A Ghost And A Dream: Notes on the final quarter of 'No Country For Old Men'
Although it puts a crimp in the elegance I aspire to in this post, I have to begin thusly: WARNING—SPOILERS AHEAD.
And welcome, linkers from the official No Country website. Enjoy, and look around—there may be more here you'll like. There's another post going even deeper into the motel scene here.
No Country For Old Men, Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007
I: By way of a preface
Godard: […] Any great modern film which is successful is so because of a misunderstanding. Audiences like Psycho because they think Hitchcock is telling them a story. Vertigo baffles them for the same reason.Cahiers: So freedom has moved from the cinema to the Serie Noire. Do you remember The Glass Key? The end?
Godard: Not very clearly. I’d like to re-read it.
Cahiers: In the end a woman who was hardly featured in the story suddenly recounts a dream.
Godard: The Americans are marvelous like that.
Cahiers: In the dream, there is a glass key. Just that, and the novel is called The Glass Key. And the book ends with this dream. If one did something like that in the cinema, people would say it was a provocation. This sort of reaction is typical of a public which has a cinematographic pseudo-culture but nevertheless indulges in terrorist tactics.
—“Let’s Talk About Pierrot,” an interview with Jean-Luc Godard, Cahiers du Cinema 171, October 1965, from Godard on Godard, translated and edited by Tom Milne
II: Beyond The Glass Key
At Cannes in May, where I saw Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country For Old Men for the first time, I called the film’s final scene, which corresponds very closely to the final passage of the Cormac McCarthy novel from which the film was adapted, the “Glass Key ending.” It seemed apt for reasons beyond the fact that both works end with the recounting of a dream. There was also the fact of the Coen Brothers’ sort-of adaptation of the Hammett novel (mashed up with Hammett’s Red Harvest) and the occasions Hammett’s work provided for the Coens to mix pulp with cinematic poetry…to go for effects that reach beyond telling a story, you could say. On a recent episode of Charlie Rose, discussing why they made a movie of McCarthy’s novel (although they spent a long time developing James Dickey’s To the White Sea, and admittedly borrowed liberally from Hammett for Miller's Crossing, No Country is the first official literary adaptation realized by the filmmakers), Joel Coen noted that the book was “pulpier” than anything they’d read by McCarthy before…”and then, it wasn’t.”
Now, Ed Tom Bell is not a character who "hardly features" in the story...but for the most part he operates on the periphery of it. As his opening voiceover tells us, though, he is the filter through which the story is being poured, as it were. The book intersperses Bell’s musings throughout the narrative; here, like Sam Elliott’s Stranger in the Coens’ The Big Lebowski, he just has the first and last words, as it were.
Writing about No Country from Cannes, I called it “at least three-quarters of a masterpiece” and then had this to say about the ending: It turns ruminant, elides what some might consider major high points of the story, and goes for something more deeply elegiac than anything the filmmakers have ever attempted before. I wasn't the only one thrown by this shift…"
Having seen the film a couple more times since, I’m convinced it’s pretty much perfect, and that the film is a fully-realized you-know-what. A friend of mine who’s in the business calls it his “litmus test.” We recently had a conversation wherein he raged about a colleague who said he “could have done without the Barry Corbin scene.” (Barry Corbin plays Ellis, an old character who’s visited by Tommy Lee Jones’ Sheriff Bell late in the film.) “That scene is the whole point of the movie!” my buddy fumed. Indeed; when the wheelchair-bound Ellis tells Bell, “You can’t stop what’s coming. It ain’t all waiting on you. That’s vanity,” well, that’s what McCarthy and the Coens are telling us too, and the book's and the film’s final sentence, “And then I woke up,” is the mordant capper to Ellis’ stern truth.
III: You don’t get it? You got it.
Since the movie’s release, there’s been a good deal of controversy about the picture’s ending—at least two posts (but I'm only gonna link to the one) over at Jeffrey Wells’ Hollywood Elsewhere site have occasioned some fierce debate; some commenters are insulted at the presumption that they don’t “get” the ending; they get it fine, they say, it’s just that the ending sucks. The general consensus is that such an ending just doesn’t belong in a thriller. I know, I know, we’re getting close to that word again…”pretentious.”
