No Country hit me kind of hard the first time I saw it. I had to sit and think about what I had seen and how I felt about it.
this is how i felt about there will be blood. i just left the theater a bit flabbergasted about what i saw, but i knew i liked it. then i thought about it some more, and yeah.
redhead post what you now understand in a spoiler because i am super lazy and only understood that everything that happened in that movie was super badass but that's about it
Okay, here is how I feel about No Country for Old Men now that I've also read the book. I'm not sure how much of this is good analysis that also applies to the movie, how much is good analysis of stuff that didn't make it into the movie, and how much is not good, but here it is anyway.
I see No Country as a story about the possibility of a moral view of the world. Anton Chigurh is a completely amoral human being. He isn't evil, at least not in his own eyes, because his worldview doesn't include the possibility of either good or evil. In the movie he appears to be almost a force of nature, which I think is accurate to the way he's portrayed in the book. He sees himself as an agent of fate: when he kills someone, it isn't because he wants to kill them, it's because they were fated to die. Hence the coin tosses. According to Chigurh, the storekeeper guessed his toss correctly because he wasn't meant to die. Lucky him. But he offers Carla Jean a toss despite already having planned to kill her-- promised, in fact, to Llewelyn, is I think the way he puts it in the novel. He offers her the toss because he is absolutely certain she is fated to die, and he's right. She guesses wrong, as he says he knew she would. In the world we're familiar and comfortable with, someone who claims to know the fate of other humans would be called insane, and Wells clearly thinks that this applies to Chigurh. But the scary part is that there's no evidence for his insanity within the story. Yes, he claims to be an agent of fate, which should be crazy, but he's never wrong about anything, either. Everyone that he sets out to kill dies, and no one does more than graze him with buckshot. So he appears pretty sane, all things considered.
Those who oppose him are, to one extent or another, moral men. Sherrif Bell is the link between the past, with its more classic heroic figures, and the new and criminal present, exemplified by the kid he sends to the electric chair, who knew he was going to be in hell in 15 minutes and didn't care and by the Mexican murderer we meet at the novel's end, and which reaches its apotheosis in Chigurh, the utterly amoral, perfect killer. Bell keeps his moral center close, in the form of his wife and his dead daughter, and quickly comes to the conclusion that he cannot confront Chigurh. The one chance he is given he intentionally forfeits, because he is wise enough to know that he stands no chance. He says it isn't even that he's afraid to die, that he would have to "put his soul at hazard" to confront Chigurh, and that he isn't willing to do that.
Moss, convinced he can still save himself and his wife while keeping the money, does try to confront Chigurh. He is willing, to some extent, to "put his soul at hazard": he does accidentally kill an old lady, the firefights he precipitates kill a whole lot of other people, and he refuses Chigurh's offer to save his wife's life at the cost of his own. He thinks he can reach Chigurh's level, that he can outwit or outshoot him. But while he manages to stay alive for a while, he ends up being killed-- and not even by Chigurh! -- when he lowers his guard and shares a beer with a young hitchhiker girl. The man who comes to kill him has a gun against her head and orders Moss to drop his weapon. Chigurh would have shot the both of them and lived, but Moss, burdened by morality in spite of himself, complies and is killed off-camera. (I think that scene was different in the movie, actually, but I can't quite remember how.) Moss's death to his moral side is inevitable from the moment he brings the dying Mexican doperunner a drink of water at the beginning of the movie. At first he walks away with the money and it looks like he could get away scot free, but he returns and gives himself away with one moral act: he brings water to a dying man, and it dooms him.
My view of the story is pretty well summed up by one of Chigurh's lines to Wells before he kills him. He asks, "If the rule you followed led you to this, of what use was the rule?" What's the point of acting in accordance with morality when the fate it leads you to is a senseless death at the hands of an untouchable murderer? What's the point of morality at all?
So we come to the end of the movie, which so many people found confusing. I didn't get it either when I watched the movie, actually, but here's how I see it now. Sheriff Bell, having retired because he knows he can't face the new breed of criminal that Chigurh represents, spends a while thinking and talking to others about the past. He muses for a while on a stone trough carved out by a man who had some faith in something, and decides that while he won't carve a stone trough he would very much like to make that kind of promise to the future. And then tells us about the dreams that end both the novel and the movie. The one described at length has his father carrying fire in a horn, going along ahead of him "in all that dark and all that cold" and Bell knows that whenever he catches up, there will be a fire waiting for him. It's a dream about Bell's belief in survival, even in the darkness of the new amorality, of the fire of moral certitude, and it's a final ray of hope in a very dark novel. Or it seems to be. Because the novel and the movie don't end when his dream ends. There's one final sentence: "And then I woke up." And, to me, that turns everything back on its head. All this time Bell has spent musing about the past and the possiblity of escape from this violent, dangerous world that he sees coming-- it was a dream. And when he wakes up, the world is still there, as violent and dangerous as ever.
There's more in there, too. I'm not even much of a critic and I got enough to fill that whole post, and more that I didn't touch. You could mine this novel for ages and not reach bottom.
I only got to see There Will be Blood upon its release on DVD which turned out to be abso-fucking-lutely worth the wait. It also meant I could go back and watch the final scene straight after the end credits. Just everything about it is amazing, even the fucking credits music was awesome.
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I Win Swordfightsall the traits of greatnessstarlight at my feetRegistered Userregular
edited September 2008
Holy shit
Thanks!
