No Country for Old Men
Movie Review
"No Country for Old Men"
Review by Eric D. Snider
Grade: A
Rating: R
Released: Friday, November 9, 2007
Directed by:
Cast:
Cormac McCarthy is considered by many to be America's greatest living author, and Joel and Ethan Coen certainly comprise one of the finest voices in modern filmmaking. Despite that, I don't know if I'd have guessed that the McCarthy/Coen combo would be such a perfect fit. They're all brilliant, but they're brilliant in different ways.
Or so I thought. "No Country for Old Men," which the Coens have adapted from McCarthy's novel, is a quintessential Coen movie, both visually and verbally -- and yet most of the dialogue is taken word-for-word from the book.
I discovered this after the fact, not having read the book before seeing the movie. Watching it, I noted scenes that were in the classic Coen style, featuring Southwestern-accented men having quirky conversations a la "Raising Arizona" or "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" In one scene, two rural cops come across a drug deal gone bad, the ground littered with bodies. One of the cops observes that a couple of the victims are dressed differently from the others.
"These boys appear to be managerial," he says. "I think we're lookin' at more than one fracas."
That kind of cadence and vocabulary is common in Coenland, and it's just as likely to come from a tertiary character (as it does here) as from the protagonist. And yet in this case, it's not the Coens' work. It's straight from McCarthy.
So it would appear we have a match made in heaven, a novel that's written cinematically being transferred to the screen by brothers who are highly proficient in the cinematic language, and who have the good sense not to make unnecessary changes.
The film hearkens back to the Coens' darker films like "Blood Simple" and "Miller's Crossing," with a worldview that is decidedly bleak. Set in West Texas in 1980, it has three central characters on different sides of the law. Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is an aging, weary sheriff saddened by the increasingly violent nature of the world. At the other end of the spectrum is Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a terrifying psychopath who murders with a pneumatic gun (used to kill cattle, I do believe) and is on the trail of a satchel containing $2 million that went missing after that drug deal went awry.
The third figure, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), falls somewhere in the middle, law-and-order-wise. He's an ordinary guy, a trailer park denizen with an ordinary wife (Kelly Macdonald), out hunting antelope one day when he comes across the crime scene and the bag of money. He quickly ascertains that the loot will be missed and sends the missus off to her mother's while he deals with the repercussions.
That is the crux of the film: Chigurh has been sent to retrieve the $2 million; Llewelyn is on the run from him; Sheriff Bell is trying to keep everyone safe. Also in the mix is an unnamed man (Stephen Root) in a well-appointed office who hires the cocky Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson) to go after Chigurh and the money.
Wells seems to be familiar with Chigurh, to the point that he no longer fears him. This is a mistake. Despite his hilariously feminine haircut and calm demeanor -- or maybe because of it -- Chigurh is one of the creepier psychopaths in recent memory. He has no compunction about killing, no glimmer of humanity to make him reasonable. He's perfectly content to let a coin toss decide whether he kills you or not. He embodies the film's general view of life: It's random, it's often unfair, and everyone is subject to its whims.
The film has a potent mix of suspense and laughter. The Coens find a lot of dark, accidental humor in all of this, and also devote quiet attention to the details of Moss and Chigurh's cat-and-mouse game. Moss proves to be a resourceful and intelligent man, maybe even capable of outsmarting the seemingly unstoppable Chigurh. Consequently, every scene is riveting because you never know which way it's going to go.
That includes the ending, which at first glance may feel disappointing. Something about it stuck in my craw -- yet I could tell that the problem was with me, not with McCarthy or the Coens. I was missing something. Seeing the film a second time, I caught subtleties I had missed at first, and everything fell into place. It's a mistake to take the film for a simple crime thriller. You look at it that way and you'll surely be let down by the conclusion. Look at it instead as a story about the capriciousness of fate, about how lives can be changed in the blink of an eye in ways that are unpredictable and unfair. One character even vocalizes the film's theme outright: "You can't stop what's comin'. It ain't all waitin' on you. That's vanity."
Through the combined genius of McCarthy and the Coens, the film is constantly riveting. Even when the scenes are wordless, we are compelled to watch because, now that the dice have been thrown, we want to see where they land. It's as close to a perfect film as I've seen all year: ingeniously crafted, thematically consistent, and haunting in its implications. It's the kind of movie that sticks with you.
Sheriff Bell is the outsider in the equation, and the soul of the film. He's outmatched by this new kind of evil represented by Chigurh and the web of people who traffic with him. You can see it in Tommy Lee Jones' sorrowful eyes, and hear it in his Texas drawl, which he has exaggerated and ruralized. Bell has seen too much sadness in his life, and he can barely find the words to describe the awful things he's begun to see. It doesn't make sense. He's getting too old for this -- too old for law enforcement, too old for life, too old for everything.
[NOTE: There has been much discussion in the comments below about the fate of Moss, about the final whereabouts of the money, and about an ambiguous scene involving Bell and Chigurh and a motel room. I have blog entries discussing and explaining these subjects here (Moss' fate), here (Bell & Chigurh, and the money), and here (other questions).]
Grade: A
Rated R, a little profanity, a lot of strong violence
2 hrs., 2 min.
Copyright © Eric D. Snider.
This work may not be transmitted via the Internet, nor reproduced in any other way, without written consent from Eric D. Snider.
This item has 228 comments
November 17, 2007 at 9:18 am
In line with your comment about the "capriciousness of fate," I agree that Chigurh represents something more than a psychopathic murderer. Dressed always in black, he seems to represent death: an inevitable fate that doesn't pick or choose people based on any moral principles that we can understand. Note one conversation describing Chigurh as having his own kind of morality that doesn't obey our own notions. Death comes to us all, suddenly, randomly, and blind to "fairness," no matter if we protest or try to escape it.
November 18, 2007 at 6:54 pm
[MAJOR SPOILERS]
Did anyone find the scene of Sheriff Bell returning to the motel room where Moss was killed a little troubling. Sheriff sits down on the bed looks around and sees the register return taken off the wall. All the while, Chigurh is standing behind the door and armed. It just seems to me that there should have been some sort interaction between the two.
November 19, 2007 at 8:51 am
SPOILERS
I agree. Who gets the money at the end? I think the Mexicans leave the motel without the money. Does the Sheriff get the money? Did Chigursh?
November 19, 2007 at 10:49 am
I think more credit should be heaped upon the Coens for their ability to separate the dialogue in the book from the narration, since McCarthy prefers to use a typewriter or word processor in which the punctuation keys only work part of the time and the quotation mark functions work not at all.
I think I'd like to see the movie after I read the book as it will be a good way for me to see if I too can successfully separate dialogue from narration in a McCarthy book. I struggled with this whilst reading "The Road".
November 21, 2007 at 6:24 pm
SPOILERS. I agree with the main reviewer's commentary about the film's theme - the capriciousness of fate. I would add another theme: the profound emptiness of the pursuit of money.
On that note, in response to George, I thought the three raiders who were tipped off ended up with the money, but I thought that wasn't of much significance since the film tells you drug money brings pain, not happiness.
Questions: (1) Why was Chigurh in handcuffs at the beginning of the film? Is it of any significance that the deputy, not the sheriff, caught him? (2) Was it the other car that ran the red light in the end? I thought Chigurh had the green light.
November 21, 2007 at 11:42 pm
#2 above, Chigurh clearly had the GREEN light and the other car ran the red light. I just saw the movie an hour or so ago. Following the scenario on "capriciousness of fate" this would fit Amy's observation that "death is an inevitable fate that doesn't pick or choose people based on any moral principles that we can understand." And no one is exempt from death including Chigurh who might be perceived as the devil himself (albeit only a hideously fractured arm).
November 22, 2007 at 3:32 am
Loved the movie, probably my second favorite of 2007 behind "Alpha Dog" this year. "Alpha Dog" gets the slight edge for being exactly what happened in real life. That being said, Chigurh was amazing- totally one of the sickest characters in the history of movies. Like Eric said, it was probably because of his haircut and how calm he was that made him so different and scary. The Coens did a great job at taking things slow and really giving us powerful scenes, even in the scenes where there is little action or dialogue.
November 22, 2007 at 12:49 pm
SPOILER. Response to George and Amelie. Chigurh definitely ended up with the money. Reasons are:
1. Chigurh was the only one who knew that Moss was hiding the money in the air ducts from the previous motel room.
2. When Sherriff Bell looks down to see the register return screws on the floor, you see the dime that Chigurh used to also open the other return in the previous motel room.
3. When Chigurh gets in the car accident he gives the young boy a bloodied $100 bill for the shirt, much like the one Moss gave the mariachi in Mexico to take him to a hospital.
I am still having a problem with Chigurh and Bell in the motel room at the same time and nothing happening, Bell definitely knew Chigurh was in there by his actions before he walked into the room. I wonder if the milk and the reflection on the tv from earlier in the movie had anything to do with that scene?
November 22, 2007 at 9:39 pm
No gentlemen, you have it all wrong. When Lu left the hospital he at that time retrieved the money (you did not see this happen). That is how he had the money to return to store for clothing where he made boot purchase earlier. In regard to Anton in the room it's simple, he was behind the door but booked while the sheriff was looking around. He had no reason to waste his time in killing Mr. Bell.
By the way, all the women including myself have a crush of Chigurh. Just not so certain any of us would really want to have a run in with him.
Happy Thanksgiving!!
November 22, 2007 at 9:52 pm
To understand the scene with Bell and Chigurh at the end, and the lack of confrontation, you have to understand what Chigurh is meant to represent. Bell expresses at one point that he considers Chigurh a ghost. Chirgurh, as stated by others here, is more than a pyschotic murderer. He represents death, the harshness of life, some sort of twisted fate that we can't escape or stop. That motel room scene is symbolic, in my opinion. Bell is unable to confront and end that evil in the world, something he is endlessly tormented by. It continually eludes him. If I'm right on this, I think it's a brilliantly written scene (whether it was in the book or not I'm not sure). If this isn't the case, then I'm at a loss...
November 23, 2007 at 6:17 am
Chigurh got the money in the end. In the hotel scene you see the vent opened with a dime. Earlier in the movie he opens a vent in the first hotel room with a dime also. Chigurh never pays for anything during the entire movie except at the end when he pays of the kids (with a 100 dollar bill mind you which the suitcase was filled of) to say he had already vacated the premisis. This leads me to believe he got the money/
November 23, 2007 at 11:18 am
Javier Bardem is an incredibly attractive man. I always have loved a Spaniard. From what I have read he has been type casted as a bad guy, but if you see "the sea inside"
or the film "before night falls"(Johnny Depp plays dual roles and Sean Penn is in this film) the ladies will be much fonder of him and you will get to enjoy two films with him that tell incredible, believable stories. He deserves all of the recognition he gets from these 2 new films that are coming out. He is a genius at his craft
November 23, 2007 at 11:54 am
I am a little suprised that no one has raised the question of Woody Harlson's character and his significance. Chigurh is obviously, in my opinion, meant to represent fate. You cannot reason with him, yet he indulges his targets in conversation. Once in his sights the only thing that can intervene is the flip of a coin. I believe Harlson's character to be representative of the pitfalls of hubris.
Also, I think that the cattle gun is an interesting item. Is it just an eccentric prop or does it mean more than that. I surmise that it could be suggesting, in the same way Chigurh does regarding fate, that we are all cattle with the potential of being slaughtered for someone else's gain. I think this is one of those movies that would reveal more of itself after a repeat viewing.
November 23, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Amazing movie. The first coin toss scene is utterly brilliant. In regards to the hotel scene, it's kinda in the book, only Chigurh is sitting in his car while Bell pulls up. Bell goes in, sees the register return on the floor, so he leaves, goes around the corner to where he'd be able to see people driving away, and calls in other cops. They arrive, but Chigurh's already gone. The movie's scene is much more tense, but it is somewhat problematic in a realistic sense, but, like Noah says, not as problematic thematically.
Amelie - I don't remember the details from the book, but I know Chigurh was caught commiting a crime, and I think it was killing somebody, but I'm not positive. It's only mentioned in a brief comment in the book.
November 23, 2007 at 1:34 pm
This movie left a mark.
I loved the ambiguous ending. Especially the scene near the end where Bell enters the hotel room. Contrary to what Ruby writes, it's not obvious to me that Chigurh "booked" when Bell was looking around other parts of the room. To believe that requires you to think that Bell, nobody's fool, for sure, let a psychopathic madman slip through his fingers due to sheer ineptitude. Maybe. It's more interesting, though, to think that Bell, at the moment of truth, could not work himself up to confront the evil lurking, literally, behind that door.
November 23, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Who killed Moss?
November 23, 2007 at 3:21 pm
[SPOILER] Who killed Moss, AND who got the money? The Mexicans driving off as Bell arrives? (Bell didn't think so.)
As to why Bell and Chigurh don't interact, previous explanations (referring to the film, not the novel, which non vidi) are unsatisfactory. Bell pulls his pistol and turns on lights; "being unready for death" isn't the issue. Chiguhr is situated behind a door--but not the door Bell enters. What's going on? He's "a ghost"? But he's a ghost with a broken arm at the end of the movie.
Possibility: earlier in the film Moss hides the money in an airshaft that he accesses from ANOTHER MOTEL ROOM. Did (a) Moss try the same thing a second time; (b) the Mexicans shot up the place but didn't have a chance to get the money . . . (c) Chiguhr returned for the money but waited in a different room? (But if he got the money . . . and had killed Moss . . . WHAT WAS HE WAITING FOR?)
November 23, 2007 at 4:21 pm
17 - Moss is killed by the Mexicans during the shootout, however, they were unable to find the money. Chigurh came later, and took off the register return with the dime, like he had done earlier. This is one of the issues I had with the movie, in that there were details that would have been easy to show in the movie that were left out, even though they are inferred and explained in the book. However, still my favorite serious movie of the year.
November 23, 2007 at 8:26 pm
My favorite part was when he left Moss's wife's house, and you don't know what happened until he checks his shoes for blood...that made me laugh.
November 23, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Ending is STUPID!
November 23, 2007 at 8:37 pm
[SPOILER] My take is the same as Eric P's (15). It looks like Bell wimps out at the crime scene and doesn't take on Chigurh though he knows he's there. Then in the next scene, Bell's dad's old deputy tells him a story about how his grandfather died confronting some bad guys. And in the next scene, Carla Jean is killed by the evil Bell didn't deal with and that evil then lives on at the end. Pretty bleak.
November 23, 2007 at 9:01 pm
My thoughts:
Chigurh went to the motel (after Moss had been killed by the Mexicans) and found the $ in the air shaft. Bell had gone to the hotel based on the conversation with the other sherriff about Chigurh being so bold that he went back to a crime scene. I believe that Bell knew Chigurh was probably still in the room. His inability or desire to confront Chigurh means something. Bell represents society and its inability to deal with the unrelenting wave of senseless violence (Chigurh) which has overtaken us. The most important message I gleamed from the movie is....don't ever stop on the highway for a man with a pageboy haircut holding a high-powered air gun!
November 24, 2007 at 1:32 am
I'm not sure if Chigurh was in the same room or adjacent room, as both seemed to have the deadbolts popped out. Yes, I did notice the play of the reflection in the empty tumbler, but still it isn't clear it was the same room.
To me the central theme was expressed in the line that you can't stop what is coming. McCarthy is not writing an examination of a serial killer here, he's writing about American culture. Other lines like "where are all these people coming from", and "it's like a war", "kids with green hair and bones in their noses..." etc., all point to the question, where is this country/culture going, for these geezers. I think McCarthy is pointing to the question that many of the older generations are asking, (and not so older generations). You here the question in our discourse everyday, there are news programs about whether "Democracy can survive", and it is a good question. For these reasons "No Country for Old Men," is a multiple entendre, and as close as McCarthy has gotten to a mad max like futuristic prediction so far. We are not there yet, but we have progressed from the time setting of the film in a natural flow. We may not know what is coming, but whether we can stop it or not seems academic, we are already reaping what we have sown. Happy Black Friday.
November 24, 2007 at 9:17 am
anyone else find the exclusion of moss' showdown with the mexicans a bit strange? Clearly he had let his guard down and was having a beer but why didn't we see what happened? So much was made from his efforts at survival but we got nothing of his death...
November 24, 2007 at 10:28 am
But in response to Steve (#23 above), recall that the deputy tells Bell that his grandfather died in a violent attack, the point being that the sort of violence Chiguhr represents is nothing new. I take Bell's (and the other sheriff's) talk about "where these people are coming from" to be the sort of denial/evasion/bargaining that others present to Chiguhr ("you don't have to do this," etc.). The evil is perennial, constant.
November 24, 2007 at 10:53 am
23 - "The Road" has taken the place of "a mad max like futuristic prediction". In "The Road", America has been destroyed by an apocalyptic nuclear attack. The story centers on a man and his son trying to survive a bleak, gray landscape where almost everything edible has been destroyed or eaten. It's not light reading, and even more depressing than "No Country for Old Men."
24 - It's because Moss is really not the main character in the movie, and it's a tragic greek drama thing used by McCarthy in the book. In the old greek tragedies, all of the violence happened off stage. Ponder it further, and you'll figure some of it out.
21 - If charging into a room where you think the bad guy is is wimping out, I don't even know how to respond to that. However, I would suggest reading the book, and there is a story that Bell tells the old deputy - who is Bell's uncle if I remember correctly - about a past experience he had, which has some bearing on what your talking about.
November 24, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Twice the sheriff is called "Anton". Once by the cop in El Paso who tells him that the killer is crazy (and the Tommy Lee Jones character disputes that). When the TL Jones is in the car, the El Paso cop says "...goodbye, Anton..." to him.
In the last scene, his wife (/) calls him (the TL Jones character) Anton!
The credits list TL Jones as Sheriff Tom Ed Bell.
November 24, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Thanks for the posts about Bell in the motel room. That helps me understand a bit better. Still, on a common sense level....it is ridiculous that he didn't turn on the light
in the room. If he had, he would have seen the bad guy. Why would you not turn on the light if you thought a threat resided there in.
November 24, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Do hotel managers in south Texas not bother calling the police when multiple gunshots are fired? Or should we assume the police arrive after the culprits have cleared out?
What the heck kind of dogs *were* those--mastiff/rotweiller/pit bull mix? How do you film a scene like the river chase?
I've got to revisit the book, but does anyone think the final scene where Chigurh walks off down the street was a Coen Brothers evocation of the scene in Silence of the Lambs where Lecter is seen walking down a street in Port au Prince (or some such Caribbean)? Or does that scene happen in the book, too?
November 24, 2007 at 2:32 pm
#27 Mike G: No one calls the sheriff "Anton." They call him "Ed Tom," which is what the credits name him: Ed Tom Bell (not Tom Ed).
#5 Amelie: It's not significant that it was a deputy and not the sheriff who captured Chigurrh, because it was a different county. It wouldn't have been Sheriff Bell anyway. When Bell is talking to his own deputy at the scene of the car fire, he summarizes everything: This guy killed that deputy in that other county, then killed the guy on the highway, stole his car, etc.
November 24, 2007 at 4:58 pm
29 - For the dog scene, they had Josh Brolin put a dog toy under his shirt that made the dog go ballistic, so that it relentlessly go after and charge at him. I read about it in Time magazine. I don't remember what type of dogs they were.
The book ends with Ed Tom telling his dream. I remember thinking about Silence while watching that scene, and I think the Coens have brought to life a killer just about as diabolical as that movie, so it makes sense.
November 24, 2007 at 8:53 pm
SPOILERS...SPOILERS...SPOILERS...SPOILERS..SPOILERS...SPOILERS...
"DID YOU REALLY SEE MOSS DEAD?" I don't think so. After the killing scene with the mexicans there was slow but rapid glance of someone who resembled
Moss dead on the floor in the motel..."OR WAS IT HIM?" I say no since we are then shown a body in the morgue who did not look like Moss at all. Then we go to the burial of the mother. If Moss got killed why didn't we see that burial? My take is that there will be a sequel to this film with the maniac killer and Moss going at it.
They both lived at the end. Moss still has the money and the Sheriff is somehow related to the maniac killer. The Coens luved that Halloween movie specifically the ending.
November 24, 2007 at 10:48 pm
saw this movie this afternoon. don't know about all the metaphisical, philosophical stuff yall are sayin' although WHAT you are surmising makes sense.
just seems to me to be about how " the growing tide" that none of us can stop is coming. my frends laugh at me but, as a christian who does believe in the end times and the apocolypse - i have been in the actual valley of megiddo and actually had goose bumps on my flesh knowing about it's past and it's future - i was mesmerized watching this movie about the seeming capriciouness of evil.
I believe God only allows sick, mindless evil as shown in the movie, to exist until He is ready to put the REST of His plan into action. Might be in my lifetime or not.
If this movie doesn't earn several Oscars for acting and directing . . . . . then the world surely is going to HEll in a handbasket.
November 25, 2007 at 3:46 am
THE ENDING IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK
When Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) returns to the Motel Crime Scene the entire film comes together.