Well, that’s not where I’m at with the movie or the ending. But looking at the book, and what the Coens did to compress it into filmable form, I’ve realized that I’m not sure that I fully “get” the ending myself, or that I’m completely meant to. There are two very significant things going on in the last quarter of the movie that differ from the book.
The first is the emphasis on the idea of Chigurh as an actual supernatural figure. By the time the killer, so fantastically incarnated by Javier Bardem, strides into the office of Stephen Root—whose character is merely billed as “Man Who Hires Wells”—with that enormous gun at his side, even a filmgoer who’s not one of “The Plausibles” (as Hitchcock derisiviely referred to plot nitpickers) might well ask “How did he get past reception?” But the ugly galvanic action kicks in before the question can finish, and then there’s the exchange with the fellow from Accounting, who finally asks, “Are you going to shoot me?” To which Chigurh replies, “That depends. Do you see me?”
A little later, after the motel massacre, discussing Chigurh with “local law enforcement,” Bell muses, “Sometimes I think he’s just pretty much a ghost.” In the book, Bell summons local law when he thinks he’s got Chigurh locked down at the motel...which he figures by watching the cars in the lot. The film places him in much closer physical proximity to Chigurh, to much more mysterious effect.
Bell goes back to the motel, through the crime-scene tape; he looks at the door and sees the blown-out lock. In a subsequent shot, we see Chigurh himself inside the room; the hole in the door is the only source of light, and Chigurh’s gazing at it, expectantly. We still can’t place him in the room. There’s a close-up of the cylinder where the lock was and we can see Bell’s reflection in it. Then there’s a cut to outside, and Bell unholstering and cocking his gun before he enters the room. This cinematic language does condition us to believe there’s a showdown coming up. But Bell opens the door and…nothing. Blood on the carpet. His own shadow on the wall. The bathroom window locked, from inside. Then this series of shots…
Having checked out the room as thoroughly as he knows how, Bell sits on the bed, exhausted...
...cut to a shot from the other side of the bed, with an illuminated Bell seeing something...
...the AC duct, the screen unattached. We recall the screen Moss removed, so as to store the money-filled satchel in the vent...
...a look of revelation comes on to Bell's face, and his gaze gains concentration...
...there's the removed screen, the screws, the dime that was used to unscrew the screws...
...and then, without even cutting back to Bell's reaction, it all starts to disappear, into a dissolve of a house on a horizon...
...a house Bell is driving to in his pickup. Ellis' house. (Although Ellis's relationship to Bell is not specified in the film, the book notes that Ellis is Bell's uncle. Or, at least, that Bell sees this man as "Uncle" Ellis.)
So, then, Bell's visit with Ellis. Wherein he tries to explain to Ellis why he's quitting, and Ellis offers him words of, well, not-quite consolation. After this, in the Coens' film, comes the scene where Chigurh visits Carla Jean, and has the car accident. And then the finale, with Bell, retired, telling his dreams to Loretta.
The order of the action in the book is different, and creates a different feel. Chigurh’s visit to Carla Jean and his accident happen pretty much directly after the massacre and Chigurh’s escape. Bell continues to pursue the case after hearing of Carla Jean’s death, contacting the FBI in the hope of getting a fingerprint. He questions the kids who witnessed Chigurh’s auto accident. In the book, his retreat from the case, and from being a lawman, is more gradual, and finally leads to this:
He’d felt like this before but not in a long time and when he said that, then he knew what it was. It was defeat. It was being beaten. More bitter to him than death. You need to get over that, he said. Then he started the truck.
And here, then, is the second thing. In the Coens reimagining and restructuring, Bell does not so much accept defeat as admit defeat—sitting there on that bed in the motel room, he abdicates.
