No Country For Old Men (no spoilers)

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  • #46
    Re: No Country For Old Men (no spoilers)

    Originally posted by Adam Isaac View Post
    No, not within the boundaries of reality that this film set for itself.

    I think that's actually an adverse law in film physics...
    SPOILERS

    I disagree. The little I know of McCarthy's writing tells me that he works on a highly symbolic level as much as on a real one. Bardem's character is something larger than human, he's a one-man slaughterhouse who comes into people's lives, lets them gamble on their fate, then dispenses justice according to the contingencies of the situation. He can gain nothing from most of his kills. They are people whose time has, in his eyes, come. At the same time he's a serial killer on his way to find the dough within the structure of a kind of chase movie we're all familiar with. Those who stick with that paradigm find the ending unsatisfying.

    I personally didn't. Like all apt endings it had the lingering aftertaste of the inevitable.

    Tommy Lee Jones is a small-town sheriff with a philosophical bent who understands the nature of life and death in the wide-open spaces of West Texas, and who, in a sense, surrenders to the inevitability of where his own life is going. One day his chronology will intersect with Death, and whether it's dispensed by cancer or Javier Bardem is a matter of a coin-toss.

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    • #47
      Re: No Country For Old Men (no spoilers)

      Originally posted by SCRYPTREADER View Post
      I know it sounds silly and simplistic but if 100 people see a movie and only the 7 people who have finished usc film school enjoyed it, its unfair to call the other 93 people rubes or sheep or typical or anything derogatory.
      I don't think that anybody needs to be a film scholar to understand this film. Anybody can understand it. Whether or not they can be satisfied by it is a different story.

      If a mass audience can accept that they are walking into a Coen Bros. film and not a Brett Ratner film, then they should be able to enjoy this film. All of them.

      Ele...

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      • #48
        Re: No Country For Old Men (no spoilers)

        Originally posted by Jake Schuster View Post
        SPOILERS

        I disagree. The little I know of McCarthy's writing tells me that he works on a highly symbolic level as much as on a real one. Bardem's character is something larger than human, he's a one-man slaughterhouse who comes into people's lives, lets them gamble on their fate, then dispenses justice according to the contingencies of the situation. He can gain nothing from most of his kills. They are people whose time has, in his eyes, come. At the same time he's a serial killer on his way to find the dough within the structure of a kind of chase movie we're all familiar with. Those who stick with that paradigm find the ending unsatisfying.

        I personally didn't. Like all apt endings it had the lingering aftertaste of the inevitable.

        Tommy Lee Jones is a small-town sheriff with a philosophical bent who understands the nature of life and death in the wide-open spaces of West Texas, and who, in a sense, surrenders to the inevitability of where his own life is going. One day his chronology will intersect with Death, and whether it's dispensed by cancer or Javier Bardem is a matter of a coin-toss.

        That's just it though. Death always wins in the end...death loves gambling. It trumps taxes big time.

        Death is death. I find it very humanlike to a certain extent. The gambling is the game...that's how death lives; almost as if it needs or desires. That's quite an awesome little thought. This movie is obviously about a living death, but even if they didn't play the game...death is still death. Death is bored.
        Last edited by Adam Isaac; 11-19-2007, 02:41 PM.
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        • #49
          Re: No Country For Old Men (no spoilers)

          And as for the mass appeal vs arthouse or typical audience vs refined audience arguments, I am a firm believer that movies have to satisfy somebody other than the filmmaker... period. I know it sounds silly and simplistic but if 100 people see a movie and only the 7 people who have finished usc film school enjoyed it, its unfair to call the other 93 people rubes or sheep or typical or anything derogatory. Not when you knew going in as a filmmaker that only 7 people would get it.

          I would never call an audience member a sheep; however, I would call them twelves. They're the ones that make that matter the most; however, it's the elusive experience of beating both beasts(getting them all in-the first, and second-leave a lasting imprint in them). There can be no greater reward on this planet than that.