Consider the extent to which the Cohen Bros. emphasized the lack of conclusive visuals. For example, the confrontation between Carla Jean and Chigurh can be deduced out of obscurity but nevertheless we’re deprived any concrete knowledge. After all, he may have looked at his boots after leaving (indicating he killed her), but on the other hand, he wasn’t carrying any weapons. In fact, he wasn’t carrying any inside the house either.
BACK TO THE MOTEL - Without question, the film’s most crucial confrontation occurs between Chigurh and Bell inside that room. Do you remember this? Probably not, since we're not invited to watch it, The confrontation happens sometime after Bell realizes the vent had been dismantled, but before he drives to visit his uncle Ellis. (Chigurh shares an on-screen conversation with every major characters except Bell)
My hypothesis:
1. Bell sells his soul to Chigurh.
2. Chigurh was never interested in money.
3. Bell keeps the money (and retires in the following scene)
4. Chigurh is set free by Bell
Prior to making my case -
consider Bell’s opening monologue -
Bell:
You can say it's my job to fight it but I don't know what it is anymore. More than that, I don't want to know. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He would have to say, okay, I'll be part of this world.
Also - Remember in the following scene that Bell visits his uncle Ellis? During their conversation he admits that he’s retiring. He admits to feeling abandoned by God. And he admits to knowing that God doesn’t think highly of him -
Bell:
...I always thought when I got older God would sort of come into my life in some way. He didn't. I don't blame him. If I was him I'd have the same opinion about me that he does.
Ellis
You don't know what he thinks.
Bell
Yes I do.
- His response to Ellis is revealing in the context of this unseen confrontation with Chigurh. How else would he know what God thought? Would Lucifer have such information? Was Chigurh God? Was Bell?
As far as Bell’s retirement; He was old, and cynical of the times. However, he had not intended to retire. Something happened between the time we left him at the motel room and when we picked up with him at Uncle Ellis’. It’s also worth mentioning how Moss refered to himself as retired when Wells inquiried. Moss playfully called Carla Jean retired during their bus trip. And when Bell gets the money, Bell does the same. Or so I presume. His wife Loretta isn’t retired, and she reminds him of this over breakfast that morning.
See- Bell hasn’t told her yet. He will never tell her. He will never tell anyone. And this is the suffering that really materializes in that last shot. Bell is not a man devastated by his own physical or intellectual limitation, but by that of his morality.
Remember when Chigurh wastes the Steven Root character? The accountant asks Chigurh if he plans to kill him as well. Chigurh replies with; “That depends. Do you see me?” On one level, this dialogue plays on the practice of “killing the witnesses”. On a subtexual level, there a lot of religious and ghostly implications in that question.
Again, Back to the Motel Room.
There have been a number of disagreements about the facts of the scene. Here is what you must understand.
Chigurh was in the room. It was not imagination on the part of Bell. Chigurh was not renting the room next door. End of story. The Editing was clear. In fact, it was traditional. The original screenplays supports this position.
Chigurh did not escape out the window. I picked up on this immediately. Do folks not recall an awkwardly long take of the small bathroom window? You may remember that the window was locked from the inside (supported in the screenplay). And, not to mention, the window was too small for Chigurh to climb out of with his weaponry, satchel, and busted leg.
Chigurh DID NOT have the money at the end of the movie. In fact, no one even sees the satchel again after the poolside prostitute conversation. Chigurh wasn’t interested in the loot. He refused to even entertain Wells’ claim of its whereabouts. In a fantastic line of dialogue, Chigurh explains how he doesn’t know where the money is but he knows where it will be; “It will be brought to me and placed at my feet”.
In a nutshell -
Bell busts in just as Chigurh is about to grab the loot and leave. Bell sits on the bed. Sees the vent. Decides to check it out. Chigurh confronts him. Coin gets flipped. Chigurh buys his freedom and moves on to another soul. He is evil personified.
best,
Henderson.nj@gmail.com
November 25, 2007 at 8:17 am
32- I hate to break it to you, but everything you said is ridiculous. It was clearly Moss' body in the motel and in the morgue. It is very clear in the book that Moss is dead. And if you think that the Coens are the kind of filmmakers that are going to butcher the source material in order to cash in on a sequel, you haven't been paying attention. No Country for Old Men 2 has as good of a chance as being made as Fargo 2 (starring the remainder of Steve Buschemi's left leg).
November 25, 2007 at 9:05 am
SPOILERS...
Why *did* Moss go back to the scene? At the time, I figured it was because there was the one guy still alive (who might give information about him). Or was there another reason?
Also, were there *two* transponders? If so, how incredibly stupid of Moss not to search through the money (and why not transfer it to another container?). If there was only the one transponder, how did the El Paso killers find him?
November 25, 2007 at 11:00 am
I saw this right after "Before The Devil Knows You're Dead" (my own bloody double feature) and was stricken by the similarity of themes. Both involve "victimless" thefts (drug dealers, insurance company, drug dealer), a character representing raw evil, a younger character who seems driven by fate, and an older character who's lost hope in human nature.
Both really great films, but the dialog, setting, and periferal characters here make this the winner, I think. I'd love to hear what other people who see both think.
If you liked Javier Bardem here, really do see "The Sea Inside"-- I fell in love with him there.
This is a great discussion-- best I've found about this film.
November 25, 2007 at 11:02 am
I agree that its unlikely Moss is dead; not only did we not see his burial, but his wife tells Chigurh that she just came back from burying her mother - no mention of burying her husband. Also, in her dialog with Chigurh she continually refers to Moss in the present tense. The ending is a prelude to the sequel - Moss fakes own death, ambushes Chigurh for revenge and spends the $2MM on hookers and blue label booze...
November 25, 2007 at 11:43 am
#36 WillieW: There was one transponder, which Moss found, but there were two receivers -- one for Chigurh, one for the Mexicans. The Mexicans couldn't track him anymore after he found the transponder. That's why they followed Carla Jean and her mother to the bus station, whereupon a "Mexican in a suit" cordially asked the old lady where they were headed and what hotel they were staying at....
People who think Moss isn't dead: You are mistaken. The film is all about the cruelty and randomness of life, and that's why we don't get to see his death or his body -- because it's what we want. We want closure, and the movie's point is that life doesn't often give it to us. We want Bell to capture and kill Chigurh, too, and that doesn't happen either. Life is frustrating and unfair.
Bell saw Moss' dead body at the motel and came outside to inform Carla Jean of the sad fact. He later sees the body in the morgue. It doesn't matter that WE don't see the body; Bell does.
The reason Carla Jean doesn't mention having just buried her husband is that she hasn't "just buried" her husband. It happened weeks earlier. But she had just come from burying her mother that very day.
November 25, 2007 at 1:01 pm
#39 Eric: Oh yeah, I forgot about that polite Mexican in a suit at the bus station.
But what about my other question--Why did Moss go back to the scene at the beginning? Was it because he worried the one survivor (the "agua" guy in the pickup) might describe him? Does the book give more information about his reasoning for this?
November 25, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Chig gets the money, you do see him paying off the kid at the end with a crisp 100.
November 25, 2007 at 6:24 pm
40: He can't sleep and goes to bring water to the guy in the truck. He was being soft and stupid. He even told his wife he was being stupid. The guy in the truck might have been able to describe him, but so what? He didn't know Moss got the money and what do you think they would have been able to do with a description of Moss? Some gringo with a moustache, cowboy hat and gun came poking around. Great. Moss had no concern about that. He was bringing water to a dying man who asked him for water. Everyone in this movie kept returning to the scene, practically asking for trouble each time around. That was the event that started it all off.
November 25, 2007 at 6:30 pm
I think the motel scene is the most troubling of all.
My reaction at the time was that Sheriff Bell was killed by Chigurh. Subsequent scenes with Bell are him as a ghost, if you will.
Also, I don't think the mother-in-law's funeral was right on the heels of the El Paso hotel killing. I assume she died of cancer, perhaps a year or two later. And, if Bell was alive and did, in fact, retire, those scenes took place significantly later on. Again, also years later. If Chigurh didn't already have the money, his encounter with Moss' wife at the end wouldn't have been so evil, would it? Think of how sinister Chigurh would be if he got the money and still did what Moss made him promise to do.
November 25, 2007 at 7:30 pm
SPOILERS
33. There weren't two transponders, there were two recievers, one was Chigurh's and the other unseen one was given to the Mexicans
November 25, 2007 at 9:45 pm
The mother-in-law died in 1980. There are several other references in the movie that state the current year is 1980.
Remember, there's throw away dialogue in this (or other Coen Bros movies). All that seemingly insignificant rambling has a purpose. I'd like to read the script. Does anyone has a URL to a site with it?
November 25, 2007 at 10:39 pm
One of the finest films I have ever seen. The ending left me a bit sick. I wanted more, but understood that it had to end that way. I think Chigurh represented death incarnate. He along with the devil would play with your life on a coin flip. The acting was excellent across the board.
November 26, 2007 at 8:35 am
for those of you left unsatisfied by the ending i would say to remember many issues of life remained unresolved--the genius of the movie is in its ironic ambiguities . that one left a mark.
November 26, 2007 at 10:15 am
I would like to add my two cents to this great discussion
After seeing a second viewing of this movie, there was one small scene that I noticed that I believe has a lot of meaning. When Bell goes back to the motel and is standing in the doorway, his shadow is being thrown against the motel room wall and the silhouette created could be that of any "old west" sheriff preparing to draw (think Gary Cooper in High Noon)
He is an old time sheriff coming to that motel room to face down evil except now times have changed - evil is everywhere - and ridding the world of it is no longer that simple. Was Chigurh (evil) in the room? Of course he was, he is everywhere. The realization hits him as he sits on the bed and that is the point he knows he has to retire. This move is, at its roots, a Western.
November 26, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Lots of people say it defies a genre. It could be a modern day Western...but all the emphasis on Chigurh and Moss make it more of an amalgam of genres. However, if I was forced to call it -- and Anton Chigurh was asking -- I'd say it was most like a monster flick.
November 26, 2007 at 6:42 pm
#39 Eric...Your main review of this movie was GREAT! But your speculation on what happened is off. Maybe you should see the movie again. The movie was not exactly as the book read. Even though the Coen boys are not known for sequels of their movies, this one may happen. It would be a "CASH COW."
NOTE...Moss lives and still has the money.
November 26, 2007 at 7:46 pm
A couple of things:
If Moss wasn't dead, why was Carla so upset when she arrived?
If Chigurh doesn't have the money, then how did he pay the boys at the end? Yes the satchel is missing, but he obviously had contact with the money to even get one of the bills.
November 26, 2007 at 8:59 pm
#51 James. If you remember in the beginning Sheriff Bell said to his deputy..."I KNOW THAT TRUCK, BUT I HAVE NEVER MET THE BOY WHO DRIVES IT." Hence Sheriff Bell did not know what Moss looked like. So when the wife arrived, Sheriff Bell thought it was Moss but it really wasn't. That's why the next scene in the morgue, the body did look like Moss at all (look real close at the clean shaven face). Why no burial for Moss as the mother? As far as the money he gave the boy, Chigurh could have got that anywhere. There's just not enough clues for this movie puzzel that Moss is indeed dead.
"MOSS LIVES."
November 26, 2007 at 9:06 pm
ERROR CORRECTION...Scene in the morgue..."The body did NOT look like Moss at all!"
November 26, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Everyone ignore Jackk. He's having a laugh. Sheriff Bell doesn't say, "I know that truck but I have never met the boy who drives it." He says nothing of the kind. He says he knows the truck, and that it belongs to Moss. The deputy says, "Llewellyn Moss?" Bell says, "That's the boy." Bell's chats with Carla Jean indicate he already knows her; why wouldn't he know her husband, too? Besides, how would he know who the truck belongs to unless he knows the guy who owns it?
As for the body in the morgue not looking like Moss, that's a stretch, considering the body is under a sheet and we don't even see its face.
I'm guessing Jackk is playing a joke on the "Moss is alive" people by pretending to agree with their mistaken theory. It is probably his way of mocking it.
November 27, 2007 at 10:44 am
I watched this movie last weekend and I loved it. Has all you can expect from a good movie. I would call it a modern western movie. Especially it reminded me of the Leone’s movie “The Good, The Bad, The Ugly”… you know, Moss comes across some dead bodies, someone is still alive and asks for water and he finds money there…in that western movie also everything started after such a scene.
About the hotel room scene, which is the most controversial, I think Bell did not know that Chigurh is still in the room at that time and that’s why he looked around a little when he entered. However, Chigurh who was in there, behind the door, didn’t kill him maybe because there was no joy for him in killing and old, almost retired police officer, or maybe he admired him.
November 27, 2007 at 12:27 pm
I agree with 'nick henderson's' (34) interpretation: Bell 'wins' a coin flip.
I did, however, think of an alternative explanation.
Chigurh kills Bell in the motel room. Notice that Bell (and the tone of the movie) is completely different after the motel scene. Something happens in the motel room that 'takes the life out' of Bell and I think his life has actually been taken.
Bell talks to three people about his "retirement": uncle Ellis, the other 'oldtimer' cop, and his wife. I don't believe that any of them appear in the movie prior to the motel scene. Like Bell, these three are spirits and they could only be introduced to the audience after Bell's death.
Flame away!
November 27, 2007 at 3:51 pm
55 - Chigurh doesn't kill for joy. I don't remember who says it, but somebody in the movie says that he would kill you for the "inconvinience." I also don't think that Chigurh is behind the door when Bell opens it. The movie clearely shows the door bouncing off the wall when it's opened. Unless Chigurh is a lot thinner than he appears to be, the door would have made an audible sound hitting him. Also, Moss asks Wells if Chigurh is supposed to be "the ultimate bad ass". Wells doesn't answer, but the rest of the movie argues pretty convincingly that Chigurh is. Is this guy who has no trouble strangling a cop in the police station seriously going to either just let Bell go, or hide behind the door and slip out quietly while Bell goes into the bathroom? I don't think so.
November 27, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Was at an industry screening last night and Javier Bardem did a short Q&A after the film. To make a long story short: a lot of it is intentionally left open to interpretation. Chigurh is not so much a man as a "force of nature, an icon, evil in the flesh", at least according to the man who played him.
And no, he is not behind the door when Bell opens it, just the thought of him is there.
November 27, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Why do we all love this movie if there are so many loose ends? I walked out of the theater and had a long conversation with an older couple, total strangers, walking out of the theater trying to solve all this. And to think I went to the bathroom for two minutes!
SPOILERS
My gut told me two things that didn't get resolved in convesation with the couple and then I stumbled on this site and I'm glad, because now I know I'm not the only one head-scratching . . . .
two things: I didn't think that guy laying in the doorway of the hotel was Moss, but I know a lot of people did. I thought it was a mexican, the one who helped the mother with her suitcase.
the other: I thought that Chigurrth escaped through the duct in the hotel room because he knew it led to the room on the other side. Was it too small for him to slide through? I didn't get the sense that it was.
I thought Moss still had the money at the end, and if he was dead, I thought that Bell had it. I love this movie and the way it so starkly laid out these impressive, scary, dismal, hopeless themes, but I think it could have been just as powerful and work just as well if we knew the answers to these questions . . .
November 27, 2007 at 10:48 pm
#59...John. Your right that Moss is alive. I spoke to several of my friends who seen the movie also and they also said the body laying in the doorway did look like a Mexican. That scene in the Morgue really did it for me. The sheet covered the body up to the shoulders but the face was revealed and it was clean shaven. That suitcase that the Mexican helped the mother with is I figure the Mexican thought it was possibly the money. That funeral of the mother also added to that Moss was still alive. This movie was fun to watch with moviegoers trying to figure out what really happened. It's only a movie though. Maybe some take it a little too serious.
I really would like to see a sequel. Maybe the Coens will do it.
November 28, 2007 at 8:54 am
Loved this movie. Anyone else notice there was no music? Other than one part where there was sort of a low rumble, and in the credits, I didn't hear any score. Thoughts on that? Reflecting McCarthy's spare writing, bare storytelling?
November 28, 2007 at 11:33 am
59 & 60 - The body on the floor is clearly in the same clothes that Moss was in when he was talking to the lady by the pool.
We also love the movie because it's extraordinarily well done.
61 - I'm remembering the same thing, about the music. The silence added to the suspense in several scenes, particularly the scene in the hotel where Chigurh is coming up to the door, but you only hear the footsteps and the reciever.
November 28, 2007 at 2:27 pm
62 - You're right, the body on the floor in the hotel room was definitely Moss' because he was dressed in the clothes he bought after coming back across the border. It wasn't clean shaven either as some have suggested.
Someone also mentioned that they didn't think Chigurh killed Moss' wife because there was no reason to if he already had the money. They mention earlier in the film that Chigurh has his own principles that he operates by, and he felt that he needed to follow through on his promise to Moss that he would go after her if he returned the money to him.
That's my two cents.
November 28, 2007 at 7:12 pm
I saw the movie yesterday. I needed something to take my mind off the senseless killing of Sean Taylor in his bedroom. Talk about art imitating life ...
November 28, 2007 at 10:10 pm
SPOILERS
My take on the Bell/Chigurh hotel scene: Chigurh is not in the room. The previous scene has Sheriff Bell describing Chigurh as a ghost, which establishes Bell's mindset. He then arrives at the hotel room and sees the lock punched out and knows that Chigurh has been there... or worse yet, is still there. Bell sees (or in my opinion thinks he sees) something flickering the lock and imagines Chigurh, the epitome of all that is going wrong in the world, in the unknown darkness beyond the door (which is what we the audience see: Bell imagining Chigurh lying in wait). The whole scene is symbolic: Despite his fear, he still manages to pull his gun and go into the dark unknown... It's a symbolic test for Bell to see if he can confront the changing times, and how things are just going to hell (themes also reinforced in the previous scene with the El Paso Sheriff) . And while he succeeds in entering the room, and discovers that Chigurh had been there (because of the opened vent), he laments in the following scenes that what he learned is that he cannot face the changing times, that he is too old and tired.
That shot of the bathroom window shows that it remained locked. It serves to dispel any thought that Chigurh was actually there but escaped "out the back". I believe it is meant to reinforce in the audience's mind that he was never there in the room with Bell.
November 29, 2007 at 9:32 am
The sheriff was killed by Anton, in the motel room. The rest is elegy.
Or, the sheriff realized Anton was in the room, and let him go, knowing he was overmatched.
November 30, 2007 at 7:19 am
More insight from those who have read the book please...was Chigurh in the same hotel room as Bell? And what does the book say about who has the money?
By the way, I'm not buying all these literal ghost theories...I believe if Chigurh had been in the same room at the same time, Bell would have been killed.
Does the book have Bell's character as a ghost at the end???
November 30, 2007 at 7:21 am
Jeff G is exactly right on the hotel scene. The scene is immediately preceded by a discussion with the local sheriff about Chigurh returning to the crime scene at the Eagle Hotel earlier. Bell has a gut feeling and lawman's instinct and fear that Chigurh went back to the hotel where Moss was killed. He approaches the door, sees the lock cylinder blown out, knows Chigurh has been/is there, and imagines him behind the door. It doesn't matter that Bell does not know what Chigurh looks like, this image in Bell's mind could not be conveyed on screen without invoking the image of Chigurh behind the door. Bell stands in front of the door frozen with fear and anticipation of what might lurk behind it, and wondering if he has the courage to proceed with the confrontation. He sees only his own reflection in the lock, but may imagine others. The film makes it clear that Chigurh is NOT in the room, as Bell swings the door wide open and it is flush with the side wall (no room for hiding). Chigurh has clearly been there and left, but NOT through the locked bathroom window. He left out the front door with the money and vanished.
There is no elegy or selling of the sheriff's soul. There is no sequel. The story was completely told in this masterpiece, and nothing needs to be added. Chigurh lives on, but the Coens are not making a Halloween series with him as the serial killer.
The subsequent final scenes are to give us perspective on Bell and what could be described as the "message" of the film. His world has changed for what he perceives is worse. It has, but bad [stuff] has happened to people through all of time. Not all is fair. Good people are not necessarily rewarded, and bad people are not necessarily punished. In fact, the opposite often is true. There is no sense of just accounting in life. Bell feels unable to continue to fight a war he cannot win, and the truth is that he and no one else ever could. We take what life gives us and hope that we are lucky enough to avoid the random tragedies that befall others.
This is an existential drama that throws the usual Hollywood formulas in our faces. It is not made to uplift, but to provoke. I loved this film.
November 30, 2007 at 9:14 am
I read the book a couple of years ago, but Bell does not die and he is clearly not a ghost. He is a simple man of immense insight into the vagaries of life. Chigurh is not a ghost, but a representation of pure evil and random tragedy.
I have heard people describe Chigurh as an honorable and principled criminal among criminals. McCarthy makes it a point to blow that theory out of the water. Chigurh is a selfish, heartless assassin who destroys the guilty and the innocent with equal disdain.
