"No Country For Old Men"

[soundmotor]

Originally Posted by shrinkboy

you don't have to have credentials to make comments like operaman's. you just make 'em.

Yeah, well, that's the truth.

So what is your take on Ridley Scott tapped for Blood Meridian directorial duties?

[shrinkboy]

my take is that that will be awesome. unbelievable. perfect. i can't wait. in the meantime, go and read that book, and tell me you were able to set it down whenever you wanted to. i dare ya.

[KeninDC]

Originally Posted by shrinkboy

...if anybody is still reading, and you are interested in getting a deeper sense of what mccarthy is all about (for me, NCFOM was a cormac mccarthy movie, not a coen bros. movie), then, in order of excellence, IMO, his books are: The Road; Blood Meridian (you thought chigurh was bad? wait'll you meet up with The Judge), and Suttree.[/url]

+ 1 on "The Road." Not to be confused with "On the Road."

Russell Banks ("The Sweet Hereafter") is another author who uses death and bleakness to reveal how we humans deal with living.

For the record, I am an American who understands metaphor. In fact, I am entertained by metaphor.

Ken

[Mr. Lin]

I'm surprised so many people really didn't like this movie, I thought it was great, although the abrupt ending sort of comes out of left field - I was able to appreciate that much more when I thought about what happened in the movie afterwards, but at the time I was annoyed just because I wanted to see more.

I'm not surprised that American viewers are disappointed that the "villain" won in the end. I've always been frustrated by the shallowness of our culture in that regard, it's such a cliche to always have a happy ending, it's unrealistic, and it's been done to death. But like others here have said, this movie is art, which life imitates, right?

Although the acting in this movie was good in general, I found the actor who played Chigurgh to be absolutely fantastic, what he said and how he said it sent chills down my spine. This is one I'll probably buy, I need to see it again to really appreciate it.

Dave

[thisOne]

Originally Posted by rsfmotoman

I liked the movie because of the unexpected ending.

There was an ending to this movie???

[Mr. Lin]

Originally Posted by thisOne

There was an ending to this movie???

Well it certainly didn't go on forever.

[RussinOhio]

Originally Posted by Mr. Lin

I'm surprised so many people really didn't like this movie, I thought it was great, although the abrupt ending sort of comes out of left field - I was able to appreciate that much more when I thought about what happened in the movie afterwards, but at the time I was annoyed just because I wanted to see more.

I'm not surprised that American viewers are disappointed that the "villain" won in the end. I've always been frustrated by the shallowness of our culture in that regard, it's such a cliche to always have a happy ending, it's unrealistic, and it's been done to death. But like others here have said, this movie is art, which life imitates, right?

I need to see it again myself.
I had no idea it was based upon a book for one thing. I was not so much expecting nor wanting a happy ending, as you have stated the ending just did not satisfy me. Although I could not stand that the structure of the story mandated that the wife must be killed by the hitman....I wanted MORE reaction from T.L Jones charactor in relation to it. Not for him to just stare out a window reciting a memory.....then fade out to credits.

I did not nor would I want his charactor to go "Dirty Harry" on the bad guy....I just wanted more meat! The last hour & ending needed more exposition IMHO. Especially that most (like myself) were not even aware a novel excisted in the first place.

Maybe I'd like the book better.

Russ

[operaman]

Ahh, the ending... I've talked to a lot of people who hated the movie and hated the ending, but also people who liked the movie and still hated the ending.

Something that seems lost on people is how the ending - taken word for word from the novel - resonates with the Coens' earlier film "Raising Arizona" from the mid-80s. It ends with Nicholas Cage recounting a dream in which he imagined himself in the future with his family. Instead of "and then I woke up", the dream ends with "hell, maybe it was Utah!".

Hence this is a tragic and realistically morbid twist on their earlier comic film (which also featured the not-so-comic character of a dark, murderous vigilante outlaw bounty hunter very much like Chigurrh). This is brilliant.

The Coens have become "Auteur" directors which vaguely means that to appreciate any piece of their work requires some lengthy immersion in all the rest of their work.

[fotno]

What follows is simply my opinion, YMMV.

I have almost ceased watching films. Especially films that actually make money in theaters. I'm not a movie snob. Just bored senseless by exploding buildings, spring-loaded cats, CGI everything, and worst of all; story-lines geared solely to pleasing the 15 to 30 demographic.

In short, I don't care if I ever see another "Hollywood blockbuster".

--------- Spoiler Alert ---------

I loved this film. In my opinion, it is (and grandly so) the polar opposite of the films I describe above.

From the first to last frame, NCFOM is metaphor; and powerful metaphor at that. We are treated (or perhaps subjected) to a slice by slice dissection of the very best and worst that the human animal has to offer.

There was a moment in this film that I firmly locked into where this story was driving me, and a shiver ran down my spine... When a sleepless, tortured Moss rises from his bed and fills a jug with water, I knew that fate had its hand on the tiller.

In truth, there are only 3 characters in this story, Bell - Chigurh and Moss. Their "three fateful faces of death" is the very heart of this story. They never share a single frame of film together, but they are bound by their natures and circumstance to collide. For me, the most brilliant piece of McCarthy's storytelling, and the Coen brothers film-making is that they never do.

No spring loaded cats, CGI cartoon superheroes, massive explosions, or dumbed down, pablum recitations of Cinderella, Wizard of Oz, or Dirty Harry. Just a great story, as unpredictable as life.

