Gabe, he’s obviously going to take the drugs to the gettin’ place. Duh.
-TomYou just sold me on a No Country prequel - “The Gettin’ Place” highlighting the wacky adventures of one Llewelyn Moss as he stumbles from escapade to escapade.
This fall on TNT…
Come and listen to a story about a man named Llew’
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed,
Then one day he was shootin at some food,
And up through the dust he found some Mexican mud.
Heroin that is, black gold. Texas pee.
Well the first thing you know ol’ Llew’s a millionaire,
Kinfolk said Llew move away from there
Said the Mexican mafia is already on your tail
So they loaded up the truck and headed for a fail.
“Call it,” Chigurh said. Pneumatic nail gun.
The Chigurh Hillbillies!
Sung at the end of the show:
Well now its time to say good-bye to Llew and all his kin.
And they would like to thank you folks fer kindly droppin in.
You’re all invited back again to this locality
To have a heapin helpin of Chigurh’s hospitality
Hit man, that is. Take your boots off. Y’all don’t want blood on 'em, now, y’hear?
I still think this is the best Western film since Unforgiven. I loved True Grit, but No Country is the more gripping and urgent film.
When I first watched it my interpretation was that he was lying there in bed and realized he left a witness who might be alive still, so he went out there to kill him if he had to. But no one I pitch this to seems to agree with me.
I’m watching this right now. I picked it up for $8 at Best Buy today on blu-ray. There is a scene where Llewellyn (sp?) buys a shotgun and then proceeds to use a file (?) on the inside of the barrel after he saws off the end. Does anybody know what that was for? I’m just curious. I doubt it is the kind of action that has some sort of deeper meaning behind it.
hahaha yes, everything IS on the internet isn’t it? Thanks!
I just went on a modern western binge and watched No Country for Old Men and Hell and High Water. Only NCFOM made me necro a thread, because Javier Bardem is soooo good in this. And I thought Kelly Macdonald looks like Josh Brolin’s daughter when he first walked into the trailer. I don’t know how convincing her accent is, but I will watch almost anything with her in it. And the Coens didn’t bother showing the final motel shoot out, only the aftermath. That is just ballsy. Hell and High Water is a bit meh in comparsion.
Next up for me: True Grit (Coen Brothers remake). I blame RDR2.
Better than the original by far
I agree it’s better, but it’s fun seeing John Wayne in a different kind of role.
That’s 100% Cormac McCarthy! Part of what’s remarkable about the Coens’ movie is how close they hew to the book.
Also remarkable for their faithfulness to Portis’ book.
-Tom
Couldn’t you have pick something earlier? Like Gosford Park or Brave? I’m still swooning over her and Clive Owen in Gosford Park.
She was sooooo good in Puzzle! My fifth favorite movie of 2018 I think.
I didn’t know she was in No Country For Old Men. I’ll have to watch that movie again and watch for her. And to watch Gosford Park apparently.
As a retrospective, I felt Javier Bardem was perhaps, and this might be controversial, too good.
What I mean is that Javier was some kind of otherworldly … thing… outside of the normal boundaries of the laws. But No Country For Old Men was as much a landscape film as anything and he seemed so out of place, something “not of” the landscape. Which… perhaps?.. works against the theme of the film. It’s not really about No Country if the antagonist really isn’t part of the landscape of that country.
It wouldn’t necessarily have been as good a film, nor necessarily in many ways the same film, but it would have been interesting to have had a much more ethnically Mexican or Central American actor in his role.
The thing about that part of Texas is the sense of being exposed, vulnerable, in a harsh landscape, next to a border that is permeable in both directions for one kind of person and impermeable for another. Having a character named “Anton Chirgurh” doesn’t sound like a hitman from Mexico. But having a character named “Jose Gonzalez” would have flipped the whole feeling of the film, about the feeling that “just over that hill” is a place you cannot go - but that can come at any time and get you. That would reduce Chirgurh to being part of the landscape again, but elevate that landscape to being the center of the story.
He’s not part of that country, though. He’s not supposed to fit in. He’s Death.
Totally! Sounds like you get Cormac McCarthy as well as the Coens did. :)
There’s a precursor to Chigurh in one of his early novels called Outer Dark. These three demonic guys travel the countryside causing evil things to happen, leaving destruction and murder in their wake, and there are plenty of scenes like Chigurh’s “lucky quarter” confrontation, but they never end well for the gas station attendant role. I think I saw them referred to as “vampires” once, which is a kind of dumb way to put it, but understands perfectly how the characters relate to the story and the world. Chigurh is those characters turned into one dude and transplanted to a modern crime yarn.
In other words, what @HumanTon said.
-Tom
Sometimes time heals old wounds. We know that because well, the protagonist and antagonist of this movie heal wounds during the movie. The sheriff is trying to heal his past. But book aside, movies can sometimes suffer from charging ahead, only to putter out. And since I’ve forgotten a lot of the content of the movie itself, I was again enraptured this evening watching this. It’s worth a bump to talk about it, again.
And I had forgotten why I had ire about the movie itself. Man, I thought to myself, this is a fantastic western. Man, I thought to myself, the characters are superb. I also though, self, I love how the directors as well as the story itself lets itself be told, lets things happen but allow you only visual clues as to what went on, what was missed. It lets you piece together and focus on what you’ve gleaned.
And then you get to the end. How would a story like this end? The semi-good guy wins and gets away with the cash? No, no. To … trite. What about the bad guy wins and gets away to prowl again? No, maybe not that either. What about the sheriff who’s slowly pieced together this horrible nightmare that’s happened and he can come save the wife? “Oh hell no,” I say in m best Tommy Lee Jones accent. It needs something. Maybe, no end. No end at all. Just give that invested watcher nothing to walk away from but the monologue of the sheriff who didn’t really save anyone or solve anything. He fades out with the reflections of dreams not understood. That’s it.
So my beef isn’t with the Coen’s who’s other works I’ve enjoyed and for most of this I enjoy as well. My beef is with Cormack McCarthy, who at least I’ve read other books by. “Why,” I ask? Why end such a powerful and visual and visceral story, with a monologue?
Those of you who’ve read this or understand it differently, what am I missing? And further, the loaded question, why is this such a favored movie, hell maybe THE MOST favored of Coen fare, and yet it ends in such a way.
I’m lead to believe that since we view the story and hear parts of the story through the narrative of the sheriff, that I should be taking away something from the whimpered monologue ending. But I don’t. As a listener to this story, I’m left asking why it didn’t really end. We don’t end with closure itself, but … what? Why the hell don’t I like this movie?
Have you ever tried so hard to like a movie that everyone else likes but you just can’t? Or ever thought, maybe I should read the book, or maybe I’ll go insane if it isn’t much different?
I need a beer.