The book and the film are deeply nontheistic, or at least compellingly agnostic. There is no God. At least not an omnipotent and kind one who doles out reward and punishment fairly. The book goes deeper into the randomness of good luck, bad luck, and worse luck. We all walk our own road while our road intersects with the near infinite roads of others, nature, disease, and fortune with unforseeable results. We have some control over the outcomes of our lives, but we are still all victims of chance.
I did have some problems with logic on first viewing of the film and my first read of the book. If the Mexicans and Chigurh both had receivers for the transponder, why were the Mexicans sitting in Moss' first hotel room? They must have known the money was somewhere in the room, yet they waited for Moss to return to the room. They should have been able to tear the room apart and find the parcel with the money, but they sat around waiting for him. On further thought, the logic was not that important to the film, as there were bigger ideas for the Coens and McCarthy to expound upon.
November 30, 2007 at 11:26 am
I must be the only Coen brothers' enthusiast in America left with a bad taste in her mouth after watching "No Country For Old Men." I admit--I'm a geeky fan. And after reading all those laudatory reviews ("Every bit as good as "Blood Simple," "A tour de force deserving shelf space next to "Fargo"), I went into the theater with high hopes.
And left with one thought: as a director who's bankable enough to turn story structure on its ear, is showing everyone that you can do it more important than telling a good story?
Story structure works like this. We see Hero in everyday world. Some event or person calls Hero to action. He meets with complication after complication (rising tension) until at the midpoint of the story, he learns something he will need in order to achieve his goal. He suffers reversals (turning points) until the blackest moment when all seems lost, followed by the climax and the denouement. 99.9% of stories are crafted along these lines.
So what do the Coens do? For starters, they dispense with any clearly delineated protagonist. If a story protagonist can be defined as someone who experiences the most pronounced character arc during the course of a tale, then I think we might claim the protagonist in "No Country" is Tommy Lee Jones's character.
But in this we are deceived. We spend most of our time with Josh Brolin and are disabused of any notion of his being the protagonist about 3/4 of the way through the film. Are we shocked? Perhaps. But does shocking an audience for the sake of shocking it make this any less of a mediocre movie? No.
If we are to assume Javier Bardem's character, Chiguhr, is Death or, as has been suggested, cruel and capricious fate, we learn nothing, are left with nothing, other than its implacable nature...and an entirely gratuitous scene where he debrides an open wound. Again, was this scene worth shooting? Was this movie worth making?
To my way of thinking, the Coen brothers are--or can be--better filmmakers than this. Depriving us of anyone likable to root for (with the exception of Kelly MacDonald's character, the only one by the way with enough pluck to refuse the coin-toss challenge posed to her by Chirguhr's personification of Death), an emotionally satisfying (or at least understandable) ending, any sense of causally-related cohesiveness (Woody Harrelson's character, while brilliantly acted, bore no relationship to the plot, not even allegorically) does NOT make this movie Oscar worthy. Instead, what we are fed in great abundance, is gore, directorial arrogance, and a whole lot of brilliant cinematography.
After reading all those rave reviews, I left the theater feeling as though I was the only one who realized the emperor wore no clothes.
Joel, Ethan--if by some remote chance you read this--please seal up your bag of cinematic tricks and write a movie with a little heart, okay? You have fans out here. Sure, some of us took a gut punch with this last movie, but we're still willing to give you our time, consideration, and money.
November 30, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Thanks to Eric for his review and to the many who have commented here.
My initial reaction to No Country for Old Men was puzzlement. As I walked out of the theater earlier today, I realized that I had no idea whether Moss was alive or dead nor whether Chigurh was really in the motel room when Sheriff Bell walked in. Upon reflection, and after having read the many insightful comments to Eric’s review, I have concluded that the ambiguity about Moss’s death and Chigurh’s presence in the motel room, as well as a bunch of other stuff, were intentionally left vague. For example, do we really know what became of the money or whether Chigurh finally killed Moss’s wife? The answer, alas, is “no.” I can live with that but I don’t have to like it.
No Country for Old men is, indeed, a masterpiece but it is a flawed masterpiece. Truly great films should be approachable enough to make an immediate impact, it seems to me. This film failed in that endeavor, at least to my mind. That’s too bad, too, because its tone, the language of its characters, and the performances of a great cast were brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. It was certainly worth my time and trouble but it’s no Fargo.
November 30, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Stacey, the Coen goal was not to follow film school rules, but to be true to the book. I guess that you could criticize Cormac McCarthy, not the Coens, as they were simply representing the book quite accurately (including much of the dialogue verbatim).
Bell is the protagonist of the book and the film. His insight on his observations of society and chance and wicked fortune are the heart of the novel and the film. He is a keen, albeit inarticulate, observer of humanity.
Harrelson's Wells is a McCarthy invention to give us perspective on Chigurh's past and his ruthlessness. This plot contrivance was quickly dispatched in the book and the film after he served his purpose.
The film is a punch in the gut. It was never meant to be Gladiator. It is simply, I believe, the greatest Coen film.
November 30, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Stacey - One of the messages of the film is that life is not like a story. There aren't cozy happy endings. The world revolves around capriciousness (if I spelled that right).
The gore in the movie was a reflection about the violence of our times. Also, the scene with the open wound, which parallels Moss', serves to prove how bad-ass Chigurh is (and the same could be said for Moss).
I loved all of the characters. (Even Chigurh, but only in a cool character sorta way. Wouldn't want to hang out with him.) Between Moss and Bell are two incredibly funny, softspoken men who can kick ass when needed to.
You're just wrong about Wells (played by Woody).
And yes, this movie was meant to give us a punch to the gut.
71 - John L
I didn't find Bell inarticulate, but plain-talking. I remember reading the book being amazed at how characters could say so much with so few words.
November 30, 2007 at 7:01 pm
to Betsey #67:
I read the book, the Coens where true to the book, UNTIL you get to this much debated motel scene. In the book, the sequence of events goes like this.
Moss is killed, Bell goes to the morque and id's the body, at night Chigurh goes to the motel and opens the air duct and retrieves the money, then goes outside and sits in his car, he watches as Bell returns to the crime scene opens the door, sits on the bed, looks down at the air duct, goes to the window and goes back out to his car, calls for two more squad cars to come out to the motel. Then they go car by car to see if anyone is around. Chigurh is able to slip away unseen. Next scene Chigurh goes to Root's office to return the bag full of money which is short $100k, Chigurh tells him he took out "expenses" then there is a dialoque about who one should trust in business dealings, Chigurh does NOT kill Root in the book. Next scene Chigurh goes to see Moss' wife, movie and book become true once again.
The Coens' took a huge risk straying from the book at this key point in the story, whether it was right or wrong, is debateable.
December 1, 2007 at 7:00 am
Cappy, I am pretty certain that Root was killed in the book, though I cannot be certain that I remember exactly. He was shot in the throat with birdshot so as not to break the window behind him. There was no accountant in the room in the book, but he was there in the film to tell us that there were two receivers- one for the Mexicans and one for Chigurh.
You are right on the motel scene. The movie really does not stray from the book much, though. The point was that Bell knows that Chigurh WAS in the room and took the money, and he was not certain before he entered the room if he was still there. He still had to summon the courage to enter the room not knowing what lurked behind the door. The film simply places the potential presence of Chigurh as a more immediate threat to Bell entering the room. The gist of the scene is the same.
The book goes much deeper into Bell's psyche. He harbored guilt from his past from being a decorated war hero, when he did not deserve a medal for his actions. The Uncle Ellis scene was also much more detailed with long discussions about random tragedy in their family's past. Bell's character is much better understood through reading of the book. There was a great dialogue that I remember where they talked about luck. It said something like people always talk about having bad luck, when they don't know where their bad luck has saved them from even worse luck.
December 1, 2007 at 8:52 am
Good Discussion. Personally, most poignant scene Luellens wife and Chigurh.
1. Chigurh flips coin asks her to call it.
2. She refuses " No, the coin has no say. There is only you.
3. This frail girl stands up to evil where stronger men and their guns could or would not.
4. he lets her go..
5. Stunned that he did not kill her, he looks at his boots sans blood...
December 1, 2007 at 9:02 am
Doesn't the book portray the sheriff at the scene of Anton's car wreck, after Anton has paid the boys for the shirt and left? In the book, doesn't the sheriff decide only then to let Anton go? If so, why would the directors have varied on that point from the book?
In order to create an ambiguous set of inferences in the scene at the motel room. The sheriff is either killed by Anton while sitting on the bed, looking at the dime on the floor and realizing that Anton is nearby; or the sheriff decides at that point that he is out of his depth and won't pursue Anton further. Putting the Sheriff's decision in the motel room rather than at the scene of the wreck gives the directors the ability to create an ambiguity. Maybe the Sheriff does die in that room. ANd the scenes with his wife, and with the oldtimer in the desert ('19 and zero 9'), are spiritual reflections.
Otherwise, I think they'd have shown him leaving the motel room.
December 1, 2007 at 2:55 pm
The Book:
Just re-read parts of the book and in it:
(1) Chigurh does limp up 17 flights of stairs and kills a man by shooting him in the throat with a "load of number ten lead shot" so as not to rain glass on pedestrians below.) BUT it is to avenge that person hiring Wells to track him.
(2) Later, after Chigurh takes the money from the motel in Van Horn (not El Paso), he actually does return it to someone (he's not named, and I didn't go back to find out if he's named Root), telling him, as cappy says, that it is "short $100k" (part was stolen, part is his "expenses.") The man asks Chigurh, after getting the money, "Who the hell are you?" and then "What do you want. I guess that's my question," to which Chigurh responds, "Well, I'd say that the purpose of my visit is simply to establish my bonafides. As someone who is an expert in a difficult field. As someone who is completely reliable and completely honest." This might have been a good scene for the movie.
(3) In the book, too, Chigurh is at large at the end. Sequels?
(4) One BIG difference in the book is that every chapter opens with an often lengthy first-person italicized musing by Bell, and the final chapter is exclusively this format. This final "soliloquy" I think was actually done as a kind of voiceover by Tommy Lee at the end of the movie.
I confess that I tired of these "prefaces" as I read the book, and skipped through them mostly to get to the action. My son, who has also read most of McCarthy's books, said that I'd thereby missed an important part of the book. But it certainly was a thrilling read without the philosophy or whatever that was. There's enough philosophy in the Chigurh character (and Moss).
December 1, 2007 at 2:58 pm
This was a very gendered film and needed I think the redemptive presence of a Francis McDormand like character in ' Fargo' who while knowing that evil wins the day manages to affirm the beauty and significance of the 'little' things in life-her baby about to be born and the importance of husband Norm's winning the the 3 cent stamp design contest.
December 1, 2007 at 5:31 pm
In reference to those who shared their thoughts on my post (#70): right on, my brothers!
But here's the thing. I think what we're talking about here goes beyond just this movie, which as you know I didn't care for. Perhaps it goes to issues of what we consider art. And that brings up the point I've made before, which is this: just because they could, doesn't mean they should.
I've read the book, by the way. And I understand your argument about how the capriciousness of fate is thematic in both the book and the movie.
So here are my thoughts: 1) this is not a new theme and has been explored far more effectively in movies that didn't thumb their noses at drawing conclusions or making a salient point.
2) The story is cliched enough to required the kind of fancy footwork the Coens employed to make it mildly interesting. Drug deal gone bad? Hayseed sheriff vs. the Dark Unknown? Psychopathic killer with no clearly-defined motive on a killing rampage? Zzzzzz.
3) The movie didn't pass the gut-check and didn't stay with me past the lobby aside from a feeling of disappointment and irritation. Watch Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal." Do you really know what's going on? Hell, no. But you KNOW you are seeing something incredible, even if you only get half of it.
In "No Country" all I was seeing were two guys with great cinematography and editing skills.
If what you are saying, by the way, is true, and the do-it-yourself surgery scene is to underscore Chigurh's tough-ass ways, we already learned that in the first scene.
As for W. Harrelson's character (which was, I'll admit, brilliantly acted), if he was there for the same purpose, that is bonafide, card-carrying overkill.
As far as film school rules, it might be disingenuous to think the Coens aren't trying to tell a story. All movies, all books, are stories. And not all of them adhere to the rules, especially art house flicks and other "non-plot" contrivances. Yet many of those stories are still told quite well.
I continue my original premise. The Coens didn't tell a particularly good story.
December 2, 2007 at 1:34 am
Any thoughts on Bell's dreams about his father?
December 2, 2007 at 7:19 am
Well said, Stacey. We clearly have a difference of opinion, and I respect yours as well thought out and cogent. I love your reference to "Seventh Seal", another wonderfully obtuse film.
The other films that have presented similar themes end with some glimmer of hope. There is no such thing in "No Country", and I particularly enjoyed that, though I may be a bit darker soul than you (I'm an ER doc in a large city, so I see a lot of random violence and tragedy strike innocent people).
I don't believe the Coen's were trying to rewrite McCarthy's story, so the conjecture of sequels is dubious. Moss is dead, Carla Jean is dead, Bell is retired (not dead), Chigurh lives on. Sorry fans. This movie is not a goldmine, and a sequel would not result in a cash cow for the Coens. The story was told and it is over.
December 2, 2007 at 9:10 am
Am I the only one who thinks that Anton and the Sheriff are the same person? Bell's gone a little crazy over the years, and now has this split personality
One of the themes is that nobody sees the killer and lives.
The "Accounting" guy says, "Are you going to shoot me?" Anton: "Depends, did you see me?"
To the kids at the end, Anton says, "You never saw me."
Anyway, the above points are evidence that nobody is able to tell authorities that the sheriff is the killer, because nobody ever sees him and lives!
This is also how everyone found Moss at the end (negates the need for a 2nd receiver. Remember, Carla Jean calls the Sheriff and tells him where Moss and she will meet up.
Remember, Bell says that the killer always visits the crime scene after the fact. Well, Bell visited the scene after the fact. He doesn't see Anton because they're the same person.
Also, Bell has "dreams" in which he sees the exact way Anton kills people (for example with the cattle gun).
I really wish I'd paid more attention to the opening and final scenes, particularly the final scene where he talks to his wife.
Near the end where he speaks to Carla Jean, imagine that Carla has put it all together, and realized she told Bell of Moss's whereabouts--and so she realizes Bell is the killer. When she sees "Bell" (in his killer persona) in her home, she's not surprised. And so she has that chat. If my theory is untrue, wouldn't she be shocked at seeing some stranger in her home? It might not be her first thought that "hey this strange guy in my bedroom is the killer!"
December 2, 2007 at 1:56 pm
#81 - I too see that there was more meaning to the "dream" that Bell related to his wife about his father at the end of the movie. What that meaning is, I can't quite say without going to it again (I saw it on Thanksgiving).
And for the record...I agree with John L.'s (68 & 69) assessment of the motel room scene. And I believe that this was the telling of a "story", not a means to make a sequel (as my father-in-law thought in disgust when we left the theater). I love the Coens' work (MY favorite is O Brother), and I truly believe that they ended the movie the way they did to have people talking about it on the way out of the theater and on the whole trip home (which we did). Ironically, both my father-in-law and I are in law enforcement; he as an aging Sheriff with over 40 years experience, and I as a (almost) middle aged cop. The movie had great meaning to both of us, he being on his way out and I in the middle of it.
December 2, 2007 at 4:29 pm
I thought there were TWO side-by-side rooms at the motel with the locks blown out. Ed went in the room where the KILLER wasn't. The vent went between them. Ed, agaian, avoiding his upcoming eventual death. Beating fate again, beating the mythical coin toss.
December 2, 2007 at 4:55 pm
I haven't read all the comments, but did others find Lu returning to the clothing store in only his boots and a shirt hilarious? "How are the boots doing?" the clerk asks. What I thought of Chigurh is that, among other things, he is the speaker of unavoidable existential truth - a dark truth teller whose voice we prefer not to hear.
December 2, 2007 at 7:41 pm
I just saw this movie. Riveting, great acting, but I left this movie feeling like its creators were trying to create a work of "art" simply by breaking the rules for telling a good story, (like avoiding pointless red herrings, etc.), depicting a world of senseless violence that is devoid of heros and winners (not to mention minimally competent police investigators who aren't burnt out). Well, nice try, but I don't care to go to the movies to end up with the same feeling I get from watching the news and reading the newspapers.
#70, my thoughts, exactly.
December 3, 2007 at 8:40 am
Fascinating commenstary here! I was grasping at meaning after the film, besides being puzzled by the lose strings. If Chigurh represented death, then the meaning of the film, which ties in with the title, is America's inability to confront and manage old age and ultimately death, with dignity. As baby-boomers age, we are going to be dealing with hundreds of thousands of additional people in nursing homes, etc. who are inadequately cared for.
Also, there were direct innuendos in the film -- not even subtle, because of the constant appearance and remarks about Mexicans -- to be made about how we are treating immigrants. When the dog is killed at point-blank range in the film's beginning, you could see that the Mexicans' lives were no more important than that of dogs.
Yes, sure these were bad Mexicans because they were drug dealers; but notice how, when Moss went across to the Mexican border and was in such horrible shape, injured and bloody -- those American teenagers treated him like dirt, only wanting his money and not showing one iota of compassion.
December 3, 2007 at 11:29 am
I read most of this because I was not sure if Moss was dead or not either, and I don't have any really compelling evidence one way or the other but..
One thing I did think of was Moss and his relation to death. Death is all around him all movie and his backstory, rendered at the border check, is that he survived 2 tours of Vietnam, etc. The only thing that doesn't die around Moss in the beginning is the buck he tried to shoot, that lives, he misses.
From then on it's like Moss has the touch of death also, like a survivor carrying a fatal contagion. And he is followed by the contagion also, which he can ward off but not destroy, and perhaps not be destroyed by????
December 3, 2007 at 5:05 pm
# 81(Any thoughts on Bell's dreams about his father?)
The Dream(s) [from the book, but I think it was the same]:
"I had two dreams about him after he died. I dont remember the first one all that well but it was about meetin him in town somewheres and he give me some money and I think I lost it. But the second one it was like we was both back in older times and I was on hosrseback goin through the mountains of a night. Goin through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin. Never said nothin. He just rode on past and he had this blanket wrapped around him and he had his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carryin fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. About the color of the moon. And in the dream 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 and I know that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up."
In the book, this is probably more significant, since Bell is really the main character of the book, due to all those italicized preambles to the chapters. In the movie, the symbol of fire carried in a horn is a great, vague way of wrapping things up. I'm guessing the Coens left it in there, as someone said earlier, to get us thinking and talking as we left the theater and drove home. I assume the second dream is about Bell's eventual death.
December 3, 2007 at 8:52 pm
My favorite scene of a bunch of favorite scenes: the perspiration subtly building on Woody Harrelson's character as he suspects he's about to become another victim...
December 4, 2007 at 6:54 am
This is a wonderful, civil discussion.
The final dream scene is best interpreted by reading the book. I think it is a final punch in the gut (thanks, Stacey) by McCarthy and subsequently, the Coens. It is a melancholy dream of a son about his father (duh). Hopeful ideas of our parent making a path and providing warmth and light for the often murky, cold and confusing lives with which we all struggle. A glimmer of hope in a dark film. Then the hope abruptly evaporates. Bell wakes up. He is back with his own reality.
As to the comments about the motel scene that everyone wants to deconstruct to minutiae. It does not matter if Chigurh was in the room next door or left earlier. He was not in the room when Bell entered. The point of the scene is that Bell is cognizant that Chigurh had been there and might still be there (the lock blown out), and his struggle with his potential confrontation with this demon.
As to compelling evidence that Moss was dead, how much more compelling do you need than seeing the mustachioed body with Moss' clothes lying in the doorway, and the fact that he is killed in the book? The same goes for Carla Jean. She is dead in the book, and Chigurh looked at his boots for her blood in the film. In the book, she has an impassioned discussion with Chigurh, then eventually calls the coinflip. She was wrong, and she was shot. The Coens don't show her death because we like her, and they cut us a break.
Bell and Chigurh are not the same person, and neither of them is God. People always want to invoke supernatural symbolism in every obtuse film. The book and the film compellingly argue against a God that involves him/herself in the vicissitudes of our lives. The superstitious are up in arms about The Golden Compass, when it is trivial compared to the assault on faith that every sentient and introspective human being should appreciate by simply living their lives. This film begs us to question the existence of God in the form with which we have been accustomed.
Again, this film is a disturbing masterpiece...
December 4, 2007 at 10:50 am
In terms of Bell's dreams at the end, I think it's his realization/admission that, by opting for retirement instead of continuing to pursue Chigurh, he did not live up to his father's standards (or the standards of pride and honor of Western law men).
In the dream, his father rides past, head down (in shame?), without even looking at him. He's going into the cold and dark (evil) to light a fire (hope) and passes Bell without a glance. Bell then says he knows his father is 'making a place for him', but follws it with "And then I woke up" -- meaning literally he woke up from his dream, and perhaps figuratively that he woke up from the delusion that his father was doing this for him (as opposed to the common good?)
