along with that, he has outlived his usefulness ... if he ever was useful in the first place.

So, no, Bell changed dramatically.

[megladon8]

Bell revealed the basic premise of the film, which is where the title came from.

Anton not only represents the physical embodiment of violence and evil, but an enormous change in the world. In the days which Bell reminisces about, a man like Anton wouldn't have even existed - that incredible destructive, violent force would not have been a concern.

So, he is looking at how it really is no longer a country for old men, who grew up in a more innocent time.

So through this realization, yes, Bell changed quite a bit.

[Spun Lepton]

Anton not only represents the physical embodiment of violence and evil, but an enormous change in the world. In the days which Bell reminisces about, a man like Anton wouldn't have even existed - that incredible destructive, violent force would not have been a concern.

Chigurh represents what has always been in the world and will never cease to exist. Bell's uncle Ellis relates the story of Bell's other uncle who was gunned down on his front porch at the turn of the 20th century. Ellis suggests that what Bell has up until now viewed as a "new era" of violence is actually nothing new at all. The title isn't a reference to the changing times, but the way humans change with time.

[Rowland]

Bell revealed the basic premise of the film, which is where the title came from.

Anton not only represents the physical embodiment of violence and evil, but an enormous change in the world. In the days which Bell reminisces about, a man like Anton wouldn't have even existed - that incredible destructive, violent force would not have been a concern.

So, he is looking at how it really is no longer a country for old men, who grew up in a more innocent time.No... that's not right at all.

[megladon8]

It seems I'm pretty much always wrong about these things.

[Rowland]

First, I don't believe that the beacon, the fire his father will build is necessarily supposed to be in the afterlife. Bell never says his father is building the fire at the end of the path, just somewhere out there.

"...I knew that he was goin' on ahead and that he was fixin' to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold..."

If anything, this dream is a bleak look at life, not death. Bell has been travelling in this dark, hostile world, "hard country," keeping his father's spirit and hope along with him. The events in the film have caused he and his father's spirit to split off, he's lost his hope, but his father's spirit keeps forging ahead. Bell knows that up ahead, somehwere, his father will have created a beacon of hope for him to find.

"Then I woke up," is not a statement of hopelessness, it's one of doubt. He has been deeply scarred by the events of the story. But ... that doesn't mean he still doesn't have some hope.

And I don't think "faith" enters into this at all. The story is steeped in nihilism, a godless philosophy. Maybe my view on this will change after I read the book.That's an interesting interpretation, sort of a middle ground between the two sides being argued here. In any case, the dream still strikes me as a vision of death that can be extrapolated into signifying the world of oppressive darkness that Bell has navigated. And I agree that faith has nothing to do with it. In this movie's world, God is dead, and I didn't sense anything to suggest otherwise.

[Sycophant]

It seems I'm pretty much always wrong about these things.There's been some very nice elucidation of the wrongness of your point in the prior pages (I haven't jumped in much, but I'm loving this discussion, guys). However, the story that Bell's uncle relates about Bell's other uncle kind of undermines your theory.