No Country for Old Men -- 7/8ths of a great movie

I, too, loved the ending. Strongly disagree with whoever said it was random. The two final Tommy Lee Jones scenes -- the one in which he visits Barry Corbin, and then the one in which he describes his dreams about his father -- encapsulate the whole theme of the movie.

I have heard people complain about the absence of a satisfying conclusion. To those, I ask -- what loose ends, specifically, needed tying? (SPOILERS) Brolin thought he could outrun evil and was proven wrong. His wife paid the price, but kept her pride. Bardem got the money, if not the satisfaction of seeing another victim play his little game. And Jones finally came to the realization that his dream of finding a warm place in the middle of the cold darkness was just that -- a dream. "Then I woke up."

What more do you need?

 

The book was set in 1980

 

I haven't seen the movie yet, but just finished the book. Moss was 36 years old, though his wife was 19 and most people seemed to think he was younger than his real age.

Moss served three tours in Vietnam from 66 to 68. If he was 19 when he went in, that would mean the book was set in 1983. I'd say a setting of 1980 +/- five years is pretty good.

 

Um, that Esquire article is a joke:

http://www.justpressplay.net/viewarticle/interview-josh-brolin-talks-no-country-for-old-men/page2.html

 

Just like Fargo being based on a true story

 

I just finished watching it online -- it was gone from the local theaters before I had a chance to see it -- and I loved it.

The movie stayed true to the book and the performances were very, very good.

I'd have been pissed if they'd changed the ending.

 

People ebhind us in the theater comnplained about the ending.
I thought it was perfect.
The movie is really about the sheriff character. He has this link to a legacy. He's part of the old way, but his way doesn't work anymore.
The description of the dream is poignant and compelling on several levels.
I loved this movie.

 

I finally saw this tonight and loved it. The woman diagonally in front of me yelled out "that sucked!" as soon as the closing credits started and there was a lot of grumbling as people exited. Whatever.

Oh, and Javier Bardem's character would have had to travel with hot rollers to get his hair like that.

 

Adaptations
A film adaptation written by William Monahan is scheduled for release in 2009, to be directed by Ridley Scott.

 

The book is so good, yet so vast (if that makes any sense), that I don't know if anyone can make a good movie out of it.

 

I'm a little late to the party here. Saw it yesterday and loved it. I'd read the book a few months ago, so I was pleasantly surprised that the Coens stayed true to McCarthy's vision, especially the ending. If you didn't like the ending, I think it's because you had different expectations for what you hoped the picture might be. It's not a suspense movie.


McCarthy's theme is essentially that there has always been, and always will be, evil in the world. You can look at the Chigurh character like he's the devil if you want. In the book and in the movie, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell talks a lot about how drugs and sin have taken over, how they're the scourge of the world, and how it was never this bad in the days that his father was the sheriff. But at the end, when he goes to visit his uncle Ellis, his uncle dismisses that as vanity. Evil has always existed. It's not a sheriff's job to eliminate it, because evil can't be killed. It's a sheriff's job to do his best and live a life he can be proud of. The dream that Tommy Lee Jones' character is talking about, he mentions that his father was carrying fire, and that he was trying to meet up with him. The "good guys" carrying fire is a theme in some of McCarthy's other books, namely The Road. In the dream, he's trying to find his father so they can build a fire to protect the world from all that cold and darkness. When he wakes up, he knows that's impossible.

Ed Tom is one of the good guys but he's old; his time has passed. The country seems so much worse than when he was sheriff, and maybe it is, and mabye that's vanity. McCarthy clearly thinks we are all doomed, but he's smart enough as an author to use Uncle Ellis' speech to make us ask ourselves if maybe things have always been this way.

Ed Tom Bell, who is still very much alive at the end, represents the past.
Anton Chigurh represent the evil, and inevitable, future.
Llewelyn Moss is us, modern man, living in the present, caught in a morally ambiguous time and place. Neither truly sinner nor saint.

The book is actually a bit too preachy at times, and I thought the Coens did a good job of steering clear of some of that. You can read the book as a warning of what happens to the world when we abandon God and some of our values in pursuit of wealth, drugs, etc. When Chigurh is giving his speech to Carla Jean after she says "You don't have to do this" what he's saying is that you made the choices that brought me here. It's not about what Chigurh does or doesn't have to do. It's what she did to bring him into his life. Even if she's ultimately innocent, Lleweyln made choices that sealed their fate. Maybe it was going back and giving the dying man water. Maybe it was not giving up the money. Maybe it was simply not working and instead going out and shooting game.

Anyway, it was a fascinating film.

 

Plenty of symbolism in the movie as well. Chigurh's coin -- he and the sheriff are two sides of the coin, good vs. evil. Their names are even similar. Anton and Ed Tom. And a chigger is a little insect that just bites something and won't let go.