The 'last act' of the film (after Moss is killed -- and yes, he WAS killed) changes the tone from a hunter/hunted scenario to a rumination on how we confront death and evil/injustice. Carla Jean stood toe to toe with evil and refused to back down (by not calling the coin toss). Bell slunk away to early retirement.
December 4, 2007 at 8:12 pm
Something is definitely going on here . . . this film has generated by far more comments than any other currently being reviewed. Hmmmmm . . . .
December 5, 2007 at 10:14 am
I agree with #76 in a sense. Sugar (much more fun to call him this) is a cafteria Calvanist. He believes in predestination but allows himself the power to transform fate with a coin. His power is derived from his ability to undo fate, and when Moss's wife takes that away from him, he comes undone. As a "man of principle", the negation of his most powerful self-serving caveat relieves him of his "duty" to carry out the murder of Moss's wife.
In the next scene, Sugar (now a broken, defeated man) suffers a crippling, unpredictable fate. Brilliant and ironic.
December 6, 2007 at 2:26 pm
I just left the theater and immediately rushed home to see what people were saying about the ending. I'm glad I'm not the only one. I have to say that the Coen Brothers never let me down because they like to cross so many genres and work off such rich palettes of themes, characters and messages about the oddity of life. The motel room ending was puzzling to me too...from the tear in Chigurh's eye to the shadows, the window and the dime/screws on the floor.
The person who was on the floor looked nothing like Moss, nor did the body in the morgue. True, you can't see the body, but you can see the face and it was clean shaven. There would be no reason a coroner or other would shave his face.
That said, I don't believe Chigurh would either a) slip out without a sound or b) confront Bell as there would be nothing to gain. I think Moss did escape with the money but perhaps he escaped but died due to taking too much damage. I don't think Moss would have let his wife get killed as there was nothing to suggest he would do that. Chigurh didn't have the money, but his principles told him to kill Moss' wife since that was "his deal".
NOW...Moss' wife would not pick heads or tails on the coin and I think this asked a very simple question of Chigurh: If there is no answer to be had, what was really the question? In this case, Chigurh simply left. As for him having money to pay the kids, Chigurh wouldn't be so petty as to take a few dollars and stuff it in his pocket and the money didn't look all that crisp to me. Chirgurh seems like a man who takes what he wants and doesn't bargain or quibble over the little stuff. Thus, I think he had some cash on him, and in that case, decided to use it.
I loved reading all these comments about what they think happened, and funny thing is, just about every comment has viability as the vagueness of the film leaves a lot to interpretation. Chigurh could represent a lot more than just a sick individual as Bell could represent a lot more than just an aged sheriff. One thing is for sure, had the film been anything less than magnificient there would be hardly a word on this blog...instead, it's an incredible amount of insight from seemingly bright people who enjoy the Coen Brothers films as much as I do.
Now I'm planning on seeing the film again. One thing that might point to some possible answers is how much time the camera lingered on the mom's grave and the date. That might supply something in relation to timeline and a second viewing might just answer so more from this puzzle. To be honest, I wasn't really paying that much attention to the very last scene since I was trying to wrap my head around the four prior scenes. A master stroke.
By the way, I am Texan and have actually traveled much of the border towns they have in the film. The only difference is these towns actually have LESS going for them than what the film suggests. I've been through Del Rio and Hudspeth counties several times. In Hudspeth, as of last year, their high school graduating class was 3. And I know the sheriffs of both of those towns...it's pretty lawless with all the drug running, people smuggling and Mexican military incursions but in these little Texas towns, the top law man is the Sheriff. Just thought I'd add a little background. The sights are breathtaking and very rich with Western culture.
Clyde
December 6, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Well, my take appears to be a bit more positive than many offered here, particularly how I interpret the dream scene.
The dream is an epihany for Bell. The cold and dark up ahead are death, the fear of which has caused him (a force of Good) to retire, rather than confront Evil (in the form of Chigur). His dream of his father lets him know that he needn't fear death, that his father (hmmm, could by christian symbology) has prepared a place for him. He has decided (or is in the process of realizing as he tells his wife the dream) that he will return to the force and find Chigur, even if it means he'll lose his own life. He's not afraid of death anymore, he feels his callling to fulfill his duty as an agent of Good, he is prepared to fulfill his destiny as the Hero we've known him to be all along (even though he had been unable to see it himself).
I left the film feeling very uplifted and inspired, even though Chigur had really spooked me out. Good (as is often the case) looks overmatched by Evil, but ultimately doesn't back down from confronting it. Very positive film...
December 6, 2007 at 11:53 pm
Well, here goes my 2 cents:
While I agree with most of the comments concerning the hotel (ref: both Chigur and Bell in the room together), I do think it's a little absurd to render the audience blind by not including more detail. By this, I mean to say that by witnessing the murder of Moss, by examining the fate of Bell, etc... we can still come to our own conclusions of what this movie's point or lesson is.
December 7, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Started reading this review and the resulting conversation minutes after coming home from the cinema.. like many others it seems.
Don’t mean to demean anyone’s responses, but I do find some of the statements about being 'certain' what did or did not happen a bit surprising. This is a story; none of it happened in the literal sense. All we have are our interpretations of that which was not made explicitly clear. The interpretations that we choose are, in my mind, more telling of our own expectations of where the story (or life for that matter) 'should' go. Any disappointment felt by people is a result of the same.
Dissapointment = expectation - reality
(Stayce's feelings are a good example of this)
I dearly wanted Moss to live. I wanted him to ride off into the future -wife, kids, happily ever after- with the money. Maybe with some double team action between Moss and Bell taking out Chigur.
Alas, in my world, Moss is dead. His wife is dead. Bell is disillusioned and will never sleep properly again, retired or no.
I always try to hope for the best, but a part of me is always planning for the worst. Might be a bit bleak, but I can tell you that I am very thankful for all the things -large and small- which do go my way.
A pessimist is a realist, but optimists have more fun. The mind we have been given and the lives we live allow us to be both.
One specific piece of dialog relating to Moss’s fate that I haven’t read in the above conversation: {fat, shiny faced Sheriff from El Paso speaking to Bell} “I’m sorry we couldn’t help your boy” –in my mind your boy must be Moss, who else was needing of help in Bell’s perspective?
Good night and good luck all.
December 8, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Maybe in a way they were the same person because they each gave a person money for their shirts!!!!!!
December 8, 2007 at 6:33 pm
HOly cow genius you are a genius. You have wowed me.
December 8, 2007 at 9:27 pm
I think Sheriff Ed Tom = Anton. (At least in movie version)
I wrote a post on IMDB (see above link)
December 11, 2007 at 12:48 am
Great review! Great thread! I think Nick Henderson (post #34) has the most viable hypothesis.
Sheriff Bell takes the money at the end after motel scene. Here are the reasons I found to support this:
1. The only time anyone in the film talks of "retirement" is when they are in posession of the money.
2. Chigur has not other motivation to see Carla except to retrieve the satchel. There's no need to track her down weeks/months later if he had the money.
3. At the end, Bell mentions he had TWO dreams about his father. He says, "first one I don't remember so well but it was about money."
IMO, the film doesn't lend any other solid clues as to who else could've walked away with the loot. The cash Chig gives the kid for his shirt is curious, but he doesn't walk out of Carla's house with the satchel. Does he? Guess, I'll have to see if a few more times to make sure.
December 12, 2007 at 2:02 am
Wow.
I have never been so moved by a motion picture. This doesn't mean that I was moved in a positive manner as I would normally expect, nonetheless I'm awstruck.
I think most of the controversial scenes described above all leave some interpretation up to the viewer. Here are my thoughts on some of the perplexing moments from the movie.
1. Chigurh vs. Carla
Chigurh is angered by her indecision to choose. What happens when you don't choose heads or tails when confronted? He has no weapon in the room, yet he checks his boots when he leaves for "something". *Note the detail in the scene with Woody's character where he avoids getting blood on his boots. Carla was brave and everyone hopes she lived, but I think most of the previous posts fail to realize that Moss did not fulfill Chigurh's demand. Therefore, he followed through on his word.
2. Who has the money?
To me this was the biggest let down of the movie...or so I thought at first. Take note that the entire situation was started by greed: The mexican smuggling transaction gone bad and Moss' aquisition of the money. The whole plot of the action-based part of the movie revolves around greed. The scene after the car crash with Chigurh and the boys tells the entire story in a subtle, yet humorous way. Chigurh gives the $100 bill (note symbology of blood on the bill) to the boy for his shirt and what appeared to be an agreement of silence. The other boy requests half of the money and is denied by his friend. I personally found the lack of information regarding the satchel frustrating...but following this trail makes me just as guilty as all those chasing it in the movie. *Note Bell's 1st dream recollection about the money his dad gave him and the fact that he thinks he lost it.
3. Bell's Dream
I felt the last monologue of the film to be some of the most beautifully spoken words, despite their dark setting. To me the historical reference to the horn lamps and his father symbolized something very close to him in his past. His father didn't offer any advice because he too struggled with the meaning of a cruel world. The awaiting camp fire ahead symbolizes the underlying structure of humanity; that somehow through all of the cruel (cold and dark) things in the world we try to look forward to something good.
With others here I agree that some scenes (Chigurh self help) could have been omitted. I'm not upset with the ending, as it instilled infinite mystery into my inquisitive brain. However, I will say the book/movie/overall story could have been wrapped up beautifully by TLJ before his final dream speech. Think about it...Bell knows what happened...how would letting the audience know take away from his darkened view of life. In fact, I think it could have made the ending even more dramatic. I think most of us will agree we have some closure issues.
There are two kinds of people in the world
1. Those that need closure
2.
December 12, 2007 at 2:16 am
Also, on a humorous side note, I watched this movie on a first date. The poor girl hardly knows me and is probably having nightmares.
December 12, 2007 at 9:46 pm
bell sits on the bed and decides he has to retire in the end...I think so because in the beginning of the book he talks about how you have to be willing to die to be a sheriff and how if your not they (evil) will know it in a heart beat. I don't think Bell was ready to die and Chigurh could see it. Maybe there was a confrontation in the room we did not see? I don't know, but before anyone says Chigurh would not have killed him...well I think we all know he would have and not thought twice about it. The only other option is he was not in the same hotel room.
See maybe Chigurh decided not to kill him plain and simple, like fate. I mean Chigurh let various people live through out the story with the whole coin toss thing. Maybe Chigurh saw that Bell was not ready to die and had the money already and just decided to let the old man live....I don't know.........
December 13, 2007 at 8:59 pm
The dreams that Bell had at the end of the movie are very important esp. the last one here's why. It helped tie the whole movie together in the fashion that this world is screwed up, bad things happen to good people, and can appear to be very random and just plain wrong, but his last dream emphasizes his father's love for him and how he knew he loved him and that he would be there for him. I think the Cohens did this to show a point ... the world is completely screwed up and completely random (as only some might view it) but that's not the point in life... you can't focus on the awfullness of this world and let the fate of others ruin your life but that there's more to it.
For intstance in the opening monolouge Bell is disgusted with the worlds cruelity and seemingly random fate... throughout the whole movie you see that this has crucially tainted his view on life
On the other spectrum is Chigurh who represented fate in a sense but could also be theorized that he too was very displeased with the world's hurt and pain and seemingly random fate ... he just channels it different than bell ... he doesn't mind killing who ever because of this depressing fact, he's screwed up to begin with but has the same perspective in a sense as Bell.
Also everyone that thinks Moss isn't dead is clearly clearly wrong. I saw this movie twice in the span of four and when you really pay attention when Bell approaches the hotel it is Moss's face that's on the ground dead. And in the morgue you can see a side glimpse of the face and it's totally the same one you see in the previous scene DEAD.
As far as the hotel scene at the end ... I think Chigurh was in a different hotel room because before bell opens the door you see Chigurh waiting in a corner ... so after Bell opens the door the door hits the wall absolutely no room for Chigurh to be behind and the other 3 corners of the wall well he's just not there. So Bell obviously went to retrieve the money at some point in the vent and has it at the end of the movie but I honestly think Chigurh was probably in the hotel room next to Bell... he booked the room with the coin on the floor before Bell got in their and waited in a corner probably the room next to the one Bell entered.
Also everyone who thinks Chigurh didn't kill moss's wife are also wrong. Throughout the entire movie I believe in 3 to four scenes we see Chigurh taking off his socks, shoes, and moving his shoes and avoiding blood touch his feet ... so he checks his feet on the door step after talking to moss's wife .... she's dead!
Another thought ... (this one's kinda deep ... but so is the movie) after Chigurh got in the car accident he seems alot more shooken up than you would have expected him it's almost like he felt the pain of moss's wife's, so called fate after experiencing something of that nature himself... plus you could tell he didn't want to kill her ... so in the end it's all in Chigurh's face ... he got a taste of his own medicine but the movie still ending off in a fantastic thought with Bell's dream
lemme know what you guys think
December 14, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Yes Moss may have been killed but no proof is given, just scenes making it seem so. Therefore, I have to agree with Jackk and Sy about Moss not being dead. Makes sense to setup a sequel with everyone thinking he's dead.
Although I have not read the book, I guess Moss gets killed in it, judging from others' comments. Of course, this means "nothing." There are many movies that have far different outcomes than the books they are based on.
The ending of this movie begs for a sequel. If there is one, I hope it's as cool as the original. If not, there shouldn't be one. In my opinion, poorly written sequels only take away from the originals.
- stay tuned...
December 14, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Interesting thoughts #83. I went to the movie with a group of people and immediately afterwards we began discussing the idea that Bell and Chigurh were, in fact the same person. That Chigurh was nothing more than a split personality of Bell's caused by his time in World War II.
After doing a little research on the book, I'm not sure I buy the theory anymore, but it is crazy interesting. There were two scenes that got me thinking this way and then a crazy amount of stuff to support it. The first scene was the hotel scene so many of you have been talking about. In the scene I think it's obvious we are supposed to believe both Bell and Chigurh were at the hotel at the same time when you see the smoke in the lock hole from both of their perspectives. Bell enters the room and normally that is exactly when Chigurh would have stepped out and killed him, but he doesn't. They specifically show the locked window and then what I believe to be an empty room to show that the only one there is Bell, who in fact was already there before.
The other scene is the milk scene in Moss's trailer. I believe this is significant because of the way they show both Bell and Chigurh sitting on the coach drinking milk from that strange camera angle. It's just an outline of their figure in the TV, and I don't think it was an accident that they were made to look very similar.
I agree with you that it was very coincidental that Moss' wife told Bell where Moss was and then all of a sudden Chigurh and the Mexicans were able to find him. Also no one would have recognized him because no one who knew what one of them looked like knew what the other one looked like, until the very end because "Chigurh" killed everyone who saw him alive.
At the end Moss' wife isn't shocked when she sees Chigurh sitting in the chair, its as if she is seeing a familiar face who has obviously changed into something different. I believe her exact line is "I knew you were crazy when I saw you sitting in that chair." Who says that to someone they have never met?
Other coincidences are that Bell tells a totally unrelated story to Moss' wife about killing cows and it just happens to include the cattle gun.
There is so much more but here is one theory I have, if this were true. The scene where Chigurh gets hit by the car... I think at that point Bell was trying to kill off that side of his personality (seen the movie identity?), but he doesn't die...meaning that somewhere deep inside that part of him is still alive even though he doesn't know it.
Thoughts anyone?
December 14, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Pretty good movie... enjoy reading all your opinions.... I thought it was clever how the scene at the end when Chiqurh pays off the boys for silence speaks to the nature of evil slipping between the cracks when money enters the picture.... In this case, evil's ability to carry on (ie. Chigurh is not caught or reported) is preserved by money, which Chigurh uses to buy their silence, even though the kids entered the scene as neutral (or "good") agents with the intent of helping. In that sense, it also works as microcosm of Moss' storyline, which was, at first, hunting and doing his own thing, but then, after finding the money, bringing himself into a world of trouble.
December 15, 2007 at 12:27 pm
This Bell is Chigurh theory is intriquing in an art school sense, but is absurd. There are too many holes for this to carry any credibilty. Remember, Chigurh was arrested in the beginning by a cop from a local county. You don't think local lawmen might not know one another? Woody Harellson knew Chigurgh from a violent past, and it could not have been Bell. The parallels between the two in the film are the parallels of alter egos, not the same person.
There is always a desire in interpetation of film and literature to believe there is more to the story than what is on screen. One must not fall victim to believing that every filmmaker is infinitely more intelligent and creative than the bright ones in the audience. They are not. We in the audience also have the benefit of a novel by a sublime author to help us interpret the story. Since the Coen's were so remarkably true to the novel, I doubt that they decided to morph McCarthy to something he did not convey. The story is powerful, thought provoking, and complete when the novel, as McCarthy wrote it, is brought to screen by the Coens.
Interesting, in the book the boys found the gun in the car and later it was discovered to be used in the commission of another deadly crime. The silence that Chigurh purchased from the boys with cash lead to more tragedy for other unrelated innocent victims of chance and evil.
December 16, 2007 at 2:29 pm
I watched "No Country for Old Men" a couple of nights ago and it has been in my head ever since. The last time a movie did that was the hypnotic "Mulholland Drive". The cinematography is gorgeous and the dialogue is poetic - hallmarks of the Coen brothers' film resume.
The abrupt ending to "No Country", in which Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) simply recounts a couple dreams he had the previous night, really bothered me at first. I initially felt robbed - of what exactly, I wasn't sure. I guess I wanted some sort of meaning to all of the death I just observed. But after absorbing the movie for a couple of days, I realized that accepting the capriciousness of life and death as encapsulated in "No Country" is just plain difficult to do. Now, I consider the ending to be brilliant.
In an allegorical sense, it is obvious that the character Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a professional hitman hired to recover drug money, represents death or fate. He kills without compunction and exposes how helpless we are when our "time" comes. No matter how much begging is done by his victims, Chigurh dispenses death like it is a banal chore. What he does, or more accurately what he is, has nothing to do with right or wrong. In my opinion, he doesn't represent evil. Instead he represents one of the cold facts or principles of life - our own mortality. Chigurh is described by assassin Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson) in the following way:
"You don't understand. You can't make a deal with him. Even if you gave him the money he'd still kill you. He's a peculiar man. You could even say that he has principles. Principles that transcend money or drugs or anything like that. He's not like you. He's not even like me."
The film's rugged, dusty booted protagonist, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), is an average man fighting for that satchel of drug money, as well as for his very life. You root for Moss, but deep down there is the feeling of impending doom. Moss is confident that he can turn the tables and become the hunter and Chigurh the hunted. But one can only run away from death for so long. His hubris leads to his violent end, which the audience does not observe. I believe this was done to underscore the inevitability of it all. The chase was what was unique; his death was a given. This notion is epitomized in the dialogue between Chigurh and the gas station porprietor, in which Chigurh flips a coin for the proprietor's life and states the following:
"It's [the coin] been traveling twenty-eight years to get here. And now it's here. And it's either heads or tails, and you have to say. Call it."
In other words, life is a winding and unexpected journey. But the destination is always the same.
Overall, Sheriff Bell is central to the story. In the beginning, he narrates on what it takes to be a lawman in Texas and states:
"I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job - not to be glorious. But I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand."
What is arguably the most important scene in the movie is when Bell enters the motel room exhibiting Chigurh's signature "calling card" - blown locks. We see Chigurh hiding behind one of the doors of the hotel room. The bathroom window is clearly locked from the inside. Bell discovers that the vent cover had been removed with a coin and realizes the money is gone. He sits on the motel bed, deep in thought, before ultimately deciding to leave the room without further investigation. In my opinion, Bell knows that Chigurh is hiding in the room. But the question for Bell at this moment is whether or not he is willing to "push [his] chips forward and go out and meet something [he] doesn't understand".
There are a number of things that can hasten one's meeting with their own "Chigurh". The movie highlights a series of deaths all tied to ill-gotten money and drugs. Bell had no intention of getting involved and risking his own death, despite the fact that is what is expected from a Sheriff. He did not even return to the original crime scene in the desert when requested from other police agents. In a way, Bell is a coward. But in the end, despite all his efforts to avoid that meeting, he will get that coin flip. This is nicely illustrated in Bell's dream, which he describes in some poetic prose:
"When he [Bell's father] rode past I seen he was carryin fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. About the color of the moon. And in the dream 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, and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. Out there up ahead."
Bell's father and uncles died young, something that came along with being honorable Texas lawmen - hence the title "No Country for Old Men". Bell may have avoided this particular fate, but his mortality is unavoidable and he will be with his father in "all that dark and all that cold ... out there up ahead."
December 16, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Lots of things to think about in this very civil, very thoughtful thread. My poor personal opinion:
Moss is dead. The body is wearing the cowboy boots that he bought earlier. We didn't get (or weren't supposed to get) a good look at the body in the morgue. Bell knew what Moss looked like. What he said early in the movie was that he had never "met" Moss, not that he had never seen him.