          Tough to hit that marker, and impossible to hit it everytime, but that's the point of all of this...you know, trying to find that point as much as possible. Maybe Jake's right, maybe you can kill death...you leave behind a legacy for the World to enjoy after you die...entertainment...pity this rarely happens to screenwriters. Die trying.
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          • #50
            Re: No Country For Old Men (no spoilers)

            Originally posted by Jake Schuster View Post
            I mean, you can't kill death, can you.

            Probably not, but you can try to avoid it or postpone it (obviously).


            Side Note: So, what does anyone think here: besides being a living/breathing symbol of death, is Chigurh just plain crazy or evil?

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            • #51
              Re: No Country For Old Men (no spoilers)

              Originally posted by j over View Post
              So, what does anyone think here: besides being a living/breathing symbol of death, is Chigurh just plain crazy or evil?
              I think it's what John Cage meant - "Praise God! The devil is on earth and doing his work beautifully!"

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              • #52
                Re: No Country For Old Men (no spoilers)

                Originally posted by mlongton View Post
                I think it's what John Cage meant - "Praise God! The devil is on earth and doing his work beautifully!"

                So, you're siding with the evil verdict then?

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                • #53
                  Re: No Country For Old Men (no spoilers)

                  Originally posted by j over View Post
                  So, you're siding with the evil verdict then?
                  Yes - but the two aren't mutually exclusive.

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                  • #54
                    Re: No Country For Old Men (no spoilers)

                    Originally posted by mlongton View Post
                    Yes - but the two aren't mutually exclusive.

                    You're saying evil and insanity are the same thing or closely-related?

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                    • #55
                      Re: No Country For Old Men (no spoilers)

                      This was dissapointing.

                      I am a huge Coen bros. fan and definitely left scratching my head.

                      Like most, the end wasn't satisfying for me and I am a big fan of non-traditional endings usually. I just don't think this one worked.

                      I also thought the pacing was a little too slow.

                      And the majority of the characters a bit too "aw shucks" and one note.

                      Another thing that threw me was the so-called period. The whole movie played out without much emphasis placed on period. I just kind of assumed the whole thing was playing out in some present day backwoods Texas town and then all the sudden they just had the random reference that the late 30's protagonist was a veteran of two tours of 'Nam. That felt so off to me...like they wedged it in there to stay true to the book or something.

                      I hate to say all this because I absolutely loved classics like Fargo, Miller's Crossing, Raising Arizona and Oh Brother.

                      This doesn't hold up to those in my opinion.
                      "I hate to break it to you but there is no big lie. There is no system. The universe is indifferent.- - Don Draper

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                      • #56
                        Re: No Country For Old Men (no spoilers)

                        I liked the movie. I especially like the ending. It was kind of hilarious to hear all the unhappy comments at the end from the audience - almost like they were pissed because there was obviously not going to be anymore bloodletting. It was like the filmmakers suddenly went up a level in consciousness, but most of the audience was still mucking around on a roman colliseum level, wanting more blood.

                        Of course, the filmmakers and their movie had put the audience in that position through the violence of the rest of the movie. So, yeah, I can see how many may have felt manipulated by the film.

                        I hate extremely violent movies - and will only go see two film directors who do them - I avoid the rest. For Ridley Scott and the Coen Bros. I put myself through psychic trama - because their movies are so good. So, I found the ending of this one wonderful ... as if my face had been mashed into the bloody mud of some fight club floor for 90 minutes, and then suddenly I was floating up towards the stars.

                        As my son said (a very savvy 19 year old) as we left the theatre ... "Wow, now they can do anything they want". As in the Coen Bros just broke the rules, and got away with it.
                        sigpic http://blip.fm/Peasblossom

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                        • #57
                          Re: No Country For Old Men (no spoilers)

                          A quote from a zoe member about the controversal ending, "We're so conditioned to expect certain things in a story that when they aren't there we might be let down. ... I'm pleasantly surprised to see something unexpected."