He had walked into a motel room where we’ve seen Chigurh standing…only once he goes in, Bell does not see Chigurh, and Chigurh does not reveal himself...and then Bell sits down... and sees the dime...and the screws and then…it’s over for him. He drives to Ellis’ and talks about why he’s finished with it all. In the meantime, Chigurh, ever baleful, still walks—damaged, finally, but functioning.
The last we see of Llewellyn Moss, he’s telling the pretty girl by the pool that he’s “just lookin’ for what’s comin’”; later on Ellis talks about what’s coming being nothing new; and later still we’re left with the fact that the force for good in this story could not face down what’s coming—what could have been a ghost but is in some sense very clearly not. Always coming. “And then I woke up.”
I mean really, what’s not to “get”?
Saying you could have done without Barry Corbin's scene is like saying you could have done without Quint's speech about the Indianapolis in JAWS.
Posted by: Marshall | November 24, 2007 at 09:44 PM
Very nice analysis and appreciation! I completely agree that the Chigurh character has a supernatural quality--he kept reminding me of those baleful Satan figures in Flannery O'Connor stories like "A Good Man is Hard to Find." Call him death--or the embodiment of evil--or, to scrap the theological language, "what's comin'."
It's hard not to compare the Bell character with Margie from "Fargo." The differences are what matter though: as you say, GK, the tone here is elegaic. Bell has been saying all along that "these days" are different and worse than the old days, but it's significant that Ellis tells him that gruesome tale about the man murdered on his front porch, and then says that it happened in 1909. So there are no good old days, and all a Bell character can do is try to endure and, if he's lucky, retire. And maybe find some epiphany in his dreams.
"Fargo" ends--or nearly ends--with Margie's saying to the murderer, "and look--it's a beautiful day." The ending to this new film complicates and deepens that other ending beautifully. Wow--what a spectacularly moving monologue it is!
And then there's the topic of Tommy Lee Jones--first "In the Valley of Elah" and now this one, two brilliant, unforgettable performances in a row. Some critics are saying he's just recycling his characters--but that "character" is put to such good use by the Coens that I'll be happy to see him keep doing it for as long as he wants.
Posted by: Ray | November 25, 2007 at 01:57 AM
Thanks for posting on this subject, Glenn, which I recently wrote about (with less certainty than you) on my blog.
I think the problem with the Chigurh character, which results in the confusion in the motel scene that you described, is that the Coens want to have it both ways. On one hand, he's a supernatural ghost along the lines of Leonard Smalls in Raising Arizona (I know, Leonard got blown up in the end, but nevertheless); on the other hand, he's fallible too. (Missing his shot at the pigeon on the bridge; getting shot by Moss in the street and later tending to his wound; getting hit by the driver near the end.) I don't care one way or another if Chigurh is in that motel right before Bell enters or if he's a figment of Bell's imagination, but I wish the movie were more clear on this point.
Posted by: Craig | November 25, 2007 at 11:48 AM
Nice piece of writing, Glenn. I happen to like my movies cut with a dose of narrative incoherence, of which I think there's a little in NCFOM. Makes it feel like a fever dream. I don't go to the movies looking to "get" anything. I don't "get" most of what goes on in my daily life, nor do I expect to. Inscrutability is the spice of life. People who go to the movies expecting to "get" anything perplex me. Isn't the movie enough? Why do you have to go home with a souvenir, too?
NCFOM reminded me of Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia. Especially the scenes with Stephen Root. I love nameless, faceless quasi-criminal corporate syndicates.
Posted by: Chris Goldstein | November 25, 2007 at 03:13 PM
Nicely done, GK....got me rethinking all over again. I really need to see this film again...and maybe again after that. The reflection of Bell in the blown out keyhole really set me off thinking about the ways in which scenes are repeated between the 3 main characters in the film. The scene where Chigurh is in Moss's trailer drinking milk and staring at his reflection on the TV is repeated by Bell later. The shirt Chigurh buys at the end is reminiscent of Moss buying the jacket on the way to Mexico. There's other "mirroring" going on as well.
I guess I'm saying...I don't know why these things repeat, but there's gotta be a reason, right? RIGHT?!