Anton gets the money. Although $100 bills are available from sources other than that satchel, that was the writer's hint that he had the money. This is consistent with the book, as well.
Anton was in the motel room with Bell. He is seen hiding, but it is not given that it was behind the door. I agree that when Bell pushes the door open there would have been no room behind it. There isn't space under a hotel bed for a man that size. So where was he? The heating vent was clearly too small for a large man.
Answer: He was in the small, open clothes closet directly opposite the bathroom door. It is in deep shadow. Moss does not have a light. And most importantly, he NEVER LOOKS DIRECTLY AT THAT PLACE.
Anton is a pragmatic psycohpath. He kills when he needs to, and when it is his desire to, and when it is to his advantage to. He has the money, and has no need to take an unnecessary risk. If Bell looks in the closet, he will be killed instantly. He does not look. He sits on the bed to reflect, and I think decides that Anton has come and gone, so he leaves. If he believed him to be in the room he would have left and called for reinforcements as he watched the room. I do not believe he realized Anton was there and let him be. I do not believe that he is a "ghost" in the rest of the movie.
I think it is the keystone piece of randomness in this movie, in which an innocent motorist is murdered for his car, a store clerk is spared due to the outcome of a coin flip, Moss' wife is killed out of warped principle, and someone totally unrelated to the plot runs a red light and nearly kills the villian. Bell, who represents good, is spared because though he looks for evil, he neglects to look in (i.e. can't see) the one dark corner where it lurks, even though he is mere inches away. Evil, in turn, does not kill him in order to take the safest course for assuring it's own survival.
In sum, good and evil exist, interact, and exchange victories, defeats, and ties. Just like in life.
Somehow, Ed Tom Bell knows that he is no longer effective or able to understand the evil that exists now, that it will only end in his death, and he chooses not to let that happen by retiring. Good is also a pragmatist.
The indefinite ending is reflective of true life. Often we leave the stories we know about in life at some point, only to wonder long after how they turned out, never to know.
December 16, 2007 at 9:14 pm
#104 mentions that the biggest letdown was regarding who had the money.
Ed Tom's first dream concerns some money that got lost, which he thinks he lost.
The money doesn't really matter in terms of the movie's overall message.
#95 makes an excellent point as well.
December 18, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Thankfully I just found this thread, because I've been dying to talk to someone about this movie since I saw it nearly two weeks ago.
When I first walked out of the theater, I was angry at the Coens. It bothered me that they so deliberately withheld anything resembling the structures and conventions I've come to expect from movies. I woke up the next morning angry and disturbed. I couldn't articulate my feelings well, aside from saying that I felt as though I'd seen "ten gallons of style in a five gallon bag". During the course of that day, as I processed what I'd seen, I completely reversed my opinion; I think now that the movie was a stunningly masterful piece of storytelling. I don't know anything about direction or editing or camerawork, but it's clear to me that this movie required an uncommon degree of skill. It was the equivalent of someone building a skyscraper without using girders, stone, wood, glass, wiring, or drywall. Only a master of the medium could eschew all conventions, including those so common that I didn't even know I expected them, and yet still tell a compelling story.
I think the Coens' highest priority may have been to deny the viewer any pat reactions, e.g. "Yay, Good Guy!" and "Boo, Formerly Good Guy Who Got Stupid And Now Deserves What He's Got Coming!" We're constantly on the fence with how to perceive Llewelyn: he's not exactly forthcoming with his wife, yet he clearly loves her and is no brute, so we can't pigeonhole him as Good Husband or Bad Husband; he risks his life to give the gutshot Mexican some water, but he also stupidly risks his wife's life by getting further involved in something he knows could end up badly. I think it was *very* important that he says "I'm not going to hurt you" to the guy who stopped his truck for him, a fraction of a second before the guy gets shot in the throat: clearly he *was* putting innocent people in danger just by choosing to remain involved in dangerous circumstances. The clincher was that, after dangling the "Yay, Good Guy!" carrot in front of us, and then slowly pulling it away and substituting the "Boo, Formerly Good Guy Who Got Stupid And Now Deserves What He's Got Coming!" carrot, even *that* one gets yanked away: Llewelyn's final fate happens offscreen, so we're left with nothing but a muffled sense of futility.
Luke, you're the only person I've heard so far who's echoed my take on the main theme. I think that the Coens were saying "Yes, the world is unpredictable and unjust, and we are helpless before what's coming. But *focusing* on the futility is even more futile than that!" By refusing to let us see Llewelyn's death, or to see his body clearly, the Coens are very pointedly telling us "No, you're not going to get the 'satisfaction' of seeing that. We're not going to let you focus on that, because it's not worth focusing on. You'll get no artsy-fartsy 'pretty' shattering glass and slo-mo twisting of bodies and spraying of blood as the misguided protagonist breathes his last. It's all pathetic, but to gnash our teeth and wax poetic about the pathetic stuff in life is even more pathetic. Get on with it."
All this talk about Bell makes me wonder if the Coens intended him to be a Hamlet-like figure. He does seem to hand-wring his way into inaction, just as Hamlet's angst paralyzes him. Of course, that all depends on whether you think, as I do, that Chigur was in the motel room with Bell, and Bell knew it.
Your mileage may vary.
December 22, 2007 at 6:42 am
What was the significance of Chigurh walking in his socks in the first motel scene? He carries his weapon and walks inside the room..kills the three men in side then sits down and takes his socks of.. Is there something behind that or is it simply that he didnt want to leave a trail of blood from his shoes?
December 22, 2007 at 7:11 pm
#116
He didn't want to be heard. That is why he took off his shoes.
Great movie.
December 23, 2007 at 8:38 pm
Just saw the movie and it is one of those that I just want to think about before I make a final pronouncement. I am thinking that this is one of those movies that I will never be able to make a final pronouncement on and therefore it may be a great movie. I want to see it again and revisit two scenes. One is where Tommy Lee is about to re-enter the hotel room where Moss was killed. We know that the psycho path is inside. Before entering the room, Tommy Lee is looking into the locks cylinder that was blown out. I believe the sheriff sees a reflection and knows someone is in the room. When he enters and searches he finds no one. The second scene I want to see is at the end when he tells his wife about his dream in which he sees' his father pass in the mountains. He sees a reflection in the horn that his dad is packing. Does what he see in the horn relate to the reflection in the hotel lock cylinder ? Is he seeing himself in both the reflections?
December 23, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Lots of deep thoughts here. I put the most stock in the theories of those who've read the book.
Personally, I don't like this trend lately of abrupt endings with lots of loose ends and multiple interpretations. The first major one was The Sopranos finale ending. Now this.
I don't mind being challenged and forced to think a little bit. I don't have to be spoonfed every little detail, but come on...at least finish the story!
I'm worried every time someone wants to be considered a genius from now on, they're going to start using this tactic. After that much investment in a story, the audience deserves some type of resolution.
For those who say that's how real life works, with no tidy endings, well these are books, movies and TV series. We pay to be entertained: surprised, scared...but not confused and frustrated.
But now this precedent is being set that if someone can't figure out how to wrap it all up, they can just stop and leave everyone hanging and be hailed for doing so. I don't think that's clever. That's just a cop out.
December 25, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Spoiler**
Bell and Chigurh were not in the same room. There were two rooms as part of the crime scene. Much like the earlier coin flip, Bell simply chose the correct room and that is why he didn't get killed...he was just lucky.
December 26, 2007 at 7:15 am
The hotel room scene....the coin on the floor was heads....Bell won the toss and lived?
December 27, 2007 at 7:58 pm
almost like achilles heel in different ways though
chigurgh doesn't want "fate" --- "blood" to touch him
he represents it in a fashion...
after the car accident ... blood all over him... he's shooken up...
he thinks about carla jean... maybe
but I know he's more shooken up than he should be ...
look at my previous post ... for more of my thoughts
but I like the point bill makes about chigurgh being in the closet ...
and the reflection in the door? --- almost looks like a person... but I've seen the movie 3 times and it isn't neccesarilly a person ...
but then I was thinking .... whe the heck didn't bell (being a sheriff and all) check every freaking place? -- answer: because he knew chigurh's nature ... he'd probably already broke out of hiding shot him.... I really don't think that he was a wimp and didn't face him... like in the opening monolouge saying he didn't want to push his chips and meet someone he doens't understand ... that's a whole different subject ...
and no there was any coin toss business in the hotel room... there are way to many things in the movie that don't line up with that ... he just retrieved the money
I think the mexicans took it out of the satchel and just plumped the vent with money because that vent was pretty darn small for a satchal....
so... here's what could have happend ...
chigurgh goes to the crime scene opens up the vent with a dime and probably sees stacks of cash lined up in the vent ...... so he quickly gets the money out ... puts it in the closet where he's hiding it momentarily... And because he know's bell is coming 100% or he's just making sure .... and just wants to wait and be safe he's in the closet too.
why didn't he kill bell??... Well ... think about it .... "He didn't see him"
and kudos to the person who talked about in detail about the reflection of bell and anton .... their like the same people that took life in different ways probably.
December 27, 2007 at 8:11 pm
#70: Couldn't agree more.
That there can be so many disparate opinions on the meaning of the ending - as well as confusion about various shots and plot points - suggests clearly that the underlying story is flawed. Unfortunately, the film's flaws are the book's flaws. The Coen's adaptation was too close to the original source material.
As a technical piece of filmmaking (particularly the sound design, cinematography and performances) the move is near perfect. From the standpoint of story, however, it leaves much to be desired.
Giving a Best Picture Oscar to the Coen's for this is like giving it to Scorcese for The Departed (instead of for Raging Bull or Taxi Driver).
steve
December 27, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Hadn't visited this thread for a while, and re-read Eric's review, which ends with Bell:
"Sheriff Bell is the outsider in the equation, and the soul of the film. He's outmatched by this new kind of evil represented by Chigurh and the web of people who traffic with him. You can see it in Tommy Lee Jones' sorrowful eyes, and hear it in his Texas drawl, which he has exaggerated and ruralized. Bell has seen too much sadness in his life, and he can barely find the words to describe the awful things he's begun to see. It doesn't make sense. He's getting too old for this -- too old for law enforcement, too old for life, too old for everything."
I don't think anyone has pointed out where I assume McCarthy got his title--Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium":
I
'That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.'
December 28, 2007 at 12:15 pm
#74 and 75 who has read the book, I think the Cohens almost stayed true to the book but just took that scene out of bell calling for two more police cars and anton driving off because I think the point they just wanted to make was that anton got away with the money. And about the clip of anton waiting in the shadows with his silencer shotgun... could've just been an earlier scene. or the cohens didn't stay true to the book with that aspect... or which I think is the most reasonable hypothesis is the cohens just wanted to show an earlier clip before anton goes in his vehicle when he's in the hotel room, just to show the audience what bell had no idea what was coming ...
yea I changed my mind on a few things ... so maybe I should just read the book and then see it for the fourth time. But I believe a fair amount of my hypothesis are still legit.
December 29, 2007 at 6:15 pm
#27, I too heard the other sherrif call Ed Tom "Anton". Confused thehell out of me and I was spending the last part of the movie looking for some indication that the Sherrif was really the killer, or something. The theories that they are really the same person above are interesting, but don't really hold water. But can it be a coincidence that their names are so easily misheard for each other?
December 30, 2007 at 12:40 am
I was at first confused by who killed Moss, it could have been those mexicans driving off, but when bell got to the scene, the door lock had been broken into obviously by chigurh, who got away with the money having taken it from the vent. I believe bell was afraid to confront the evile, he allowed chigurh to slip away, the movie opens up with that very narrative, where bell talks about living to see another day, and not confronting the ever so violent times, too old to be a cop anymore etc Chigurh does represent death I believe, and death is what he is so good at ;)
December 30, 2007 at 5:15 am
I just encourage everyone to read the book and then see it again. Then you won't be wandering around in ideas that are so farfetch'd their ridiculous.
: ]
December 30, 2007 at 7:50 am
I believe that Bell went back to "test fate."
It was the one moment when he could literally choose his own fate and he chose to live...
In other words, he gave fate the middle finger, walked out, and retired because nothing made sense to him anymore. His ability to protect people has expired because he no longer understands the kinds of evil he's dealing with anymore.
December 30, 2007 at 7:15 pm
My concern is why Chigurh was interested in the money in the first place? Considering his character, money seems outside his interest. Up until the end, after the car accident, Chigurh is not seen paying for a single thing. What does he need the money for in the first place?
December 30, 2007 at 10:01 pm
I think the sheriff is dead my friends. We dont see him after the hotel...there is the all important vanity line that gets him to that place and and the conversation that takes place with the old man. The last scene he talks about his two dreams, being younger than his dad, he is spent. His wife tells him not to bother with helping around the house. I didnt read the book but I think he died in that hotel room. Works for me.
December 31, 2007 at 6:03 am
yea read the book and bell doesn't die in the hotel room.
December 31, 2007 at 11:14 am
Anton ends up with money. The Mexicans speeding away from the motel entered the room to find everyone murdered, so they flee, ergo, Anton was already there, murdered everyone and took the money. The camera focuses in on the dime Anton used in another scene to open the vent where the money was hidden.
Also, when the sheriff sees the reflection of someone in the door lock,in the motel room and we see Anton behind the door and the sheriff enters the room and no one was inside: because the entire story takes place in Bell's head. The final line of the movie is "... and then I wake up." Anton is not the kind who escapes or hides. If he was in the motel room he would have killed Bell.
Hey, it's possible.
December 31, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Thank you for "getting it" I needed three viewings and a blog comment for me to realize the metaphysics going on here. Chigurgh is Bell's avatar, a death deux ex machina that does the things a moral and old Bell can no longer bring himself to do but knows must be done. That's why Chigurgh doesn't appear to be in the room when Bell enters, and why Chigurgh queries the accountant if he sees him. Good cannot see this kind of evil, and if you can, only a coin flip may save you. It is the ultimate morality play, but at the end scene, we ask ourselves, has all this been a retired man's dream? Or worse, is this a concotion of Chigurgh's imagination?
January 1, 2008 at 9:06 pm
A few thoughts:
I think Chigurgh represents justice, and illustrates that there is no intrinsic justice in the world (and perhaps no meaning or purpose), except that which we make for ourselves and can defend from (or enforce on) the will of others. Chigurgh creates his own sort of justice, and is the alter ego of Bell, who should be the purveyor of justice but is outmatched by a force that he doesn't understand and can't control.
There were a few bits of symbolism that really stood out for me. One was that the film opened with Moss hunting, and he is later pursued by Chigurgh and others who are essentially hunting him. The second one was the story about how cattle are killed, and the fact that Chigurgh uses a similar weapon. And then there was the story Bell tells about the people who rented rooms out and then murdered their tenants - the survivor ran from the house wearing nothing but a dog collar. All of these left me thinking about the nature of humanity and of human morality. Chigurgh treats people in the same way that other characters treat animals (and is the only character who doesn't seem to think it's significant that a dog was killed in the shootout). But his own humanity is shown when he is injured and has to clean his own wounds. He shows pain when he gets in the bathtub, and needs lidocaine like any mortal in order to debride the wound. There is nothing supernatural about him. He is just single-minded in his determination to complete his task, and he seems to be a narcissist who thinks of himself as being above other humans both morally (in his own internal sense of justice) and because of the power he holds over their lives.
I also don't think Bell retired early out of any sort of cowardice (he was at least 65 after all), but just realized that it was his time to quit. Even the opening narration seemed like a eulogy for his career. So I don't think he just decided to retire during the motel scene at the end. Perhaps that's why he was somewhat less than proactive in his detective work, because he had just lost the fire to do it anymore. The dream about his father was maybe about searching for some kind of comfort and knowing that he may not get the peace of mind he wishes he had in life, and that he has to continue riding through the dark and the cold for now. The conversation between him and the El Paso sheriff seemed odd at the time, as it wasn't green-haired teenagers that were causing the mayhem they were witnessing, but middle-aged Vietnam vets, businessmen, and professional drug runners. I think maybe they were showing their fundamental lack of understanding of the nature of what was really happening and trying to blame younger generations in general, when it was really something that has always been around - hence the story Uncle Ellis tells at the end.
January 2, 2008 at 11:12 am
if the coen bros. dont win best director and the movie doesn't win best picture, and neither javier bardem or tommy lee jones doesn't win supporting actor/main or whatever, i will seriously write hate mail to the academy
January 2, 2008 at 11:45 am
To those who think Moss is still alive: I have written a blog entry explaining why that theory is false. He's dead, folks. We have the pictures to prove it.
January 2, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Dogs - What kind of dogs were those? I don't think they were Pit Bulls, though definately from the same family tree...
January 3, 2008 at 1:34 am
John L., eloquently explains, and summarizes this film. Re-read his posts. A lot of people are trying to justify their interpretations with misread and misconstrued conclusions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil
January 5, 2008 at 1:04 pm
While I in no way found this movie to be straightforward, I think people are spending too much time with wierd interpretations here. This wasn't the TV show Lost or the final episode of the Sopranos. Moss is dead. Bell is not. There will be no sequel. The concept that the Coens would stoop to the most contrived of plot devices with a "split personality" is laughable (see the movie Adaptation which pokes fun at the triteness of this).
The Coens altered the motel seen with Chiguhr and Bell to place Bell even closer to his impending demise than he was in the book. Chiguhr didn't kill him because in this scene, he was avoiding detection, possibly in a closet. He would have killed Bell if Bell found him. Bell could sense the evil in the room with him and chose not to find and confront it, which possibly saved him, but also made him partially responsible for Moss's wife's murder. He realizes that the world he thought he knew doesn't exist. The dream of his father going ahead into the cold and darkness ( cold and dark represent death. his father died before him) and building a fire (heat and light are the opposite of cold and dark ie life) and will be waiting for him (afterlife). These are typical judeo-christian symbology/themes of life after death. At the end, a haunted sherrif Bell is telling his wife that his dream of death that held some comfort in the form of a deceased loved one building shelter and waiting for him, is a dream from which he has awoken. Because of the evil he has encountered, he has lost faith in God and an afterlife and is now terrified that he is old and may be soon lost in that cold, dark nothingness.
January 5, 2008 at 10:40 pm
It is obviously a remake of Prince Valient and the Termites (1942)
Why can't anybody see this?
January 6, 2008 at 1:39 pm
I enjoyed the irony of using Tommy Lee Jones in this film playing not the smart, determined, get-your-man lawman that we expect, but a tired, sad, not-up-to-it lawman that doesn't get the bad guy and retires. I kept waiting for him to out think Chigurh and realized afterward that I had been set-up. Likewise the title - I expected the old guy to win, but it really was "no country for old men".
As for the ending, I was disappointed that Chigurh didn't die in the car crash, the message being that death comes to good and bad alike and no matter how much a "bad-ass" you are, even you can't control your fate. Yeah, yeah, I know, that isn't the way the book was written....
January 7, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Another blog entry, this time about Bell and Chigurh and the motel room.
January 7, 2008 at 7:48 pm
sigh this is my last post ...
I read the book...
and saw the movie four times
to answer all of some peoples stupid questions (not serious but kind of) (no offence)
moss is dead.
Anton is not in the hotel room he's in a car he just books it just in time. Anton ends up with the money.
Anton goes to the top dog drug dealer and gives him the satchel and says "I took .4 million out for expenses" the top dog was fine with that ... then anton distracts him and says "that's a nice picture" then anton shoots him and takes the money.
and oh my gosh you morons who thinks there is going to be a [swear word] sequeal are either ridiculously ignorant of really stupid. The cohens wouldn't screw up one of america's best authors book into a [swear word] sequel... no country for old men 2? Come on! wake up.
And all you people dissing an A+++ movie, and are just used of seeing common [swear word] hollywood crap like pirates 3 or spider man3 or harry potter, or shooter.....
either A: you don't know how to think deeply
or B: Your just dumb
or C: Don't know how to appreciate a beautiful movie
or D: just didn't care for it and that's ok but don't u diss it yo!
January 8, 2008 at 9:59 pm
The motel room scene is the most interesting discussion so far. I believe Anton didn't try to kill Bell because he may have thought that there were more than one cop there (outside or in the car) so he decided to stay behind the door.
He was in the room because the door, when pushed open, stopped like it stuck to something.
Anton did not have the money as he said to Lu bring me the money and I will leave your wife alone. Had he got the money he would not have bothered to visit Lu's wife.
I suspect the money was either hidden by Lu (as he typically did throughout the movie) or the Mexican's took it.
January 10, 2008 at 11:21 am
I think that the uncertainty, the desire for closure, and the need for explanation that people get when they see this film is exactly what the story is trying to bring to light.
Real life is simple. Nothing is certain and closure seldom comes. How often do the terrible things that happen everyday come packaged with a handy explanation to tidy up the story? Everybody likes to speculate about "why" something happens but usually there is no "why".
It might be sort of a bleak view on life. That might be the point.