                          -- I'm gonna mention here with what I mentioned on zoe. I'm gonna have to get into SPOILERS. If anyone hasn't seen "No Country..." yet, I strongly suggest not to read further until you do. Otherwise it'll seriously destroy your emotional experience of watching this movie.



                          WARNING SPOILERS!







                          When it comes to a Coen Brothers' film, you know they ain't gonna follow the conventional rules and expectations. This is a given and also risky. Most of the time it works for them, but when it doesn't work it could hurt instead of enhance the movie.

                          I was fine with the unhappy ending of the hero Moss (Brolin) not making it. Being killed. It was poignant to the themes of the movie. Same with the open-ended resolution where evil (Chigurh; played by Bardem) walks away. Not being apprehended and punished, or killed.

                          The problem that I had is with the way they structured the ending. It was distracting and unsatisfying.

                          As Sheriff Bell heads toward the hotel he (we) hear distant gunfire: shot gun shots and machine-gun fire.

                          As Bell arrives: an off road pickup truck with a rack of roof-lights roars out of the lot with Mexicans hoping on and firing their machine-guns.

                          Bell spots Moss lying dead in his hotel doorway.

                          Considering all that came before, this ending was lame.

                          Sure, not showing the climax on screen was the same way in the book, but movies are a visual medium. And a lot of times filmmakers add and/or leave things out from the novel to enhance the movie experience for filmgoers.

                          If the filmmakers at least made the off screen climax work, where it'd be satisfying, I wouldn't have a problem with this aspect of structure, but it wasn't set up properly.

                          In fact, it was just BAM, ah, sorry, all those instinctual survival scenes we showed you that Moss had when battling Chigurh... that was just something we wanted to fool you with so you wouldn't predict what was coming: the minor characters, the Mexicans, sneak up on Moss in broad daylight with a loud and distinct off road vehicle with a rack of roof-lights, machine-guns blazing.

                          Hah, hah, hah. Bet you didn't see that one coming?

                          Ah, no, I didn't. That doesn't mean it was satisfying.

                          The complete opposite was set upped, where it's destined that these three main characters (Moss, Bell and Chigurh) are on a course for a showdown.

                          Yes, an audience expects the three-act structure that includes a climax, but this doesn't mean a filmmaker has to follow this convention, which some haven't done and that's fine as long as it works.

                          Moss is introduced as an experienced hunter. Makes not only for a good ironic situation where he becomes the hunted, but also demonstrates his ability to go toe to toe with a viscous, experienced killer and survive. Also to add to his abilities it's revealed that he's a combat veteran: two tours in Nam.

                          The inciting incident happens about 10 minutes in when Moss decides to take the moneybag with 2+ million.

                          Now it becomes a cat and mouse chase movie.

                          At about 90 minutes in, the end of act two happens that gives this story it's forward momentum into act three: Chigurh tells Moss he's going up to Odessa to kill his wife. He makes an offer to Moss. If he lays the moneybag at his feet, he'll spare his wife, but not him.

                          Moss says, "I've decided to make you a special project of mine. You ain't goin to have to look for me at all."

                          This exchange and everything that came before is why the audience was unsatisfied with the ending.

                          I mean there are encounters between Moss and a killer that's considered a ghost, where in the darkness all Moss hears is silence with the exception of a creak in the wood floors to prepare and get away without being killed and wounding the untouchable ghost, but in broad daylight a truck full of Mexicans, not even a main character but the minor characters, are gonna sneak up on him and kill him.

                          In my opinion this, how he died, was lame and unimaginative, thus my unsatisfaction with its ending.

                          Another thing that bothered me was when Bell went back to the room where Moss had been killed (the local police chief mentioned how he was amazed how Chigurh went back to an earlier crime scene, which got Bell thinking) he notices the cylinder lock to the door has been blown out. He stares at the hole.

                          There's a shot of Chigurh standing behind the door, holding a rifle, staring at the cylinder lock.

                          Bell enters. Now Bell's an experienced officer. He looks behind the door. Bell checks the bathroom and its small window. The window latch is in the lock position. No sign of Chigurh.