And, Chris...good call on Alfredo Garcia. Michael Sragow at the Baltimore Sun did a nice (albeit short to the point of pointlessness) piece drawing parallels between "No Country," Norman Mailer and Peckinpah. I actually sensed alot of "The Getaway" in "No Country" as well.
http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/cl-et-peckinpah23nov23,0,2430583.story
I'm just happy such a great movie is out there in the world and making people talk about film again. Plus, I'm nutty about "No Country," Friend-O's
Posted by: don lewis | November 26, 2007 at 01:40 AM
I had originally thought (foolishly, it now appears) that Chigurh had escaped through the air vent. After talking to my wife about it, it seems he wouldn't fit (though he would have fit through the other vent in the film, which is what lead me to that conclusion).
Something that struck me about the scene in question is how the door just stops, as if it gets stuck, against the wall after Bell kicks it open. It doesn't rebound off the wall. I'm almost certainly focusing on something meaningless here, but it looked very odd to me at the time, and now I wonder, if I saw the movie again, if I would notice a) that the shadows in that corner of the room would conceal Chigurh, and b) if there would be room for him to hide behind the door.
I don't know. I just don't know.
Posted by: bill | November 26, 2007 at 08:09 AM
fascinating thoughts on this page - i have a question to add to the mix. does anyone else think it is significant that when chigurh leaves carla jean's house at the end of the film he has left his weapon behind? or did my eyes confuse me?
Posted by: friendo | November 26, 2007 at 12:13 PM
I agree with Don about all of the "mirroring." While watching the film, I also wondered, before learning that Jones' character is named "Ed Tom," why everyone kept referring to him as "Anton." Could the similarity of the two names be a coincidence? The reason that I can't see Chigurth as a supernatural figure is because of his final scenes, when he essentially takes on the role that Moss has played, turning from hunter to hunted, cracked and limping through the streets while "the Mexicans" are probably not too far behind him, looking for their money. Overall, I thought that the first three-quarters of the film was terrific, if a bit generic for a Coen brothers movie. This last fifteen minutes turned it into something radically different--a great look at spiritual exhaustion in the face of death. Why the objections?
Posted by: Joel | November 26, 2007 at 01:15 PM
Fine stuff, Glenn.
When I saw this back in Toronto I thought a. "Well, this ending sure doesn't give me any closure" followed quickly by b. "And that's the point." I think it's the Coens' best since "Fargo" by far.
And another great performance by Jones, too. At first, it seems that Chigurh is just the bug (chigger?) that gets under his skin. But by the end, he's realized that the title is indeed correct -- this is a land he no longer understands or can operate in --and you read every bit of that in his face.
A great film and, with "The Assasination of..." and "There Will Be Blood," one of the year's great Western revivals.
Oh, and on a personal note, btw, liked the beard. Very "In the Name of the Rose."
Posted by: Stephen Whitty | November 26, 2007 at 01:58 PM
Agreed Glenn, great piece of writing. I think it's important that we differentiate the concept of what Chigurh represents metaphorically - he's not a "ghost" in any sense physically, but for me, without question, he is Death. One thing that's absolutely critical is his conversations - specifically with the gas station owner, Woody Harrelson, and finally Carla Jean. This last confrontation is the most critical, as Carla Jean's statement "You don't have to do this" and her refusal to call the coin toss are clearly representative of how Death comes to us - it is uncompromising, usually unbiased and is often decided by pure chance. Death's "damaging" when hit by the car is also clearly meant to parallel the scene with Jones' return to the hotel - he's one person that death didn't claim - but it will.
Easily the best film of the year so far, and the ending is perfect.
However, one thing needs to be agreed upon. I mean no personal offense to anyone who's used it in this thread - but the word "elegiac" has to be retired from the lexicon, like a football player's jersey. It's done, played out and WAY too often used as a crutch. It's over.
Posted by: Mark | November 26, 2007 at 02:55 PM
What about "laconic"?
