1243 No Country for Old Men

[Steven H]

(There's a straw man argument hiding within the Seventh Seal comment. No one here has said anything negative about the ending of that film.)

don't think you know what that phrase means. Making an analogy to something outside the argument does not equal a straw man.

Maybe a little one, swimming around in there.

But completely dropping the character that they did, the way they did, felt like more of a gimmick than artistry.

Calling an ellipses or withholding information a gimmick is an attack on a heap of films that use similar methods of revealing information.

As for dropping it, you can't see how this could be a more powerful way of dealing with it? Instead of showing the umpteenth killing, doesn't it seem appropriate that they should be less and less important to show the details of by the end of the film? And that maybe a main character going out this way (which is most certainly made clear) counts as a spooky ellipses and not a "gimmick" (as if this is some sort of CGI talking turtle or the clock stopping in Hudsucker Proxy.)

Bardem's character has a strange moral compass, complete disregard for human life, and an almost supernatural ability of omnipotence and immortality. These aren't made clear, but Tommy Lee Jones senses it, and Brolin doesn't.

What? Those aren't made clear? Those are the only things made clear about him.

I meant they weren't made clear to the characters, and how they reacted to this enhanced them for me. We can go back and forth on this.

You could substitute anyone for Bardem in your statement, and the character would be equally as banal.

Lex Luthor's character has a strange moral compass, complete disregard for human life, and an almost supernatural ability of omnipotence and immortality.

How dare you call Lex Luthor banal! And he wasn't omnipotent, was he? I'm starting to bore myself.

[Jeff]

Making an analogy to something outside the argument does not equal a straw man.

It's not particularly useful though either, is it?

[Oedipax]

Oedipax posted an article last page posing the exact confusion about the way the death was handled. Odd angles never show the man's face. The fact that the scene is entirely omitted.

Well - it's a humorous article that's more about how this woman is exasperated by her husband's lack of comprehension of that scene. I don't think it's really saying the movie is incomprehensible. I mean, if it is, we might as well say a large cross-section of classic world cinema is total gibberish by comparison, which of course we don't, at least if we're not philistines. Although, in the course of writing the piece, it seems Nora Ephron has revealed a few of her own misunderstandings about the plot. Either that or, as some have argued for Alanis Morissette's "Ironic," she's in on the meta-joke as well.

[Antoine Doinel]

I couldn't get more than a quarter way through this conversation between Eli Roth and Josh Brolin, but Brolin shares that his audition for No Country For Old Men was filmed on the Grindhouse set, with Marley Shelton in the role of Kelly Jean and directed by Quentin Tarantino.

I kinda hope that ends up on the DVD.

[jorencain]

He tells that story on the Filmspotting podcast #185 too.

[Jeff]

A bunch of critics (and, um, Harry Knowles) discuss the film in a lengthy podcast.

[flyonthewall2983]

I need a few days to cool the jets before I can properly give an opinion of it, but I will say this. Spoilers for this and other films follow:

Spoiler

The last two films I remember being utterly stunned at a moment of onscreen action were A History of Violence and The Departed. The two scenes in question were Ed Harris's and Leo DiCaprio's deaths in each respective movie. David and Martin handled those scenes so wonderfully, that each time I see those scenes I appreciate the work that was put behind both films.

The Coen's did that with almost every violent sequence throughout. There are too many instances of this to point out now, but I imagine anyone whose seen it already knows what I'm talking about. It's not so much that they all were any huge surprise, though some were. It's just that the moment before impact happens, you don't see it coming at all.

[tavernier]

On his blog, Dave Kehr is not impressed:

Joel and Ethan Coen’s “No Country for Old Men” swept the New York Film Critics Circle awards yesterday, winning for picture, director, supporting actor (Javier Bardem, wearing one of June Allyson’s old wigs) and screenplay (by the Coens, working from a Cormac McCarthy novel). The picture itself is standard fare for the Coens — a series of condescending portraits of assorted hicks, who are then brutally murdered for our entertainment, like an Errol Morris documentary with extra added splatter effects. But this time the Coens have interpolated great chunks of McCarthy’s elegaic prose — mostly read out as monologues by Tommy Lee Jones, as the “old west” sheriff who feels overwhelmed by the evil of modern times — which adds some otherwise unearned gravitas to the proceedings. In matters of technique, “No Country” is highly accomplished: Roger Deakins, the Coens’ regular cinematographer, probably knows more about light than anyone alive, and the editing (credited to the brothers’ usual pseudonym, “Roderick Jaynes”) is brilliantly elliptical, always kicking the ball farther down the field than you expect and advancing the story by great, bounding leaps. But the Coens’ weltanschauung is as small and pinched as ever: this is a film that invites you to laugh at the choice of linoleum floor tile in a sheriff’s station even as the sheriff is being strangled on top of it. It’s disheartening to see this kind of facile cynicism become the default moral position of so many critics (the film also won the Boston and Washington, DC critics awards), particularly in a year when there is so much complex, considered cynicism readily available: “There Will Be Blood,” “Michael Clayton,” ”Beowulf,” “Sweeney Todd.”

[Marcel Gioberti]

He sees cynicism where I see honesty.

[essrog]

Who would actually think the Coens are trying to get the audience to laugh at the linoleum during the deputy's murder? Criticism like this makes it clear it doesn't matter to some people what the Coens do -- they will always be condescending aesthetes to them.

[jbeall]

Who would actually think the Coens are trying to get the audience to laugh at the linoleum during the deputy's murder? Criticism like this makes it clear it doesn't matter to some people what the Coens do -- they will always be condescending aesthetes to them.

No doubt. Did Kehr realize that the film is set in the early 80s? I didn't see any condescension on the part of the Coens; this is clearly a case where Kehr went into the theater determined to find condescension, and manufactured it instead of giving the movie a chance.

Also, "Beowulf" as complex cynicism??? Please.

[gubbelsj]

Yeah, laughing at the linoleum is definitely something that never crossed my mind. I did notice it, of course, as I noticed all of the other wonderful period touches the Coen Bros. added. In fact, I thought the sets and use of color in this film were fantastic, clearly setting it in a specific time and place. Anybody who has spent any time traveling through the poorer or more remote areas of the American West will recognize these types of motels, designs and interiors. I stayed in one just outside Yuma only a few months ago. Watching this film in the theater, I was struck by how closely my impressions of the motel's desolation were echoed by the urban landscapes in No Country For Old Men. There's a banal creepiness going on that doesn't strike me in any way as being mocking or disparaging. That's just the way West Texas looked and looks. There's plenty of arguments that I would consider hearing against this film, but I think Kehr is a little off the mark here. Did others feel the film's look was meant to inspire cynicism? I agree with Marcel Gioberti - the look of the film struck me as being pretty honest, if not stylised (and why shouldn't it be stylised somewhat?).

[chizbooga]

i loved this movie but it depressed the hell out of me, what with the languorous texan despair of it all. i don't think anyone with sense casts tommy lee jones as a character they intend to simply condescend to. or woody harrelson, or frances mcdormand.

[Noir of the Night]

On his blog, Dave Kehr is not impressed

If anything, I felt a sense of compassion for the so-called "hick" characters. And I don't understand how Kehr could possibly think that their murders are intended by the Coen Brothers to be "entertaining", in the traditional sense. Most of the violence in the film is stripped of stylization, build-up, drama, or anything like that. It exists as what it is--horrible violence. It was deeply haunting to me to see so many essentially good souls murdered by Chigurh for no reason. The casting is a big part of this, as most of the actors are naturally kind likable. I mean does anyone want to see Woody Harrelson get killed? Not I.

[Marcel Gioberti]

Keep in mind, another fault in Kehr's logic is in the depiction of Llewellyn and Carla Jean's deaths. Neither of them are killed on screen; they're off-camera and in the case of Carla Jean, we neither see nor hear gunshots. If I recall correctly, their respective corpses are also hidden from view.

[margot]

Agreed, souvenir, Chigurh backs down from her because she has a set of rules that she lives by and no one will persuade her otherwise. In fact, I would say that he grudgingly respects her for her stand.

I know this post is quite old and seemingly innocuous but I was re-reading this thread over and I can't bring myself to accept this explanation. I think that Chigurh backed down because he heard someone in the bathroom and wasn't properly equipped to kill two people.

[flyonthewall2983]

I actually agree with the other quote. Carla Jean caught him on his shit, and he wasn't able to do the job. It's not the fucking coin that pulls the trigger, it's him. And I like to think that towards the end, the events that transpired during the film makes Chigurh more reasonable, more aware of what he's done and more human. Not unlike Roy Batty at the end of Blade Runner. But instead of a moving speech, it's signified when Chigurh gives the kid the money for his shirt.