January 16, 2008 at 4:48 am
Hi Everybody
Here in the UK we are eagerly awaiting the release of NCFOM, it was reviewed on the BBC last night and was given top marks. Here the film is out on Friday so I can't really make comment about it yet but in the last 18 months I have read NCFOM three times and also Blood Meridian (twice). Apparently Blood Meridian is Ridley Scott's next project, I hope he treats it faithfully.
Now, as regards Mr Chigurh and Co, it certainly seems to have got people spooked what with all that talk about fate and chance and symbolism and existentialism and all (Loads of "ands", am I starting to write like Mr McCarthy?). For me the main narrative opens with a choice clearly posed: Moss sees the shot-up trucks and the dead men and he has a basic choice - he can turn away and go home, or, he can go down and take a look. Human curiosity being what it is he takes the latter. Yet, in terms of choice, he has still not crossed an irrevocable threshold because there are no other moral agents involved at this point (the dying mexican is not a full moral agent - what little bit of scope he has is practically non-existent).
But then Moss finds the satchel full of money and that's when he makes his (fateful) irrevocable choice. From that point on a type of modern tragedy unfolds - all the actors know whats going to happen but they can't do a damn thing to stop it. I tend to go with the existentialists because the story is full of choices, some that are accepted some that are not. Only Chigurh gives people no choice, even spinning the coin is merely an invitation to engage in a game of pure chance with a 50-50 probability. He'll give some people a chance but thats all, and if you spurn the chance what would he do? I think we know the answer to that one. So yes, in terms of symbolism, Chigurh represents death.
Getting back to Cormac McCarthy, the writer's latest work is The Road and I suspect that Hollywood will shy away from this because it's a profoundly depressing vision of the future. It's the story of a father and son on a terrifying journey through post-apocalypse America where the built environment is crumbling, the natural environment is utterly degraded, and the remnants of mankind live in a Hobbseian state of nature that is of course nasty, brutish and short. Read it and weep for our stupidity.
Cormac McCarthy is America's greatest living writer.
Bye
January 21, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Bare with me a moment as I go a little off subject. Many years ago, the BBC had a season of Sci Fi films. There was a 5 or 7 minute thesis before hand about the themes of the movie. One of the movies was The Terminator. At first glance, not the deepest of films untill you realise it is a re-telling, in a way, of the Minator story. The Terminator is death or evil and the protagonists race thru corridors and alleyways, which represent the maze, in an attempt to out run death. 'No Country...' has a few of these elements. Let's not forget, there is a theory that there are only 7 stories to be told anyway. I only saw this film last niht and it has haunted me since and no Movie has ever done that to me. It will be a movie that inspires thesis and disertations for decades to come. The themes and hidden truths will become clearer the more the movie is discussed and, I hope, The Coen's will join us and explain some of what they were thinking. A great movie, a Movie which will be considered a classic in the future.
January 21, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Great discussion! But one thing I want to give my take on something some people are puzzled about. Some ask the question, "Why does Sheriff Bell return alone into the hotel room Moss was found dead in?" The answer to me is obvious: because he wants the money to retire on. Like Spencer Tracy's police captain in Stanley Kramer's "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", he felt he earned a well-deserved comfortable retirement. I really don't know why I seem to be the only one to pick up on this. All the dialogue about his retirement seems to support this!
And this also makes clear the first of his last two dreams. When he says he found some money and then "I lost it".
A masterpiece from the Coen brothers. But who got the money? I don't think anyone can be 100% positive.
Bob Blenheim
January 22, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Moral of the story - if your husband says "no need to bring your mother" LEAVE HER AT HOME!
Spoilers! -
Would have been a better ending imho if TLJ's monologue about the dream he had about his father was interspersed with Chigurh walking away fromt he accident scene, providing some link between the two. Would have brought a meaning to the line "...he'll be waiting for me at the end" As Chigurh disappears to an unknown fate.
January 22, 2008 at 9:36 pm
If the movie was scripted from the book then both had terrible endings!
Coen Brothers most likely wrote the final show of Steinfeld as this movie was just as bad and both were bolt headed!
January 24, 2008 at 9:24 am
This has just opened in the UK, saw it last night. Excellent. We all loved it. No problems about the lack of faith here. Have not read the book yet, so have enjoyed all the info. on this site.
Q: Accepting that Chigurh will kill anyone who could endanger his progress, he must however still accept commissions for his 'work'. Could anyone please give some motivation for him killing the 'managerial' types who took him to the desert site who are presumably his 'colleagues', not bystanders who may identify him. Punishment because the Mexicans failed in the job ? If Root was everyone's Boss, why did he (Root) also employ the Harrelson character - surely Chigurh was effective enough at that point, no need to send out competition . Plus Root asked about his personality as if he was unaquainted with him at that point. I may have forgotten elements that explain these points, or just be remembering it all wrong.. there was a lot to digest.., but who his simple instructor was, 'unleashing' him on the scene, kept eluding me. Also... I accept the opening murder of the deputy sets the tone well, but Chigurh's such a monster later on that it was hard to accept that he'd be meekly arrested in the first place!
January 26, 2008 at 11:53 am
As viewers beinb trained since childhood to assume the story is about the good guy and greed we assumed from the beginning the movies was about one of the three good guys and spent much time trying to figure out which one was going to get the bad guy in the end and the money/greed was the cause of the confrontations.
In fact, it was a story about the bad guy who in fact was not really interested in the money but in his mission of deciding who lives and who dies, based on some event, coin flip, behavior, deal made. The films ending was the confrontation in the hotel room when the bad guy lets the good guy live.
Like Sixth Sense we believed what we have been trained to believe is the story. The story started with the bad guy and ended with the bad guys decision to kill or not kill. The entire movie was his making that decision and the way the people he met helped him make the choice--choosing the wrong side of the coin, taking his money, not making the right deal.
Tommy Lee made the right choice and lived. Others didn;t. End of story
January 27, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Remember when Anton gunned down Carson Welles' employer in the office?
His colleague asked "Are you gonna shoot me too?"
Anton replied "Can you see me?"
Well Tommy Lee Jones couldn't see Anton in the crucial scene when they're both in the same motel room together. This is because it is not Tommy Lee Jones's time to die.
Perhaps those who are after the money die: Llewellyn, Carson, his employer, even Anton who represents death gets injured and has a brush with death when he gets the money.
January 27, 2008 at 5:31 pm
I watched the movie and thought it was so-so. I'm all for the happy endings but in a way the movie couldn't end any other way. I'm still having problems with the car crash scene. In my opinion, the car who hit Chigurh was good trying to defeat evil, but in the end you can only wound evil, you will never be able to defeat, I know it sounds ridiculous but thats what i'm sticking with.
January 29, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Yeah, a brilliant movie - but, is it Best Movie caliber..? Me thinks the academy still prefers a movie that makes one "feel" good. I came out of this movie feeling "pissed off"......
January 30, 2008 at 1:02 pm
It's pretty sad when one has to decipher what a movie was about from the critics that want to twist it into some sort of reason. This was a sad piece of work and a story that just went no where. It COULD have been brilliant. Unfortunately morbidness was and confusion was all it generated. There was no one in the audience that had a clue. I guess that was the writer and directors message. Well done then! Glad I only spent $5. Can I get a refund?
February 3, 2008 at 9:57 am
February 3 at 12:33am
Saw picture last evening and felt it was worth seeing for up to the last 5 minutes where it appeared to go into a criptic mode. You can only be so subtle beyond which you lose comprenhsion by the movie viewer. Movies should either inform, amuse or promote thinking or conversation, not as one revier commented WTF (think dirty). The ending came as a total letdown which I first thought was a projection fault when the screen went black, then the credits came on. While I didn't see it myself, I believe that this was also used in the Supranoes final show. This technique will probably come in handy when Javier Bardem who walked away bone poking arm in sling reappears ala Freddy Krueger in No Country For Older Men,
February 4, 2008 at 6:46 pm
I suppose I'm wrong because no one else has mentioned this, but I thought the body floating in the pool immediately after the drive-by shooting was Moss. Not only was he standing by the pool chatting with the gal on the lounge just before the shooting, but the clothes, hair and body size told me it was Moss. Yes? Also, I am amazed at all the viewers who are eager to attach symbolic meanings to the characters as though the author thought, "I want to stress the eternal, esoteric nature of evil and therefore I will write a story about the greed engendered by money." What's wrong with his simply saying, "I'm gonna write a book about how money engenders greed," and we leave it at that?
February 4, 2008 at 9:41 pm
I just saw this last night, after being intrigued by reviews in both People and I think Rolling Stone mags. This is some good dialogue about this movie, which for me is the best flick out this year.... buy your Oscar duds cast members, cuz your sure to be attending, I agree Moss is dead, same new pair of wranglers same new shirt. Even tho we don't see his face, remember, that little tool of Chigurgh's doesn;t leave a lot of blood, and if you recall, there was only a small amount of the carpet. I also agree, with the writer who comments that she didn't just bury her husband, he'd been gone awhile back, I figure. Remember, Mama had "the cancer."
rather a more prolonged demise than our cylinder toting friend. He managed to kill everybody in the movie HE WANTED to kill. The folks who got the coin toss, had he wanted to kill em, he surely would have. Ed Tom retired, and that I think is symbolic of the failure of culture and society and the institutions designed to support it. I also agree with Marcos's last comment as well. The dead person in the pool, was the beer drinking prostitute. If anybody deserved his Golden Globe, it was Bardem.... what a role. I think what I need to do is see this again,
February 5, 2008 at 9:20 am
How did local sheriff know about the money?
Anyone believes that bell went back to motel to look for money...for himself? (otherwise he would have gone there with local police)
To me, nobody cares about who dies, all that matters is money
February 5, 2008 at 9:06 pm
I may be reading too much into this but am I wrong to notice that Shariff Bell casts two shadows?
I noticed it first when he is looking at his reflection in the television set, drinking from the same bottle of milk the killer drank from. His reflection is in the TV, but a larger shadow is on the wall.
Later, and my memory may be playing tricks on me, doesn't he cast two shadows in the hotel room?
Being a Joseph Cambell fan, I'm always looking for meaning in things and I wonder if that's his father? That last words of the film are about his father going on ahead of him.
Better read the book.
February 5, 2008 at 9:13 pm
I feel everyone misses this movie. It seems to me that The Cohen brothers have left a scene out. Tommy Lee Jones meets Bardem in that hotel room. Bardem, as he has with others in the film, offers Lee the coin toss. Lee wins. Bardem, being a man of principal (he kills Moss' wife because he promised he would do so) lets him go. Jones dreams of his father because he faced death and his father was waiting there to meet him. Lee escapes death and his father moves on to wait up ahead and then Lee "wakes up". He wakes up because he is still alive.
February 6, 2008 at 9:30 am
The movie was fantastic, BEST movie of the year BY far!
It has done what I beleive the Coen's have set out to do, bewilder us the viewers with a Phenominal film.
Javier Bardem is a TRUE GEM and should receive the highest of accolades for this ROLE. If you disagree, go and rent Before Night Falls and you will see why I say this!
Kudos to the Coens--WELL DONE, once again!
My opinion~
Moss is Dead, his wife is dead, Bell did not get the money, Evil lives and I think the Mexicans got the LOOT.
February 7, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Very interesting comments from everyone.
With a little help from you all, I have reached this conclusion:
This film is a Western. It is a remake, or rather an updated version, of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. This time, the lines are even more blurred than in Leone's masterpiece. Chigurh is Bad, clearly, but is also, in many ways (the hair!), Ugly. Moss is Bad too - he steals the money - but is also Good - he goes back to give water to the injured Mexican - and Bell is Good, but also Bad - he sells his soul to death/evil in the hotel room. The clever name confusion (Anton/Ed-Tom) is significant here as well, suggesting the two men are not really so different after all. The drug money is almost irrelevant - a classic example of what Hitchcock called a MacGuffin, a plot device use to move the story along but without having a central role in the message of the film.
When Bell enters the hotel room, there is evil inside. He senses this - the image of Chigurh lurking behind the door, which is symbolic of the presence of evil (Chigurh himself is long gone) - and the slump of the shoulders when he sits on the bed symbolises the victory of Bad over Good (he is giving in, selling his soul to Evil, not for money - which is empty and meaningless, a MacGuffin, but for the turmoil he has carried with him all his life trying in vain to fight evil). The ending is brilliant, one of the greatest endings to a film I can remember. The dreams are the key to it all. The first dream: "Anyway, first one I don't remember so well but it was about money and I think I lost it." (i.e. money is so insignificant in life that it hardly merits a second thought, it is merely a device for transmitting evil; in the film, the fate of the money is unknown, but the point is that Bell doesn't have it - "I think I lost it"). The second dream tells of Bell's father, 20 years younger than Bell, overtaking him and disappearing ahead to light a fire. The key here is Bell's conversation with his uncle Ellis. Ellis was shot by a man who later died in prison in Angola. Ellis admits that if the man had got out of jail he wouldn't have taken any action against him - this is because he knows that he was shot by 'evil', and evil cannot be beaten, so seeking revenge is pointless ("All the time you spend tryin to get back what's been took from you there's more goin out the door. After a while you just try and get a tourniquet on it."). Bell's father was also the victim of evil - he died young whilst fighting crime (but is this any better than Ellis's 'living death' in a wheelchair?). In the second dream, Bell's father is carrying a horn, which in turn contains fire.These are references to the devil, evil, and hell. The family is condemned to burn in hell - previous members of the family (Ellis, Uncle Mac, Bell's father) having succumbed to evil already having previously failed, in their duty to society as "law enforcers", to fight it. Bell woke up from his dream before reaching hell (where his father is waiting), but at the same time he is already in hell, because he has retired from fighting crime, i.e. he has surrendered to it, and must live out his life as a slave to evil.
The scene at the end where Cigurh pays the boy for his shirt is also deeply symbolic. Cigurh, as evil personified, has used money to buy himself out of trouble, and the boy's soul is doomed before he even has time to realise it. Note also that Cigurgh walked away from the crash - Bad always wins. The other driver (Good) gave his life (by going through a red light) in an attempt to defeat Bad by killing him in the resultant crash, but inevitably this was to no avail.
Cigurh walks away at the end. We do not see the money, but it is always there where evil lurks (hence the pay-off to the boy). He is indestructible, and will go on to prey on another soul. Finally, a point about the accountant - it has been mentioned above that the accountant says he "doesn't see" Cigurh. Indeed he doesn't. He is an administrator, a mover of money - by clamining that he doesn't see Cigurh he is admitting that he has no soul to bargain with, therefore Cigurh cannot touch him. It was clever to make him an accountant - it might have been more obvious to make him a lawyer, but then as The Devil's Advocate made clear, lawyers are evil-doers, rather than mere administrators of evil. And the Coen's are in any case cleverer than this. No country for old men, and no film for fans of dim-witted Hollywood.
February 8, 2008 at 1:36 am
I WONDER IF THIS SEQUEL WILL GO THE WAY OF CHARLES BRONSON'S
" MR MAJESTIC " ?
THAT WOULD BE INTERESTING !
February 14, 2008 at 10:00 am
Peter,
Firstly, stop using capitals. it is the written equivilent of shouting. Secondly, come out of the f**king fog!! Sequel?!?!? Are you on crack, Meth?!?! There'll be no sequel. Pardon me, but I think you must be one of the many dimwitted, action movie fans that totally misunderstood this fine film. read some of the many blogs on the internet and maybe it will dawn on you that this is not an action movie. It is rather an allegory, a moral, cautionary tale about evil and how it infultrates all men, it is not an episode of CSI.
February 17, 2008 at 9:25 am
did anyone notice that in one scene following one of the murders (I can't recall which one) Anton Chiguhr had a tear in his eye? what do you make of that?
February 17, 2008 at 3:55 pm
In response to Marcos entry 159.
I take it you are not a creative man. If you were, you would understand that ALL artists have a message to express. Of course Cormac McCarthy had it in his mind to write a story that embodies esoteric elements. that's what artist do. The wonderful about any piece of art, be it a book, a song, a movie is that you can take it of leave it. If you don't understand it, don't worry, no one is going to mock you. On the other hand, if you don't understand a piece of art and begin to take the piss out of it, as if your lack of understanding is somehow the pieces' fault, then you do deserve to be mocked.
February 17, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Help me figure this out..
the sheriff was cigurth's parallell opposite in the film. cigurth=the law for the evil trade he participated in (in tracking down the money like a bounty hunter) and the sherriff=the real world law.
cigurth was in a bizzarro world of sorts and the sherriff wanted to get inside his head? that's why the sherriff drank the milk at L. Moss' house--just like cigurth-- and refused to interact with the DEA agent, although he was invited to do so.
Cigurth ran many red lights in life in killing people like Llewellen's wife. He didn't have to do that but he did. He often ran stop signs in life. In the end, he walked away from an accident caused by a ran stop that broke his arm--symbolic for a sign of broken or deminished strength or old age/old men.
remember when moss offered the mariachi band a crumpled and bloody 100 bill?
(he was hallucinating in the hospital at that time.)
cigurth did the same thing with the boys on the bikes sitting on the curb (like a down-and-out man)
no country for old men=don't get old in the game or get out while intact.
cigurth tried to beat the game but he got beat. he ened up like moss--on borrowed time and stolen dimes. instead of being the hunter he ended up i guess like the sherriff--a broken old man content to walk away with his life.
the bright sunlight is also symbolic of a newness, a new direction and the sheriff was new-- a stranger in his own house at breakfast. at least he didn't have to shoot anyone or get shot like his uncle and dad. even steven i guess is okay in life--depends on the person.
in the motel room, wasn't it cigurth who looked through the hole where the lock once was? he was shown in a sickly sunlight--he was the future.
i guess it was never about the money--the money they chased, like boys chase rabbits in an open field.
cigurth=evil sheriff=? Moss=?
help me out with this--im glad i found this site because i don't understand the ending--where was the money? who got it? was moss dead did he show him self unfit to live because he took up with the woman at the motel? did the mexicans who talked with the grandma get away with the money? they found out from grand ma where moss was and went there--where they found him with the woman from the pool who lured him with beer.
was cigurth right that moss left his wife out to dangle in the wind by not giving his life for hers? ( remember when they spoke about that? he said the money would be placed at his feet) help!
excuse the misspellings any helpful answers above pls respond with the number of the post, thanx.
February 19, 2008 at 2:36 pm
That's quiet an observation. Many people have been saying that Ed tom and Anton are one in the same. Mostly though , folk have misinterpreted it, thinking that Anton is a split personallity of Ed Tom, a la fight Club. I always thought that was nonsense. But you've hit the nail. They ae both law men in a manner. this explains the mirroring that happens, Anton standing in the doorway, Ed tom standing in the Door Way, Anton drinking the Milk, Ed tom drinking the milk. even down to the fact that they both bow out in their own respective ways at the end. So Anton is equally as tired of his work as Ed tom is? Very interesting. It would explain the imagery in Anton's last sceen. He sits there with his bones sticking out of his arm and close to him is the fit and young pre-pubesent boy, the picture of youth. Is that the moment even Anton realises it's no Country For Old men? When he is face to face with nubile youth? Then the kids start arguing over the money, taking up the baton so to speak, instantly loosing their innocence.
As for where the money goes, it doesn't matter. The focus of the movie was not the money, it was the inevitable destiny it brings. Did you notice too, when Moss finds the transponder, the top layer is made of 100 $ bills. But under that it was made of 1's and 10's. Did you notice that? It was never 2 million dollars. The money was never worth all the blood shed.
February 20, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Spoiler:
i like the way the hotel scene played out. bell knows chigurh is in the room seeing as he enters the room gun drawn and cautious. bell sees the vent open olnly to prove his thinking that chigurh is there. chigurh doesnt kill bell i feel because being the crazed murderer he is, he has a respect for bell. bell sits on the bed awaitng his fate. chigurh is a type of fate for people in this movie especially by the coin flip scene at the gas station with the old man. the title of this movie is what bell feels is the story of his life he eluded to this being no country for old men when he was hearing the story of his father. this is furthermore why he sat on the bed in the hotel awaiting chigurh.
at the very end bell is siiting at the table talking with his wife about the dreams he had. he doesnt much remember the first but the second he tells of himself going out for a ride and a "man". he stops to make a fire saying he knows the man is going to come through. the man hes speaks of is chigurh. people in the movie talk about chigurh being a ghost, bell feels the same. in the hotel room bell sat awaitng his fate only for it not to come. bell's dream is about a ghost(chigurh) that is going to haunt his life thus why he sat at the bed waiting for fate(chigurh) to step out from behind the door and end the life of an old man who cant bare the country around him any longer.
February 21, 2008 at 2:55 pm
supremely overrated!
too slow paced and for me it didnt really go anywhere!
probably just not my type of movie!
