No Country For Old Men [SPOILERish within]

[lamaros]

Anyone seen this? Thoughts?

Watched it yesterday. Enjoyable, but I'm yet to settle on how good it was. What was the point of making such a film, after all?

[Evil Elvis]

I thought it was really good aside from the ending.  I don't mind the lack of any real resolution, but the way it was handle just didn't feel like an ending at all.

The motherfucker kills people with a pneumatic cattle gun.  Who can't love that?

[Ookii]

Movie of the year, hands down.

[Samwise]

I agree that it was really awesome up until the end.  Specifically, it was awesome until (SPOILER).  I gave the movie the benefit of the doubt to try to keep my interest after that, but it just kept going downhill from there.

It could just be that I'm a pigdog Yankee who likes happy endings too much, but I found the whole thing extremely unsatisfying.  No triumph, no redemption, not even any closure.  Just the ending credits.

I guess the lesson of the film was that being likable, plucky, and funny doesn't mean you won't die and/or stop being likable.  Yay?

[Abagadro]

Ending is straight out of the book.  In fact, the whole film is very faithful to the book. They took out a key point about Ed Tom for some reason though that gives a bit more insight into his character.

I loved it.  One of the most tense films I've ever seen. Coens are masters at ratcheting that up.

[lamaros]

Having not read the book, can you share that point?

Is being tense for it's own sake enough? I'm trying to think what else you might get from it.. That the line between homicidial maniac and obsessive loner/married man is narrow? That life is wonderfuly/horribly nasty brutish and short? That Life is merely life?

I feel that saying things like this is reaching too much.. though perhaps intentional nonetheless. But I've seen better films that make you hunt about within (it and yourself) so surely there must have been more to this that I have yet to find.

Pure aesthetics?

What point did Woody serve? It seem there was a whole story there truncated to fit the screen.

Sure it was very tense, funny, and careful. But I feel it missed a certain energy.

I liked the ending. I liked the start. I just feel there was something about the last third that went nowhere. It had all that energy built up and then just slowly leaked out before one final little kick. Odd, and not in a novel way.

[Abagadro]

Ed Tom was haunted by an epsiode in WWII in wihch he thought he acted like a coward to save himself at the expense of his squad (but likely really wasn't).

For film I actually do think tension and execution (no pun intended) can be enough to make a great movie.  McCarthy himself says that people read too much into his stuff.  I also think the way it was done highlights many of the main themes of chance/inevitability.

[lamaros]

For film I actually do think tension and execution (no pun intended) can be enough to make a great movie.

I can't agree with that. A film without pretensions, like Predator or somesuch might be excusable, but when you put yourself out there like this film does I just don't think it's enough. There is more here than just tension and execution. Laboured vioce overs for one.

McCarthy himself says that people read too much into his stuff.

It's not the writers lot to say how people try and understand their work. Are we to play Anton's role and joke about/hide behind coins? Are we not allowed to glare angrily about and say "but the choice is your's, you wrote this, accept the responsibility of your creation. Don't try and pass it off by saying we're reading too much into it." If something runs in to trouble when you read in to it the trouble doesn't cease to exist by choosing not to read.

I also think the way it was done highlights many of the main themes of chance/inevitability.

A motif for the sake of nothing? Themes without relevance? I shudder to think people choose to relate to things like No Country For Old Men on a purely unconsious level.

I dunno... it's entertaining. Well shot. Funny. Some good acting. But I think it's a little unconcious too... oh, and the film still falls down in the pre-ending final third.

[lamaros]

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/moviereviews/2007/071108/

I found that an interesting read. Part for the review itself (which I don't fall at the feet of) but even more so for the comments. It is really odd how hosite some people get to certain kinds of discussions.

[stu]

double post. swamp poop.

[stu]

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

This is linked from the film's official site and I feel the article makes some great observations on the final act of the movie.

As his opening voiceover tells us, though, he is the filter through which the story is being poured, as it were.

Sheriff Ed Tom Bell makes several references throughout the movie about feeling lost in a world he no longer understands. If he's "the filter which the story is being poured" through, then the structure of the film as a whole makes more sense from that angle. The third act is a summation of Bell's frustration and confusion.

Although I don't remember it being mentioned in the movie, Bell is a WW2 veteran (the movie takes place in 1980). His frustration is made worse because he no longer understands a country he fought for and defended. Llewellyn Moss and Wells were Vietnam vets. I think there is a theme there, but I still haven't quite put my finger on it, but I think it has something to do with the three of them not being able to understand the assassin, Chigurh.




edit: for spelling

[Samwise]

Rasix's new avatar terrifies me.

[lamaros]

That's a nice read.

The problems I have with the film are not the final section, which is detailed there, but the section the begins with 'escape' from the first motel with the case and crossing the border to mexico. Nothing much takes place in between..

This is the "confrontation" period of the film. Where Moss and Anton compete directly for the only time, what would have in other films been just a warm-up for the finale is in a certain regard the finale here. And it is just so straight down the line, so boring even, that I wonder if they had to include such a dull section in order to strengthen the end.

As for the ending itself and the tone it gives the film. It's too nihilistic for me. (Not the best words, but). It's awful similar to Fargo, but without a genuine human depth; more an exercise in filmmaking than one in communicating. Which is all well and good, but it's not a masterpiece without it.

As his opening voiceover tells us, though, he is the filter through which the story is being poured, as it were.

Sheriff Ed Tom Bell makes several references throughout the movie about feeling lost in a world he no longer understands. If he's "the filter which the story is being poured" through, then the structure of the film as a whole makes more sense from that angle. The third act is a summation of Bell's frustration and confusion.

Furstration, yes. Despair even. But confusion? Replay the conversation he has with Carla Jean. He knows that Moss is going to die, and that there's nothing he can do about it. If he has confusion it's not about the world but about his place in it. Hence the title. But what is the point of an old man's confusion? The Coen's are not old men and for all that this is Bell's movie it is more and more theirs. What relevance does Bell's worldview have to us, what is he showing up that we should take note of?

That abandoning of vanity? (Acceptance of evil?) Supernatural design?

The reason I started this thread is because I think the movie is well made, but on a personal level there is no resonance. More than that there's a discordant feeling that something is being passed on here that should not be accepted. A negative feeling that needs to be tested before I let is slide into my unconcious. I still can't get at the 'why' of that, though.

[Abagadro]

Maybe the movie is designed to be ambiguous and make you think. Seems to have worked.

[Samwise]

Mulholland Drive was ambiguous and made me think.  It made me think "I will never get those two hours back."   

[lamaros]

Maybe the movie is designed to be ambiguous and make you think. Seems to have worked.

I'm in no danger of finding things to think about. Plus I think it's more.. understated than ambiguous. But the statement still is a bit bleh. 'Makes you think' doesn't excuse it from other criticisms.

[Abagadro]

If you look at it as basically a deconstructed Western, it makes a lot more sense.  Think of it as a postmodern Good, Bad and the Ugly.