                          I know it's been mentioned that Chigurh is ghost-like, but this scene was ridiculous. This was a cheap trick for suspense by the filmmakers, playing with the auduence's emotions like the sheriff and Chigurh are gonna have their showdown. I felt toyed with and didn't like it.

                          There's a shot of a vent duck with a dime that Chigurh was shown previously looking for the moneybag, but it looked too small for him to climb in and the way the vent was postioned, this also made it look like he didn't escape through the vent. Also it would seem with Bell right outside the door, entering, Chigurh wouldn't have enough time to wiggle through the vent duct.

                          A scene I thought was a waste and not organic to the story was Chigurh's car accident.

                          Better would've been him leaving Moss' wife, where he checks his boot for blood and walks away, and then combine Bell's friend Ellis and wife scenes into one, where he bookends the opening narration that expresses theme with the philosophizing of theme at the end: FADE OUT.

                          Note about Chigurh and Moss' wife at the end: This, the death, was also played off screen. This was okay because it was set up with earlier scenes of Chigurh offering to toss a coin and checking his boots for blood. Besides, the wife was a minor character.

                          Even though I was disappointed how the filmmakers structured the ending, I still would say this was a fine film, a good character study, and recommend it.

                          I just can't agree that it's a perfect story that rates four stars. I gave it three stars.
                          Last edited by JoeNYC; 11-22-2007, 02:39 PM.

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                          • #58
                            Re: No Country For Old Men (no spoilers)

                            Although it's very well-made, the performances are solid across the board and most of the scenes are crafted (from dialogue to camera angles) well, there's something about it that prevents me from giving it a four star/A-level rating. I'm not quite sure what it is that I find about it that only makes it a decent/good movie instead of more, though.


                            Still, it certainly deserves a few Oscar nominations including Best Supporting Actor for Javier Bardem, needless to say.


                            Originally posted by peasblossom View Post
                            I hate extremely violent movies - and will only go see two film directors who do them - I avoid the rest.

                            What is it about violence in film that bothers you (besides the mere acts themselves)?

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                            • #59
                              Re: No Country For Old Men (no spoilers)

                              Originally posted by j over View Post
                              You're saying evil and insanity are the same thing or closely-related?
                              No. He may be clinically insane - probably is - but on another level he represents pure evil, evil that has always been there and, as TLJ observes, always will be. He can be defeated in individual battles but the war never ends. So the question of evil doesn't have anything to do with a legal notion of insanity and culpability - it's on a different level.

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                              • #60
                                Re: No Country For Old Men (no spoilers)

                                "Another thing that bothered me was when Bell went back to the room where Moss had been killed (the local police chief mentioned how he was amazed how Chigurh went back to an earlier crime scene, which got Bell thinking) he notices the cylinder lock to the door has been blown out. He stares at the hole.

                                There's a shot of Chigurh standing behind the door, holding a rifle, staring at the cylinder lock.

                                Bell enters. Now Bell's an experienced officer. He looks behind the door. Bell checks the bathroom and its small window. The window latch is in the lock position. No sign of Chigurh.

                                I know it's been mentioned that Chigurh is ghost-like, but this scene was ridiculous. This was a cheap trick for suspense by the filmmakers, playing with the auduence's emotions like the sheriff and Chigurh are gonna have their showdown. I felt toyed with and didn't like it.


                                There's a shot of a vent duck with a dime that Chigurh was shown previously looking for the moneybag, but it looked too small for him to climb in and the way the vent was postioned, this also made it look like he didn't escape through the vent. Also it would seem with Bell right outside the door, entering, Chigurh wouldn't have enough time to wiggle through the vent duct."

                                I'm pretty embarrased to say I didn't even know that was what happened. I thought when chigugh was behind the door, he was actually in the room next door. (there were two roped off.) and i thought the dime by the vent meant he had found the money that was stashed there... (not an escape route).

                                guess i need to watch it again.

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