February 22, 2008 at 7:20 am
So does he have split personality???
so how does it explain the disappearances of anton during the final hours of the bag of cash?
like, he was at the other side of the door, then he was no where to be found. fact is, anton was sheriffs, and sheriff/anton both were in the room. thats why there wuz no need to find no [swear word].
please email me if you have any insights! thanks
max_1989@hotmail.com
February 23, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Folks!!! When we watched Sesame Street as kids, did we sit around saying 'how can a giant bird talk?' No we bleedin didn't. Know why? Because we were able to suspend our disbelief. Why can't some of you do this with this movie? If you don't understand the movie, don't worry, but don't go out of your way and come to sites like this and show off your dumbess and short attention spans.
Not you Max! :)
No Bell doesn't have a Fight Club type of split personality. Anton is not 'real', he represents the darkness that Bell imagines must be behind the new wave of crime, or, in broader terms, he represents death or at least the promise of death that await us. He wasn't in the motel room because it was one of those 'kids looking under the bed for the boggie man' moments. you get me? It was Bell's imagination. The whole story of moss and the money is an allegory, a vehicle for the moral or of the story which is that the future is coming, you can't stop it. Bell imagines this world to be full of darkness and things he doesn't understand, but Ellis tells him it always been like that. People come in contact with sudden violence. Anton is symbolic of that violence.
February 28, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I admit when the movie first ended so abruptly I was a little taken back but I have found myself continually trying to figure out the themes in the aftermath. That makes an excellent movie for me.
February 29, 2008 at 4:58 pm
No Country for Old Men has to be one of the finest films of the past decade. It is a sheer masterpiece, ripe with deep symbolism and harsh sentiment.
I agree one hundred percent with Jeff G on post 65. One of the most controversial scenes in the movie is Sheriff Bell's entrance into the motel room. Many on this forum have argued that Chigurh was either in the room or in a room adjacent to the one that Bell entered. I think that both of those interpretations are not as fully supported as the one suggested by Jeff G. Chigurh was never in that room when Bell entered. This interpretation is consistent with the fact that Bell, Moss, and Chigurh do not ever meet each other (meaningfully, at least) face to face in the movie.
Before returning back to scene of the crime, Bell was fully aware of Chigurh's methods of opening doors. In addition, Bell was informed that Chigurh had killed a desk clerk, only to go back to the exact same hotel and kill an retired army officer (who was Carlson Wells). Bell returns to scene of Moss's death and finds the door lock busted open. With all his previous knowledge, he has to make the crucial decision of entering the room, knowing that his life is very much at stake. The image of Chigurh hiding in the shadows is Bell's representation of the killer. In text, this fear might have been easier to describe, but in film, the only way to show Bell's fear of the potential murderer, is to actually show an image of Chigurh.
When Bell enters the room, notice how ambiguous Bell's shadow is. One cannot really tell if that is Bell or Chigurh. After surveying the room, and noticing that the bathroom lock is intact, he sits on the bed. This scene parallels an earlier scene in the movie, when Bell narrowly misses Chigurh at Moss's home. The parallels are undeniable. When Bell was drinking the opened bottle of milk at Moss's trailer home, there was still the opportunity to save Moss from his fate. In this final and crucial scene, Bell has to accept that he failed in his mission to protect Moss and recover the money. The resigned slouch on the motel bed is Bell's acceptance that he is overmatched, and that this new wave of evil (represented by Chigurh) is transient, transparent, and omnipresent.
February 29, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Chigurth killed Bell in the hotel room and the Moss was just as evil as Chigurth. He set up his wife and his mother in law and walked away with the money.
The last scene with the Bell is when the Bell is dead.
March 1, 2008 at 8:46 am
Comment #178 makes no sense at all. Unless you are just having fun with this forum, and imagining what could have happened, that interpretation just doesn't fit with anything the story suggested, nor is it at all consistent with the book.
March 3, 2008 at 1:16 pm
It seems obvious to me that Chigurh was in the motel room, since we clearly see the hole where he had blown out the lock. The brilliance of this film is that it requires connecting scenes and dialogue from previous scenes and dialogue. The key (excuse the pun) to understanding what happened is the response of Anton to the question asked by the mob boss' accountant after he was killed; "Are you going to shoot me?"
Anton responds: "That depends. Do you see me?" We do not know what the answer was or what Chigurh's reaction was. But clearly, the accountant's answer, one way or the other, was about to determine his fate.
Here we see that Chigurh uses perception as a filter for determining who dies and who doesn't. His assessment of those worthy of life or death is based on a caprciousness that we would normally ascribe to God if it did not seem contrary to our indoctrination of his infinite good. But the fact is many acts of God are arbitrary and random, at least from our puny perspective, seemingly without rationale or justification, and the fact is good people do die and bad people do prosper. Sometimes the flip of a coin makes more sense.
So it is easy to surmise that Bell enters the room with Chigurh present, but Bell cannot acknowledge him, for doing that would "hazard his soul" and make him "part of this world." There are two shadows, one for Bell and the other for an invisible (to Bell) Anton. The ugly truth that prevents Bell from "seeing" Anton is that part of each exists in the other, thus making "God coming into his life" problematic at best.
The fact that McCarthy uses a trio of characters to anchor his morality play is no coincidence of course. Bell represents an ideal he has not lived up to, i.e, civilization's root in law and order, Anton respresents the chaos and randomness of raw nature, and Moss is the flawed Greek hero who struggles with the gods of law and chaos. His last words are that he's "looking for what's coming" and his temptress' retort is "you never see that." Yes, because seeing requires cognition of your fate and mortality and inherent flaws as human being, the same things Bell cannot see in the ghost Chigurh. He is, at the same time, Bell and not-Bell, the man who wanted God to visit him and the one that denies God can exist in such a cruel and miserable world. Bell's final dream holds out the hope that the man who was his God on earth, his father, finally offers him the refuge and sanctuary that this world could not. But he wakes up, and realizes that he has made Chigurh possible.
March 4, 2008 at 7:38 am
I'm not sure when and where in this blog people discuss the book to the movie, the movie against itself or book against itself.
But in the movie the overweight receptionist, or what have you, in the trailer park where Moss lives does see Chigurh and survive. There's absolutley no indication provided to assume that he kills her since the scene shows Chigurh leaving after repeating his question, "Where does he work?"
Also, Bell is definitely a sherriff in a county. If all can agree that he's a sherriff, but may or may not be Chigurh, the killer, or whatever, the fact remains that he could have found Moss's place of employment without having to ask the overweight trailer park receptionist, without having to superfulously expose himself as a potentially suspicious person looking into the whereabouts of an individual who will very soon become a missing person, for cops, fbi, or DEA to work off. I mean, he's a sherriff.
From the audience's perception Chigurh also allows the gas station owner to live, and as well offers Moss's wife the opportunity to save herself with the coin toss. If Bell is the killer AND is definitely a sherriff he would not allow anyone, coin toss or no, to identify himself as a (the) killer and live. He's too high profile as a sherriff to expose himself and leave witnesses regardless of his morbid and personal principles and values concerning life and death.
I'm also curious why Chigurh would walk into a pharmacy after blowing the hell out of the car to create that diversion. I don't care where you live in America, all pharmacy's have security cameras. Then again, it's a movie and I should be doing work right now instead of typing this stuff.
March 5, 2008 at 1:06 pm
But Looney, the movie is set in 1980. CC TV wouldn't have been as wide spread. As well as being a story about the threat of violence in a changing world, McCarthyemploys many broader themes. The idea of seeing from ones own point of view, as when Bell arives at the Motel as the mexicans drive off after Killing Moss. So there very heavy, serious themes. I think McCarthy also plays with us a little. You know that feeling when you put something down only to look for it a time later and it's gone, never to be found again...'I put it down here a second ago?!?!?' I have a feeling that was what CMcC ment in that scene. It's slightly playful. Then again, I could be as mad as a bag of frogs.
March 5, 2008 at 8:00 pm
I believe this movie is alot more straight forward than you think. Though it lends to interpretation, it is pretty simple if you just look at the facts in front of you.
The Mexicans kill Moss. Chigurh goes back to the hotel to get the money. Bell goes back but too late. It's definitely Bell's image of what's behind the door and not Chigurh himself. He just missed him - again, just like the trailer earlier. He couldn't stop any of it....Bell realizes this is No Country for Old Men and it's time to retire, so he does. It's a plain and simple look at REAL LIFE. Good people get in the way and die, some escape with their lives, cops cannot always stop the bad guys, people good at what they do get old and sometimes the bad guys get away in the end........
But I believe the point was to get you talking, interpreting, looking for answers. Because of the way it's laid out, it's hard to believe it's that simple and thus, I doubt anyone will believe my straight forward synopsis.... Have fun.
March 6, 2008 at 7:51 am
#182
I realized that after submitting-- It was a huge defeat.
I also realized that I was arguing an old topic that didn't need to be discussed. But so many people believe that Chigurh and Bell were physically the same person sparring only in a psychological bout.
This movie was gritty and realistic. As trite as it may sound, you could feel the dust being kicked up out there in that Texas desert and the beat of that hardpan.
I wish John Turturro had been involved somewhere in this piece, but then again it may have taken away from the movie's feeling having (what I hate to call) a recycled Coen actor. And he may have been perceived as a dark character. Why change a good thing, right?
On another random note how badass was the border guard that questions Moss?
March 6, 2008 at 10:50 am
in response to #183...
It is just a story about a drug deal, yes, but your interpretation is far too simple. It's ok that this movie can be both a thriller and a multi layered morality play. There are just too many references to Greek morality plays to ignore. It enrichens the movie, it doesn't complicate it. I feel on some of these posts that people feel quiet personnally about the movie, as if, for example, the end is not designed for dramatic reasons, more to piss people off!!!
Chill out folks and enjoy, on what ever level you choose, one of the classic movies of modern cinema.
March 7, 2008 at 10:15 pm
I just saw the movie yesterday. The more I reflect on it, the more brilliant I find it to have been.
Here is a thought on the final motel scene with Chigurh and Bell. I think the key may be the quarter being flipped and carried by Chigurh. Ed Tom and Anton (sound similar to you? they should) represent two sides of the same coin. Both seek justice. Anton seeks payment by life to death (think about how he uses the cattle-gun to kill sacrificial - almost holy - offerings and a shotgun to kill vermin). Bell seeks payment by death to life. So, they are two sides of the same coin, but they can never truly meet each other face to face...and this is precisely why they cannot face each other in the motel room...
One last thought: Chigurh (his name sounds like anti-sugar) gets the money IMO. And isn't it interesting how he delves into the need for human preservation by using the money to get the shirt? He and Moss are paralled here. Moss is the wounded antelope he shot earlier in the film and Chigurh is the wounded pit bull mix wounded by Moss. Both animals. Both wounded by pride. Both willing to use what is not theirs to preserve their lives. Makes you wonder if Chigurh should shoot himself for usiing the money on himself...
March 8, 2008 at 7:59 pm
The hotel scene is explained quite simply in the book. Moss is dead, the Mexicans shoot him in the face, but they never find the money. Chigurh comes back to the hotel room and it says he finds the money after he unscrews the cover for the vent. In the book he leaves the hotel room but he's still sitting in his car in the parking lot when Bell comes back to the scene. Bell goes in and finds the lock that he blasted out. He sees the screws and the vent cover and it says he knows Chigurh is in the parking lot, he can feel his eyes on him as he walks back to the car. Bell pulls out of the parking lot and goes down the road where he calls for backup. Two cars show up and Bell returns to the hotel but Chigurh is gone with the money.
March 10, 2008 at 1:02 pm
What if Moss and Chigurh represent the conflict inside Bell. There are certainly elements of Bell in the character of Moss confronted with the evil and death and there are certainly elements of Bell in Chigurh confronting greed and hubris. The movie bookends Bell's rationalizing the conflict between Moss and Chigurh. A man alone without God at the end of his life trying to moralize his actions and place in it. Makes the dream sequences a bit more understandable and thus the ending.
One never sees Bell with either Moss or Chigurh. Just a thought.
March 10, 2008 at 6:49 pm
THE DEATH OF THE WESTERN
At the beginning of the film, Bell mentions that he did not even need a gun in his profession as a lawman. His career took place in quieter times, expertly characterized by the simple neighborliness of the local people who are victmized during the development of the story.
During the teleplay, Bell deftly side-steps any confrontation with the evil that is on the loose. He comments on these events with his deputy, but feels no inclination to get involved. He realizes, with his peers, that a larger evil is overpowering them slowly.
In the high-point of the film, Bell cocks his gun outside the motel room, signifying his willingness to confront this nameless evil. He stands alone and iconic in the room like the good lawmen of the Western genre, (see # 68's brilliant take on this) but is powerless over Anton, who is everywhere, nowhere, unstoppable. He gives in to his weakness and retires.
The film is told from his perspective. Futility, indifference, slowness of mind. This is what our lawmen have become without the honing influence of the willingness to confront evil, in ourselves, or in the world around us.
Mr. Grey.
March 11, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Great comments by all. Leaving aside some of the thematic issues and zeroing in on the plot, does anyone have ideas about these questions?:
1) Who are the two sides in the drug deal?
2) Is it assumed that one of the side decided to steal the other side's cash/heroin?
3) Moss left with the cash but not the heroin. Who took that?
4) Who are the various parties going after Moss's found money?
5) Relatedly, for whom do each of Chigurh, and Wells work for with respect to the drug deal?
March 12, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I agree w/ #39, Moss is dead, his body was seen floating in the pool, not on the hotel room floor. The register was opened w/ the same dime that Chigurh used to open the register at the 1st hotel room. Chigurh ends up w/ the money in the end after all. This was a GREAT movie!!!
March 12, 2008 at 9:01 pm
OK, I just saw the movie about 2 hours ago & I searched Google for anyone else as confused as I am. I've read about half of this page, & while everyone has great theories, there are just a couple I'd like to address .
1) That is Moss dead in the doorway at the motel. Same exact yellow shirt with vertical reddish-orange lines on it
2) I don't understand saying you can see his face @ the morgue. You can't at all. You see a big navy blue mound.
3) Chigurh is definitely not behind the door @ the motel. Tommy Lee pushes the door open 7 the door clearly hits the wall with a bang. How could he be behind it?
Still trying to figure everything else out, but those 3 things I'm sure of.
March 13, 2008 at 11:02 am
So am I to understand that Carla Jean was killed. Or is it ture that we don't know whether she was killed or not. I haven't read the book. Who knows the right answer?
March 13, 2008 at 11:08 am
Chigurh and Bell in the motel room together suggests to me a juxtaposition between the nature of the two men, the criminal killer and the sheriff! Often the two extremes end up in the same place, albeit for different reasons, i.e., the hunted and hunter!, the good and the bad.
March 13, 2008 at 11:31 am
John L,
You da man. Finally, someone who has read the book.
And what is your take on the money theme, life, retirement and death? For example:
1. In the opening scenes men died over money/greed.
2. Moss doesn't give it a second thought, when he absconds with the money, that he knows that individuals have been murdered for. And he has absolutely zero intentions of turning the money in to the authorities.
3. At the gas station Churgh discusses the importance of money with the proprietor, a theme Bell picks up on in his film-ending dream. He lost the money that was given to him, just as the Drug kingpin lost his money.
4. Moss and Woody Harrelson's character wanted money.
5. A comment was made about how money travels all over and then reaches us! The Money Train?
What is the message of money all about? Is it the love of money... that drives men to heinous acts? Everyone who died or that was motivated in this movie was driven by money!
And are their times that having good money is needfut, as Churg relates to the old man at the gas station, and as Sheriff refers to in his retirement dream.
March 14, 2008 at 12:36 am
To me this was very frustrating...the deputy (Wendel) meets Bell at a cafe and tells him he just got the lab results back from the man who was killed on the roadside (after Churgh steals cop car). Bell asked "what was the bullet?" Wendel says there was no bullet. Bell explains he is confused on how there is no bullet. Later on Carly Jean meets with Bell at a cafe and tells the story of Charlie Walzer and his beef slaughtering accident. After Bell tells of the accident he says "of course they slaughter steer different these days" and goes on to explain how they use and air gun (which is what was used to kill the man on the roadside, explaining how there was no bullet). I was very suprised that Bell did not put 2 and 2 together...actually more frustrated than suprised.
Didn't know if anyone caught that Bell had the answer to the lab results but, never clicked in his head.
March 14, 2008 at 1:03 am
My interpretation of "No Country For Old Men":
In my opinion, this film is just like [spoiler to another movie] - schizophrenia. Bell is Anton Chigurh, Anton Chigurh is Bell. Couple key points that give it away (yeah sorry it's long):
1. Bell talking during intro: "always knew you had to be willing to die to do this job..... I don't want to meet something I didn't understand" (Bell) "but I'll be part of this world."
2. The man Chigurh killed to take his car: Bell didn't know what the murder weapon was bc there was an entry wound w/ no exit and no bullet. Bell later refers to how they kill cows now a days - a pin that gets shot into the cows brain that is propelled by compressed air, but Bell never puts two and two together.... supressed memories or selective memory?!
3. Chigurh goes into Moss' trailier and sits on the couch and see's his reflection in the TV while having a glass of milk. Bell sits down in the same exact spot on the couch and pours himself a glass of the milk that was left out and see's his reflection in TV and says "he's seen the same things i've seen and it's made an impression on me." (hence Bell has been there and seen this already.)
4. Carla Jean sits down w/ Bell at the restaurant in Odessa. This is where Bell explains how they use an air gun that shoots a little rod into the brain. He doesn't know why he tells her that, Bell states, "my mind wanders."
5. Next scene Chigurh answers the call from Moss and tells him that he is going to go see his wife in Odessa. Scene goes back to Bell in restaurant - inquires about how lock cylinder was punched out..... still no relationship to how he said they killed cows..... Bell goes on to say "....who are these people?"
6. Chigurh has no sense of humor.... he never laughs. While Bell is in the restaurant with his deputy, Bell says, "well, that's alright I laugh myself sometimes not a whole lot else you can do." Opposite egoes completely - Bell is an obiding law officer, Chirgurh is everything else. Alter egoes - schizophrenia.
7. Carla Jean calls Bell and tells him where Moss is going and no one else.... no one else. Of course the mexican's could have figured this out since they helped out Carla Jean's mother..... Moss is killed and dead.
**8. DEA meets with Bell. The DEA guy asks Bell if he thinks the guy he is after is a god damn homicidal lunatic. Bell says he doesn't think he is a lunatic, he thinks he is pretty much a ghost.... The DEA guy says he's real alright. The DEA says the "lunatic" has driven right back into the crime scene..... who would do such a thing?!? Bell drives back to the crime scene where Moss was killed and see's the lock blown out. Chirgurh is there when Bell enters the room, but neither of them notice or come into contact with each other. Bell is the only person in the entire movie who has never seen or spoken to Chigurh. Also, Bell is the only person in the movie who has been to every single crime scene....
9. Bell goes to see the old man in the wheelchair (Ellis) and asks, "how'd you know it was me?" Ellis responds, "who else would be driving back up in your truck?" Meaning he's been back there recently ,possibly, but does not recall his last visit.... maybe on his last visit he was Chigurh?! He asks "what would you have done if the man who shot you didn't die in prison." Ellis respond's, "Nothing, all the time you spend tryin to get back what's been taken from you more and more goes out the door....." interpret as you will. Then they go into Bell retiring.... he refers to God coming into his life, but he never did, and Bell doesn't blame him..... is there a reason for this??! Did Ellis speak to "Bell" or "Chigurh" on his last visit to the house.... retirement and trying to get back what has been taken from him? (money possibly). This country is hard on people.... you can't stop what's coming.... there is no waiting on you..... that's what Ellis says to Bell. Interpret as you will.
10. Carla Jean comes back home to find Chigurh..... she says "I knew this wasn't done with...." "i know'd you was crazy when i saw you sittin there." meaning when she sat with him the first time.... see #4 ("know'd" being past tense.... as in not just then but before.)
11. After retiring, Bell speaks of two dreams about him and his father. First dream was about his father being younger than him.... 20 years younger than him (age of Chigurh). Dream ends there. Second Dream Bell dreams that they were both back in the older times riding on horseback through the mountains and "he" rode past him never saying anything but carrying fire and a horn, in the dream he knew he was going ahead to "make a fire" and Bell knew he would be there whenever he got there.....
Interperet as you will...... I believe Bell and Chigurh are one in the same. Schizophrenia..... very very similar to the movie [another movie], but in this movie it is not come out and said......
March 15, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Maybe i'm digging a little deep here, but does anyone recall the conversation that Chigurh had with Carson Wells and he told Wells that "the money will be brought to me and placed at my feet. I think this is symbolic in saying that he knew he was pure evil, and since money is the root of all evil, the money would follow him. Does anyone agree with this.
March 15, 2008 at 2:17 pm
sgodar hit the nail square on the head has to be right! Wow
March 16, 2008 at 5:10 am
If there's a sequel, it should be a three minute movie: Chigurh gets caught stumbling down a residential road, bloody, with a bone poking out of his arm (good luck fixing that on his own, or blowing up a car to distract a hospital).