Posted by: bill | November 26, 2007 at 03:13 PM
Hey, wait a minute. I said "elegiac." Back in May, at Cannes. It came easier, surrounded by all the non-English speakers. But really. Nothing wrong with that word. Unless you're trying to apply it to "Enchanted" or something. "Laconic" is fine, too, provided, as with all other words, it's used appropriately. If you think you're overdoing it, go for "terse." Anyway, we're off topic here.
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | November 26, 2007 at 06:24 PM
sorry to be difficult, but i'm still wondering if - as i recall, though i could be wrong - chigurh leaves his weapon behind when he exits carla jean's house. if someone can confirm this for me (i'm in ireland where the film hasn't been released yet so i can't see it again to check myself) i'd be grateful - i think it has huge significance for interpreting the film. thanks.
Posted by: Gareth | November 26, 2007 at 07:24 PM
I can't say with absolute certainty, but I definitely do not remember him holding his weapon when he checks his boots.
Posted by: bill | November 26, 2007 at 07:25 PM
There's a shot of him leaving the house and checking his boots (for blood). He hasn't got a weapon visibly on him, no. But here's the weird part: during the whole confrontation with Carla Jean, you never see a weapon, period. He doesn't brandish one. There's no gas tank. Nothing. His checking his boots as he leaves indicates that he has, indeed, shot her. But the weapon is never seen.
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | November 26, 2007 at 07:34 PM
Mark-
Chigurh as plain ole "Death" doesn't fly for me. Death doesn't "have" to be a murderer you know. Sometimes people just die without the aid of cattle thingy. There's got to be more than that easy of an answer. Or, maybe not.
The lack of a weapon-specifically the cattle thing-during the Carla Jean scene is pretty significant I think. Man, I'm actually going to have to pay to see this thing again, aren't I? Film Threat only gets shitty homemade DVD's from studios....hardly ever anything good.
And...
If we're cattle thingying "elegiac" can I throw "due diligence" on the pyre? I freeking hate that term.
Posted by: don lewis | November 26, 2007 at 09:34 PM
I will see the movie again soon, but after thinking about it for a few days, I think Anton's character symbolizes death (He really doesn't exist as a human)and The coin toss illustrates the percarious nature of existence. If the Anton character is veiwed through this prism, then many things in the movie fall into place and take on an entirely different appearance. Carla Jeans refusal to call the coin toss could mean that she has decided to take her own life, in essence refusing to let her own death be random chance. The death of Woody Harrelson's character could have possibly been at the hands of Lewelyn Moss. And why did Lewelyn Moss really return to to the desert massacre scene? Was it to save the man or make sure he was dead?
If Anton indeed isn't real and just symbolizes death, then every murder he committed in the movie can be reevaluated with different and interesting insights into the movies meaning.
Posted by: Joe | November 26, 2007 at 10:07 PM
Joel, McCarthy is definitely doing something with names in the book -- Anton vs. Ed Tom and the trio of other male leads, Moss, Bell and Wells, all one-syllable, double-letter names, again contrasted against the unpronounceable Chigurh.
Posted by: Sean | November 26, 2007 at 11:09 PM
Couldn't the fact that you don't see Chigurh carrying a weapon at any point during that scene just be a mistake? I'm a huge fan of the Coens, and I know there is much that is intentionally mysterious about "No Country for Old Men", but I've caught pretty glaring continuity errors in their films before.
Posted by: bill | November 27, 2007 at 08:49 AM
I dunno, Bill. A continuity error—maybe—would be showing a gun in the confrontation scene and him leaving without it. For it not to be shown at all is something wholly other.
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | November 27, 2007 at 09:33 AM
I suppose. But if you're right, what are they getting at, for God's sake!?
Also, it's been a couple of years since I read the book. Does anybody remember if McCarthy makes any special mention of a weapon in that scene? Carla Jean's death happens "off-stage" in the book as well, but apart from that I can't remember how the scene specifically plays out.