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Olivawgood name, isn't it?the foot of mt fujiRegistered Userregular
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited September 2008
Having not read the book, the movie doesn't have a lot of the stuff that you had there, and its omission drastically alters the analysis that you purport.
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Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Having not read the book, the movie doesn't have a lot of the stuff that you had there, and its omission drastically alters the analysis that you purport.
not really, no
most of the things he talks about were in the movie, and the central idea is still conveyed in the final scene
man, you do not want to start mentioning awful movies you've sat through, because i'm pretty sure i've watched every shitty movie released in the past ten years: glitter, honey, from justin to kelly, all the crappy _____ movies, step up and its sequel, and so on and so forth.
Posts
but the second time it clicked really hard
this is how i felt about there will be blood. i just left the theater a bit flabbergasted about what i saw, but i knew i liked it. then i thought about it some more, and yeah.
Okay, here is how I feel about No Country for Old Men now that I've also read the book. I'm not sure how much of this is good analysis that also applies to the movie, how much is good analysis of stuff that didn't make it into the movie, and how much is not good, but here it is anyway.
Those who oppose him are, to one extent or another, moral men. Sherrif Bell is the link between the past, with its more classic heroic figures, and the new and criminal present, exemplified by the kid he sends to the electric chair, who knew he was going to be in hell in 15 minutes and didn't care and by the Mexican murderer we meet at the novel's end, and which reaches its apotheosis in Chigurh, the utterly amoral, perfect killer. Bell keeps his moral center close, in the form of his wife and his dead daughter, and quickly comes to the conclusion that he cannot confront Chigurh. The one chance he is given he intentionally forfeits, because he is wise enough to know that he stands no chance. He says it isn't even that he's afraid to die, that he would have to "put his soul at hazard" to confront Chigurh, and that he isn't willing to do that.
Moss, convinced he can still save himself and his wife while keeping the money, does try to confront Chigurh. He is willing, to some extent, to "put his soul at hazard": he does accidentally kill an old lady, the firefights he precipitates kill a whole lot of other people, and he refuses Chigurh's offer to save his wife's life at the cost of his own. He thinks he can reach Chigurh's level, that he can outwit or outshoot him. But while he manages to stay alive for a while, he ends up being killed-- and not even by Chigurh! -- when he lowers his guard and shares a beer with a young hitchhiker girl. The man who comes to kill him has a gun against her head and orders Moss to drop his weapon. Chigurh would have shot the both of them and lived, but Moss, burdened by morality in spite of himself, complies and is killed off-camera. (I think that scene was different in the movie, actually, but I can't quite remember how.) Moss's death to his moral side is inevitable from the moment he brings the dying Mexican doperunner a drink of water at the beginning of the movie. At first he walks away with the money and it looks like he could get away scot free, but he returns and gives himself away with one moral act: he brings water to a dying man, and it dooms him.
My view of the story is pretty well summed up by one of Chigurh's lines to Wells before he kills him. He asks, "If the rule you followed led you to this, of what use was the rule?" What's the point of acting in accordance with morality when the fate it leads you to is a senseless death at the hands of an untouchable murderer? What's the point of morality at all?
So we come to the end of the movie, which so many people found confusing. I didn't get it either when I watched the movie, actually, but here's how I see it now. Sheriff Bell, having retired because he knows he can't face the new breed of criminal that Chigurh represents, spends a while thinking and talking to others about the past. He muses for a while on a stone trough carved out by a man who had some faith in something, and decides that while he won't carve a stone trough he would very much like to make that kind of promise to the future. And then tells us about the dreams that end both the novel and the movie. The one described at length has his father carrying fire in a horn, going along ahead of him "in all that dark and all that cold" and Bell knows that whenever he catches up, there will be a fire waiting for him. It's a dream about Bell's belief in survival, even in the darkness of the new amorality, of the fire of moral certitude, and it's a final ray of hope in a very dark novel. Or it seems to be. Because the novel and the movie don't end when his dream ends. There's one final sentence: "And then I woke up." And, to me, that turns everything back on its head. All this time Bell has spent musing about the past and the possiblity of escape from this violent, dangerous world that he sees coming-- it was a dream. And when he wakes up, the world is still there, as violent and dangerous as ever.
There's more in there, too. I'm not even much of a critic and I got enough to fill that whole post, and more that I didn't touch. You could mine this novel for ages and not reach bottom.
Thanks!
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Things like this make me less interested in seeing the film.
Not because I have a problem with films that try to be intelligent and deep, but because a lot of the time that shit goes completely over my head.
Aspergers and a really short attention span make those kind of movies difficult to appreciate.
you are awful
A bald-faced lie
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
not really, no
most of the things he talks about were in the movie, and the central idea is still conveyed in the final scene
I thought you died
oh and like 90% of Bell's monologues but fuck it
your face is the worst movie in history
no
EDIT: was originally replying to
But also works for
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
that's my queue
nah it wasn't too terrible
the bits that were relatively original/directly parodying 300 were, dare I say, funny
Disaster Movie though that looks below even my bad movie standards
and I saw Crossroads by choice
but you have to watch MST3K to appreciate how bad movies can really be
i was dead wrong
also, oh my god, project runway has sucked me back into its vortex with the last couple episodes. noooooo
Meet the Spartans, while terrible, had a couple decent laughs in it
and I wasn't even stoned
and terrible
yeah, i am guilty of laughing a handful of times during it. it actually got more laughs out of me than date movie.
more like, you somehow managed to watch movies that were catered for viewing by teenage girls
(I may have inadvertently insulted gay people, I'm not sure)