March 16, 2008 at 6:06 am
Well, my husband and I saw the movie last night. Alll through the movie I kept wondering if we missed something at the start of the movie. It kept us wanting to know, what is going on? Why didn't Chigurh kill the sheriff, which made me think maybe it was his father. We were always looking for a reason. Left quite a few questions, like, how and why where those Mexicans in Llewelyn's motel room. Who got the money in the end? We had a alot of high hopes for this movie, but it left us with many questions, and what was the meaing of this film.
We like movies that have a suprise endings, like The Sixth Sense.
With this movie, I thought OK, now what is he going to do after the car accident, then it was THE END... What the heck was that about.
All and all it was a very frustrating movie to watch, not only did you watch the killings, but you were always asking why and whose that guy, and why was he killed? I hate these type of movies, because it leaves you thinking, well this was slapped together, no beginning, no ending. But I guess there will be those that think it was a work of art... Sort of like abstract art, some look at it thinking there is some meaningful message in it , others look at it and think ' Who slapped this thing together'.
March 16, 2008 at 8:21 am
I agree with steve about sgodar's comment (#197) hitting the nail. All you say is good but the part about Bell being the only main character not to meet Chigurh drives the nail in. You should be a detective. Good job son---i mean sgodar!
March 16, 2008 at 9:35 pm
CHIGURH GETS THE MONEY!!!!! THERE IS NO QUESTION HE FUND IT IN THE VENT WHERE MOSS HIDES IT. MOSS DOES NOT KNOW CHIGURH SAW IT AT THE FIRST MOTEL. WEHN HE IS HIT BY THE CAR AT THE END... HE HADS THE KIDS A 100!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
March 17, 2008 at 12:12 am
A couple of you have been talking about Ed Tom and Anton looking into the television seeing the same thing. Then you deduce that when Ed Tom says something along the lines of "I don't know, he ought to. He's seen the same things I've seen, and it's certainly made an impression on me. " Re-watch the film, I was confused by that also the first time but the second time you have to listen to the entire conversation. The comic relief Deputy, the younger gentlemen by Ed Tom's side named Wendell, says, "You think this boy Moss has got any notion of the sorts of sons of bitches that're huntin' him?" Or something like that, and Ed Tom proceeds to say the dialog that i previously stated. He has seen the dead Mexicans/Americans and dog in the open country, and it made an impression on him and, Ed Tom believes that Llewellyn should know what's after him. The theory that Ed Tom and Anton are the same is a clever one, but I would not say it is a valid one. That kind of defeats the purpose of the "no country for old men" title. The reason Ed Tom retires is because he cannot keep up with the times and criminals. He's too old to be fighting evil, which is a battle he cannot win. He's too wise through experience now to think he can singlehandedly stop Chigurh or all evil for that matter. The ties you all make are quite intelligent but, for instance, in the trailer scene, how would the milk still be sweating if Ed Tom was just there? Ed Tom would have been there probably within an hour of when he and Wendell arrive and before that he was with Wendell. HOWEVER, this has to be one of my favorite movies of all time. I love the insane but intelligent villains. I think Anton Chigurh should be definitely considered up there with a fellow killer/genius, Hannibal Lector, as one of the greatest villains in American cinema. The next AFI countdown of Greatest movies/Greatest villains and heroes better have "No Country for Old Men" and Anton Chigurh included respectively or I will be very angry. Considering I have written quite a bit about the movie, I will continue to write and ask a question of my own. Firstly, Chigurh definitely gets the money. I do not think you can infer this from the Motel scene where you see the vent unscrewed with the dime. However, the car crash scene when he pays the boy the money for the shirt gives that away. I think that was definitely a way to show he ended up the ultimate victor in the money race. He does not pay for anything in the movie, not even the candy bar in the convenience store (with the first coin flip), and that scene, I feel shows the change in Anton. He actually pays for something because he has enough money to use now. Plus, the boy says it's "a lot of money" and for the time, I'm guessing it was a crisp, unused $100 bill. Carla Jean is definitely dead, this is known because Anton checks his boots. A lot of people say, "well he could have checked his boots for anything." However, the scene with Carson (aka Woody Harrelson) shows Anton doesn't like his boots dirty. When Woody's blood starts flowing nearer and nearer to Anton's shoes, he lifts them up as to keep them clean. The Mexicans killed Moss based on the information the Mother gave them. Carla was supposed to meet Llewellyn that evening I believe anyway and that's why she showed up. I do not think she got a call from Ed Tom but she showed up based on a previous selected tom given by her husband. She sees the cops and such in front of the room he was staying and realizes he's dead. Where my questions lie is in Woody Harrelson's character. I do not get how Woody knows exactly where (near the border) Llewellyn stashes the money. I, also, do not think he was after the money. I think he was after Chigurh to stop him. I say this because Chigurh kills the "Business Man" in the building because he is pissed the Mexicans are after the money too. When Chigurh kills the guys that take him to the spot because he does not need them anymore, he has the transponder, and so he can go about getting the money for himself without anyone to answer to. I think he was initially hired by the "Business Man" to get the money and bring it back to him, but Chigurh follows his own rules and principles. My final thought on the questions about the Motel scene when Ed Tom attempts to confront Anton are as follows. I think Anton is really in the motel, and is just sitting there as Ed Tom looks around. Ed Tom proceeds to sit down on the bed and he slumps his shoulders as he looks at something in the room. I think he sees Chigurh there and knows what's in store for him. However, I feel that we must infer that Chigurh then gives him the opportunity to have his fate decided on the coin toss. Ed Tom gets whatever he called (heads or tails) and Chigurh allows him to leave. For this reason, Ed Tom has an epiphany that he cannot fight evil anymore. He's an old man and this country just isn't for him anymore. His second dream at the end, I feel, represents this IMAGINED scene. He is with his dad walking on through, same path, etc. Then, the dad goes forward and will wait on him. I think Ed Tom stopped in his track of fate because the coin stopped him from having his predestined death by the Reaper (aka Chigurh). See, if Chigurh killed him, then Ed Tom would have died heroically defending against evil just light his father. That's why his father is in the light (Heaven). Since Ed Tom retires without a valiant final effort to stop Chigurh, he is destined to go to Hell. That's why he says "Then I woke up." Because it's a dream that he will go on with his father in Heaven. He must face the reality that he will not go there. However, my question about Woody and how he knew exactly in the grass where the money was is out there to be answered. So, hope to hear from someone on a theory. The dream thing I said is kind of a jumbled thought, but I hope it makes some sense. I am almost 100% sure on all the other FACTS of the movie, however, that is my only spiritual statement and I'm even a little iffy on it. So, please do not condemn me for having a "out there theory." I'm a Mathematics major, i'm not known for transcendental thought. hahaha
March 17, 2008 at 10:16 am
My problem with the ending was not with the actual ending -- Chigurh surviving and Ed Tom dreaming about death -- but with the change in perspective to Ed Tom so that we missed the killing of Liewellyn. We had walking in the footsteps of Liewellyn for most of the movie. Then, for the C Brothers to transform him to a corpse off screen seemed like a bad decision to me. That whole transition was unnecessarily confusing and took some of the stuffing out of the movie.
All in all, I loved the movie.
It's a dismal tide. It's not one thing.
March 17, 2008 at 10:31 am
Wilson asks: However, my question about Woody and how he knew exactly in the grass where the money was is out there to be answered.
Woody knew that Liewellyn was badly hurt, and that he would need a brace (light pole) to be able to stand on the guard rail to have leverage to throw the suitcase of money over the fence. The first light pole had the river directly under it. The second light pole he checked had land under it; so he looked carefully there.
How would he know Liewellyn threw the money over the fence? He didn't. But he probably found the truck Liewellyn abandoned near the Mexican crossing. So he was probably trying to analyze what Liewellyn might have done with the suirtcase.
As far as Ed Tom and Chigurh being in the motel room together, they are. Chigurh is behind the door, which Ed Tom throws open. When Ed Tom checks the bathroom, Chigurh leaves.
Did Chigurh find the money? We can't really know. We know he looked in the air vent -- but we don't know if Liewellyn put the money in the air vent. We do know that Chigurh DID have money to buy the boy's shirt in the end -- but it doesn't follow that he had no money before that. The buying of the shirt echoes Liewellyn's buying of the coat off the American college boy for too much money. This, I think, is further suggestion that Chigurh did find the money. But we're not certain.
Did he kill Carla Jean? Evidence is scanty. But the checking of the boots is a definite implication that he did kill her -- afterall, she seemed to refused to call the coin.
Chigurh is DEATH. DEATH can't be killed. Thus, the ending.
March 17, 2008 at 1:01 pm
The motel scene with Bell and Chugurh, yes chilling and intellegent, stunning. Before that though, if you watch again as Bell is driving to see Lu at the motel, there is the truck that Chugarh stole with the chickens and what looks to be another truck swinging out of the parking lot behind him.
March 17, 2008 at 1:38 pm
My take for several reasons is that Bell is the same person as Chugurgh... we are seeing Bell reflect on his own story... he is the murderer.. he is the story teller.
He is referred to as Antoine and he also makes reference to a bad arm that he acquired years earlier from a bullet... I believe the bad arm was from the car wreck at the end.. he did have the money in retirement because he was Chugurgh, the same guy that gave the $100 bill to the kids on the street.
Kim
March 17, 2008 at 2:34 pm
I'm really enjoying reading all comments about this movie. I watched it for the first time on DVD a few days ago and it continues to haunt. I do have a question, the answer to which must be so utterly obvious as to explain why I've seen no mention of it in all the web blogs I've been reading over the past few days, but here goes: How did Chigurh know where Moss' trailer was? He was seen pointedly lifting off the vehicle registration tag from the door of Moss' pickup truck and then suddenly he's at the trailer. Chigurh, of course, doesn't learn Moss' name until he arrives at the trailer and picks up his mail. I suppose we're to assume there must have been something in the truck with the address on it but the way Chigurh ended up at Moss' place was frightening.
I was also puzzled by the fact that when Bell enters the motel room, Chigurh is not there -- some have speculated that he got out through the back window -- but it did occur to me that he may have been in the second of the two roped-off motel rooms. Someone else mentioned in a comment that this scene played out as a sort of coin toss -- Bell took a chance and chose the "right" room. This helped make sense of it for me.
March 17, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Sara 209....
Read thru the many entries on this blog and you'll learn more. The first thing you should realise is that this is not a 'cops and robbers' movie. It's more of a moral fable, it's characters are symbolic almost. Chighur is death or the dark future. Ed Tom is a nostalgic character, forever looking at the past, even down to the 'Searchers' type image of him standing in the doorway. Moss is forward looking, he's an existential figure. Rather like character in Albert Camus' novel The Outsider, once he commits the act, once he opens Pandora's Box( the money is in a box-shaped case) he is exiled from normal life and the rest of the film he is constatly looking; to the left, to the right, looking for what's coming as if he can beat it, beat death or beat the fate coming for him. This is a profound work. the story of the stolen money is meerly a vehicle for the moral and existential investigation. Don't take my word for it, among the many 'I don't get it!' entries, there are gems of insight, go and have a look for yourself and enhance the movie for yourself!
March 17, 2008 at 11:39 pm
chighur is bell.... clean, cut, and simple..... rewatch the movie.... look at my first comment #197, i quoted the movie line for line..... chigurh is not death. chigurh is not a ghost. he is real. chigurh is bell. the fact that bell dreams at the very end of his father (or whoever) is riding ahead of him with a horn of fire to start a mess or kill someone or do whatever (interpret as you will), bell always arrived to find the mess that was created.... sounds a little like schizophrenia and alter ego stuff.... if you notice at the very very end of the movie when they show bell again, he does not seem himself..... he seems out of it maybe like he has alzheimers and is remembering a little bit of the past, or a little bit of himself, what he may not have realized WHILE it was all happening..... chigurh is not death.....
March 18, 2008 at 5:00 pm
I think during the hotel scene that the mexicans had killed liewwwelen but they were unsure of were the money was, but it was in the vent. Then when the sherrif had came in chigur was hiding somewhere in the room and he had escaped and gave the 100$$$$ to the kid for his shirt at the end of the movie.
Greeeeattttt movie.
March 19, 2008 at 11:19 am
I didn't read the book. But is it possible that the entire movie could have been Ed Tom Bell's first dream? At the end of the movie he said he had two dreams. The first was about money that he didn't remember very well but he thought he lost the money. This would explain all the parallels to his own life in the movie. The second was about his father passing him in the cold dark and lighting a fire; a fire he knew would be waiting for him when he was ready. I think when he woke up it was suggesting that we have a choice to make. Do we let evil prevail and run wild in our world or do we fight back and light our own fire?
March 19, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Thanks everyone because the movie has become a lot clearer after reading some of the posts. I haven't read the book and quite honestly didnt even it was based on a book. It was one of the best movies I have ever seen. One of my favorite scenes was when the dog was chasing Moss in the water. I was impressed with the 4 male characters in the movie. To the naked eye they seem backwards but each were very clever and cunning.
March 19, 2008 at 5:30 pm
# 211....
Nonsense!!! Bell ain't Chigurh! This film is far more sophiticated than that. If your theory is plausible and event that happen to Chigurr and both he and Bell take part in mirrored situations, where is Bell's car crash? If the two are one, the there'd be an accident featuring Bell, there isn't. Pure nonsense!
March 20, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Great to find this page--some really insightful stuff on here. One question is bugging me to distraction. I hope that someone who has read the book can help.
I can't figure out how Chigurh finds Moss's motel in El Paso. We see the chicken farmer telling Chigurh about the El Paso airport. We don't really know why Chigurh is asking about flying. Do we just assume that Chigurh hypothesizes that Moss has to fly to get away? And if so, then why would Chigurh be looking for a motel--wouldn't he just be going to the airport to look for Moss? And how does Chigurh find the exact motel that Moss has picked? There must be many motels in the neighborhood of the airport. Is he just fantastically lucky--he's driving toward the airport and sees the Mexicans peel out of the motel and puts two and two together?
Other than incredible luck, the only explanations I can think of that don't involve Chigurh and Ed Tom being the same person (which I do NOT believe) are:
1. Somehow Chigurh was lurking in the background when Moss called his wife; or
2. Chigurh really does have some kind of supernatural qualities.
I hope someone out there can help me quit surfing and get on with my life instead of trying to figure this out.
March 21, 2008 at 12:46 am
Well, I'm from South Texas and to answer an earlier question, YES, the cops don't show up until all the players have booked. The movie is a brilliant piece of work arrousing everyones intellect. I for one feels that Moss was never killed, only for the fact that he was not shown during the morgue scene. Who was Bell really looking at? Most likely Moss's mother-in-law who does have a burial service. It's unfortunate to think that Moss's wife gets killed, you know she does because Chigurh checks his boots after he leaves her house. My question would be, where is Moss at? Another hospital? Booked with the money? I feel faking his death would give him an edge preparing himself after healing his wounds to go after Chigurh. I feel Moss anticipating Chigurh to drop the chase, ( now that the money is in Chigurh's possession). And I think Moss misjudged Chigurh's code of ethics, cause Chigurh stuck to his ill promise to deal with Moss's wife. They left this story open for a sequel and unanswered questions, this will come in due time and I wish it was due time already.
March 21, 2008 at 10:49 am
This thread is very interesting. For those of you who haven't read the book here are a few answers to some questions in the thread. This contains spoilers so...anyway.
1. Anton is not Ed Tom. He is not even the "polar opposite" of Ed Tom. He is his own individual character. This is critical to the story and I am not sure why there is this infatuation with the belief that Cormac McCarthy is just trying to reuse a theme from Fight Club.
2. Moss is killed at the hotel with the girl although in the book he picks her up as a hitchhiker instead of meeting her at the hotel.
3. Carla Jean is killed by Anton shortly after she buries her mother who died of cancer.
5. Bell does not find the money at the hotel room.
6. Bell does not find Anton in the hotel room.
7. Bell is alive the entire movie and book.
8. I feel like this needs to be said again: Bell is not Anton
Now if anybody who has read the book wants t disagree with any of the above I would welcome it.
The following is strictly opinion:
No Country for Old Men seems to reflect the way that people deal with their own mortality. Some people run (Moss), some people try to bargain (Carson), some stand to defy it (Carla Jean) but ultimately it comes. Every choice we make and every step in one direction or another brings it one step closer. This is a recurring theme in all of the McCarthy novels that I have read. McCarthy's world is simple and terribly violent and random.
March 21, 2008 at 6:03 pm
I have never seen so many explanations for a movie. There are comments in here that are a mile long. What does this say about the movie? Could it be because the movie was not well made at all? Sorry, I saw it, and thought it was a waste of time. It seems we are trying so hard to make sense out of it. Just my opinion.
March 22, 2008 at 10:07 am
I'm so confussed, what the hell happened??? I keep thinking that Moss is still alive, I dont think that was him on the hotel floor. But why didnt that Chigurh dude kill the sheffif?? I know he killed Carla Jean because he checked his shoes. But if someone could try to tie this movie together for me Id love it.
March 22, 2008 at 10:05 pm
I just saw the movie on dvd.
Wow!
Any ideas on the significance of the names?
Moss.
Bell.
Chigurh - anyone know what that translates to?
March 22, 2008 at 11:32 pm
When Carson (Woody Harroldson) is talking to big boss in the high rise building. Why does he say that "they are missing a floor"? That he counted 24 stories and only saw 23.?
March 23, 2008 at 3:32 pm
204 good sumation wilson ..i like.
I believe the title says it all , "NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN" , that's what it is all about. lots of great explanations and insights,How about... there is to much evil now compared to what past generations have had to deal with. times have changed and the younger generation will have to deal with it.i believe they are all dead, chigurh would not leave anyone alive (unless they win a coin toss which i believe Bell did), that is the point of the whole movie-(randomness).Bell appears to be a shell of the man he once was, and he knows Anton is still out there and there is nothing he can do to stop him, he is just waiting to meet his father on the other side. i do not believe this movie is award worthy unless keeping you guessing should win you awards. a sequel would answer a lot of questions, but i would not count on it.
March 23, 2008 at 7:52 pm
who are we all kidding. this movie blows. to try and break it down to explain it is useless. im sick of hearing about the scene in the hotel room. "sugar" was not behind the door of the hotel room. he was behind the door of the hotel room closet. he had no reason to kill bell. i still dont know who got the money although it is obvious that "sugar" was there looking for it. moss is not still alive, he returned to the hotel room because that is where he told his wife he would meet her. there are far to many holes in the story, forn everyone to try and break it down and no one knows what really happened. i agree there was some very good acting but in general this movie is terrible. it seems to me that too many people are trying to find some artsy foo foo reason to love this movie. its like paintings, if some one throws some paint on a canvase, there is always someone trying to explain the meaning behind the painting and why it is so great. when in reality, some 2 year old probably got out of control with the watercolors. this movie makes me want to pull my hair out.
March 24, 2008 at 4:39 pm
It may be way too late to get into this discussion, but here are a couple of observations.
1. Cormac McCarthy is WAY too good an author to rely on some goofy twist that has potheads saying, "whoa."
2. The hotel scene is probably the most pivotal moment in the movie, and therefore worthy of discussion. Unfortunately, the story that Bell relates to his uncle in the book about bailing on his unit in the war isn't in the movie, so if you haven't read the book you don't see the redemptive quality of his going into the room even though he thinks Chigurh is in there. Once he ran from certain death, now he faces it because he knows it's his duty. It's a diversion from the book, but I think it's a satisfying one.
We ought to be discussing things about the themes and ideas in the movie, not dumb details that a simple reading of the book would easily fix. It's not even that long.
March 25, 2008 at 7:23 am
I've seen it twice now. First time about all I took away was the shock and awe of the violence. The second time there was clearly a few messages to glean. I'm wondering more about Bell and his legacy of third generation law enforcement and his final narration of the 2 dreams he had. Any thoughts about this?
March 25, 2008 at 8:16 am
has no one considered the fact that the sugar character had the ability to "shape-shift"? it seemed to me that there were alot of clues regarding this possibility.
sugar drinking the milk in moss' trailer - the cat drinking milk in the motel.
after moss shot sugar, sugar dissapeared - or did he shape shift into a cat and hide underneath the car.
when bell entered the room - sugar shape shifted and left through the ventilation shaft.
even 2 other characters alluded to this old indian folklore. the mexican who wanted water in the beginning spoke of "lobos" and the uncle in the wheelchair in the end said all of his cats were assasins or "no-gooders" or something along that theme.
i even think the uncle could has been the limping black pitbull in the beginning - or maybe that was sugar. hard to tell....
March 25, 2008 at 10:48 am
Comments for this review are closed now. The page became too long, and people weren't bothering to read the previous comments before posting theirs, resulting in a lot of repeated questions and answers. Chances are whatever is on your mind has already been addressed in one of the 200+ comments, or in the blog entries linked at the end of my original review.
Comments are closed.