Posted by: bill | November 27, 2007 at 09:54 AM
Bill, I happen to have the book right in front of me (I'm rehearsing for a TV pilot entitled "Breakfast With Cormac McCarthy"), and it's pretty specific on the point. Here's the whole paragraph, sans-quotation-marks dialogue and all:
"Good, he said. That's good. Then he shot her."
Curioser and curiouser...
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | November 27, 2007 at 10:05 AM
What the!? I thought her death was referred to after the fact. Boy, my memory is lousy.
Anyway, yeah...strange. Good luck with the pilot, by the way. I'm assuming it will be remeniscent of Rupert Pupkin's talk show, with a life-sized cardboard cut-out of McCarthy occupying the guest chair. Hell, I'd watch it.
Posted by: bill | November 27, 2007 at 10:16 AM
Well, of course, Chigurh doesn't always kill with the cattle thing--he garrotes the deputy in the beginning; on the other hand, that was by necessity & he's clearly coming to Carla Jean's with a purpose. Maybe he killed her through some other means equally likely to leave a mess on his shoes?
Posted by: Claire K. | November 27, 2007 at 04:47 PM
That's the thing - if it was a mistake (and I guess it probably wasn't), it can be easily made logical with Claire's (Mrs. Kenny's?) explanation. If it was on purpose, then there's something else going on -- because why not at least indicate the different weapon if that's all they had in mind? -- and I can't for the life of me guess what it is.
Posted by: bill | November 27, 2007 at 05:03 PM
well, if i can be granted the mercy of a hearing, here's what i think, now that it's been confirmed that chigurh doesn't have the weapon with him when he leaves carla jean's house.
i think that carla jean is the only person in the film who truly resists chigurh's understanding of himself, by refusing to accept his 'coin logic', and forcing him to CHOOSE to accept the moral consequences of his actions rather than the absurdist transference of his own responsibility onto the toss of a coin.
he leaves her dead, but he can't pretend to himself that it was anything less than his fault, and he also leaves his weapon behind. we next see him driving, but for the first time in the film he notices something that isn't to do with his quarry or part of the purpose of killing - the two boys on the bikes, reflected in his rear view mirror. is it possible that carla jean has interfered with his sense of self by refusing to accept his version of reality? that he has just decided to stop killing? to notice the world?
the fact that the boys refuse to accept money for helping him appears to me to be evidence against the idea that 'no country for old men' is a pessimistic film. on the contrary, my reading, which i freely acknowledge could be way off the mark, is that the murderous spirit of chigurh is no match for the love and respect that all of us yearn for, can muster, and which is represented by ed tom's dream, recounted as the last seconds of this film: a dream about searching for a warm fire with his father, finding it, and waking up.
now, granted, i live and work in northern ireland, and have been involved in peace-building for 15 years, working amidst people who really have killed other human beings, some in even more horrific ways than chigurh's weapon of choice. so i may be prejudiced by my desire to see stories on screen that challenge the myth that violence against others can be redemptive; by the same token, i saw something in 'no country for old men' that suggests not - as some critics have suggested - that there is nothing we can do about evil, but that we live in a time where we need to find new ways to be human, to rebuild community, and to stop killing each other. wooly liberal nonsense, perhaps; or maybe the most honest portrayal of what ails us i've seen in a cinema for a very long time.
at any rate, thanks for bearing with me. i'm enjoying the conversation on glenn's blog.
Posted by: Gareth | November 27, 2007 at 07:21 PM
Thank YOU, Gareth. Those are fascinating and moving observations.
And yes, Bill...Claire K. is the fabulous and gorgeous Mrs.(aka My Lovely Wife).
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | November 27, 2007 at 11:54 PM
I am surprised nobody else has thought about the suicide angle concerning Carla Jean. I was watching some individual scenes from the movie today, and during the first coin toss scene, the old man says "I didn't put nothing up" to which Anton replies, "yes you did, you been putting it up your whole life, you just didn't know it"
This convinces me even more, that the coin toss symbolizes the precarious nature of existence, and as long as you are living you are "puting your life up" as a wager in the coin toss known as life or death. The only way to escape this wager/coin toss known as existence, would be to kill yourself. I think this is what the final Carla Jean scene is about.