[shrinkboy]

well said, fotno. well said. fate is undoubtedly the major theme of mccarthy's writing, and he does it in a way that illustrates the impersonal nature of fate acting through the human host.

i like to think of fate in this way: we connect ourselves to our fate when we act with what the greeks called hubris i.e. the sense of pride which allows one to believe that he can overcome the consequences of going against what he knows to be wrong. in this case, moss unleashes the furies on himself when he takes the money. an act of hubris if there ever was one. he has now locked himself together with chigurh.

the other face of fate is destiny. my destiny is what i discover when i refuse the selfishness of taking on what cannot be overcome. my true self emerges and i am drawn to become what i truly am. if i bring the fates down on myself, then that can never happen.

one is doom, the other salvation. and this is the realm that all of mccarthy's work dwells in. if anyone's read The Road, then we get a relentless, utterly bleak, fate blasted world that ends with a grace note of salvation. an utterly miraculous, sparse, almost impossible to accept, yet nevertheless there it is fleeting vision of the world beyond this.

[fotno]

Originally Posted by shrinkboy

well said, fotno. well said. fate is undoubtedly the major theme of mccarthy's writing, and he does it in a way that illustrates the impersonal nature of fate acting through the human host.

i like to think of fate in this way: we connect ourselves to our fate when we act with what the greeks called hubris i.e. the sense of pride which allows one to believe that he can overcome the consequences of going against what he knows to be wrong. in this case, moss unleashes the furies on himself when he takes the money. an act of hubris if there ever was one. he has now locked himself together with chigurh.

the other face of fate is destiny. my destiny is what i discover when i refuse the selfishness of taking on what cannot be overcome. my true self emerges and i am drawn to become what i truly am. if i bring the fates down on myself, then that can never happen.

one is doom, the other salvation. and this is the realm that all of mccarthy's work dwells in. if anyone's read The Road, then we get a relentless, utterly bleak, fate blasted world that ends with a grace note of salvation. an utterly miraculous, sparse, almost impossible to accept, yet nevertheless there it is fleeting vision of the world beyond this.

The courage it takes as an artist (no matter the medium), to attack these themes is immense. Those artists willing to rise to the occasion, and not blink or look away at that last moment, create work that is powerful in a way that convention can never be.

I would hope that there's always a place in film for everyone's tastes, but thank goodness there are a few filmmakers that are willing to break down the fourth wall and stand convention on its head.

I find it ironic that for all Hollywood likes to believe it's on the cutting edge of art and fashion, film is truly the last bastion of conservative artistic thinking.

These same barriers were knocked down in the visual and musical arts, hundreds of years ago. By remaining locked into the traditional (and predictable) antagonist/protagonist relationship, film has limited itself.

Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, this staid formula is why the the theaters stand empty so frequently, and why, when we enter a theater we can comfortably assume the following:

The top-billed actor/actress will likely survive.
The "bad guy" will be easily recognizable, as will the "good guy".
The story arc will follow one of a handful of archetypes.
In the end, good will win out, even if our hero doesn't survive.

When a film breaks out of these comfortable conventions, it takes the risk of either being misunderstood, despised, or both. When they succeed (as I believe NCFOM does) they become films that stay with the viewer for a lifetime.

[Mr. Lin]

I was thinking about this movie again today, and there's something else I really liked about it.

***SPOILER ALERT***





It's unusual and impressive IMO that they took a major Hollywood actor, Woody Harrelson, gave him what at first seemed like a big part in the movie as someone hired to hunt down Chugarh, and then, just as soon as he sets out to do so, he's caught by the person he's preying on and shot! It's that sort of thing that adds to the quality of this movie, I think.

[pmsummer]

Originally Posted by Mr. Lin

It's unusual and impressive IMO that they took a major Hollywood actor, Woody Harrelson, gave him what at first seemed like a big part in the movie as someone hired to hunt down Chugarh, and then, just as soon as he sets out to do so, he's caught by the person he's preying on and shot! It's that sort of thing that adds to the quality of this movie, I think.

To me, the weird thing was that Harrelson's father is a drug cartel hitman, in prison for life for killing a Federal Judge. THAT made it spooky casting in my book.

[RussinOhio]

Interestingly, the randomness of violence against an innocent person....as a metaphor for evil perhaps...is a device the Coens have used before in a film I liked much better than NCFOM. That film would be "Fargo".
Here we had a vicious cold-blooded killer played by the very talented actor Peter Stormare....portraying a charactor no less devoid of emotion or remorse than Chigurh in NCFOM.....and he too kills an innocent housewife.

Yet, I don't know why I liked "Fargo" better than NCFOM. Maybe it is just that a reflection of "real-life" as opposed to "reel-life" is something I've seen before so many times in great and not so great movies.

I did watch NCFOM again, BTW. Still...I feel it's a good movie, just not a great one as so many critics and fans seem to think.

I get it. Evil is random and unpredictable and the innocent will suffer just as awlful a fate as the deserved. It is far to true in real life than to have the message rammed home in "reel life".


Russ

[RussinOhio]

Originally Posted by pmsummer

To me, the weird thing was that Harrelson's father is a drug cartel hitman, in prison for life for killing a Federal Judge. THAT made it spooky casting in my book.

Wow. I did not know that! That's spooky indeed.

Russ