Then again, I'm optimistic to a fault on most things. The inherent darkness of this film is what makes it so appealing to me.

[chaddoli]

Wait, are you suggesting he didn't kill Carla Jean? I haven't read the book, but the wiping of his feet after he leaves the house signified to me that he did kill her.

I think too, that this is important because the "freak" car crash is a direct result of his action. Because he killed her, and he "shouldn't" have, he is punished, but allowed to escape due to the kindness of strangers.

[flyonthewall2983]

I haven't read the book, but the wiping of his feet after he leaves the house signified to me that he did kill her.

It could also suggest he stepped in dog shit.

[margot]

No he definitely killed her, notice how Chigurh puts his feet on the bed after he kills Carson? He clearly doesn't like getting dirty, and checking both his feet after he leaves the house does indeed more than imply that he killed Carla Jean.

Also in the book after he shoots the guy for his car in the beginning he explains that he told the guy to get out of the car because he didn't want to get blood on it. He also shoots Carla Jean in the book.

Also he pulls the shower curtain when he kills the mexican in the bathtub, he clearly doesn't like getting blood on himself.

[Jeff]

SPOILERS, OF COURSE

No he definitely killed her, notice how Chigurh puts his feet on the bed after he kills Carson? He clearly doesn't like getting dirty, and checking both his feet after he leaves the house does indeed more than imply that he killed Carla Jean.

Precisely. It's not literally spelled out like it is in the book, but I don't think it's left vague either. He kills her because he has to.

Here is the text from the novel (punctuation, or lack thereof, is McCarthy's):

She looked at him a final time. You dont have to, she said. You dont. You dont.

He shook his head. You're asking that I make myself vulnerable and that I can never do. I have only one way to live. It doesnt allow for special cases. A coin toss perhaps. In this case to small purpose. Most people don't believe that there can be such a person. You can see what a problem that must be for them. How to prevail over that which you refuse to acknowledge the existence of. Do you understand? When I came into your life your life was over. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is the end. You can say that things could have turned differently. That they could have been some other way. But what does that mean? They are not some other way. They are this way. You're asking that I second say the world. Do you see?

Yes, she said, sobbing. I do. I truly do.

Good, he said. That's good. Then he shot her.

[margot]

Something is bugging me about the money now, after Llewelyn gets killed in the motel and Bell goes back there and sits in the bed, there's a shot of the unscrewed vent but inside the vent there's a big circle (it isn't just an open vent like in the other motel) so how could Llewelyn have fit the satchel inside the vent? And how was Chigurh hiding in the vent if it wasn't open?

[Jeff]

The No Country FAQ at IMDb may clear up some of the confusion.

[pauling]

I know this post is quite old and seemingly innocuous but I was re-reading this thread over and I can't bring myself to accept this explanation. I think that Chigurh backed down because he heard someone in the bathroom and wasn't properly equipped to kill two people

Raoul, you may be correct in your interpretation. Chigurh no doubt had not planned to kill anyone when he went to inquire about Moss and he is obviously one to be thorough when doing anything. Having just read the book, after seeing the film, I'm even more convinced that Chigurh lead his life based on principle and that this woman, no matter how foolish it might seem to us the viewers (knowing Chigurh's abilities), challenged him based on her principles. Like I said, your point is valid as well. On an aside, I'm impressed at how well both the book and film worked for me on different levels. Typically, I've been loathe to reccomend a film version of a book but in this case I can get behind both versions.

[dx23]

DVD and Blu-Ray release announced at dvdactive.com:

Title: No Country for Old Men (IMDb)
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones
Released: 11th March 2008
SRP: $29.99

Further Details:
Buena Vista Home Entertainment has announced the critically acclaimed No Country for Old Men which stars Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin. This new film from Joel and Ethan Coen, will be available to own from the 11th March. Retail will be around $29.99. The film itself will be presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, along wit h an English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround track. According to our friends at TheDigitalBits.com, the only extra material will be 3 making of documentaries (Working with the Coens: Reflections of Cast and Crew, The Making of No Country for Old Men, and Diary of a Country Sheriff). A Blu-ray release will also be available for $34.99 with identical features. Artwork is attached.