I think she committed suicide because she couldn't handle the death of Lewelyn. This is why Anton/death tells Carla Jean that Lewelyn is resposible for him being there.
maybe I am way off base, but this is what i see.
Can't wait to see it again in its entirety. Great movie and great discussion.
Posted by: Joe | November 28, 2007 at 01:44 AM
Gareth-
Great insight, but the kids take the money...in fact, the one who didn't get any of it says that the one who did "owes" him money. It's sadly, very pessimistic. Well, not sadly...just sadly that the kids couldn't, you know, be more concerned for the guy with "that fucking bone" sticking out of his arm. And sadly that it dings your theory that was very sweet.
And again, Chigurh as death? C'mon you guys....that's way too easy. If he's "death" then who smashes their car into him....God? Death Sr.? And again, why does Death have to take the form of a murderer? Are you saying Chigurh gunned down the whole posse of Mexicans in the drug deal? Then came back?
Too easy. C-....try harder.
Posted by: don lewis | November 28, 2007 at 01:54 AM
Don, Chigurh is present at all of the on screen deaths in the movie. I see the final car crash as just another death (Assuming the other driver died) that Anton was present at.
Chigurh as an allegory for death could also explain the scene where Bell returns to the motel and seems to fear what is on the other side of the door (Death/Chigurh?) yet when he enters, Chigurh/death is not there. It just wasn't Ed Tom Bells time to go.
If Chigurh as a death allegory is correct, then each death takes on a completely different dimension.
I think Chigurh as death, actually adds complexity to the movie. But the the key is not making it too obvious. The Coens even discussed in an interview how they tried to make Chigurh seem more real and human than he appears in the book. Making him seem human, is the key.
Posted by: Joe | November 28, 2007 at 02:25 AM
I would go with the theory of diminishing violence throughout as a cinematic technique, than any sort of plot hole. We've seen people garroted and shot in the head, in the beginning but as the film moves along it moves away from the graphio. We know Anton is a killer. We need only see him appear at someone's house to know the person he's talking to will probably die, and he doesn't have to do anything but check his feet to show that he was successful. This reduction of action is - dare I say - near-Melvillian. What the Coens do is speed up their shorthand, trust the audience not to have to see it, because they already have. Because the act of violence is not the point.
Posted by: Damon H. | November 28, 2007 at 02:46 AM
thanks don - of course you're right, i had forgotten that they do take the money, but not because they want to. as i recall it - the kid who gives his shirt initially says something like 'you don't need to pay me to help you'; chigurh can't deal with this - so he gives them the money anyway. i think the fact that they initially don't want to take the money goes at least some way toward challenging the suggestion that this is a downbeat ending. but then again, damon h's point about diminishing portrayals of violence is an intriguing one...hey, if anyone sees cormac mccarthy ask him what he meant, will ya?
Posted by: Gareth | November 28, 2007 at 03:51 AM
Gareth, yes, they refuse the money at first, which bolsters your argument. But once they take it, they both begin to fight over it. Initially, for me, that scene played as an example of normal kid behavior, but thinking about it later, and contrasting it with the scene of frat guys haggling with the badly injured Moss, made me see it as far more pessimistic.
However, you say that the movie points out that "we live in a time where we need to find new ways to be human". I don't think you're wrong about that.
Posted by: bill | November 28, 2007 at 08:17 AM
The whole movie hinges on ideas about money's corrupting influence on people - not necessarily their character, but certainly their judgment (Moss).
Adding a scene like the one with the kids, the inculcation of that greed, loss of innocence yadda yadda (it's all in there!) couldn't just be some convenient Syd Field coincidence.
Posted by: Steve | November 28, 2007 at 04:09 PM
I don't think Chigurh is a death figure, but represents the enigma of evil to the average person. We know little about him, where he comes from, how he learned to do what he does.
He's emblematic of that mystery, yet at the same time is just human; still the others try to find way to de-humanize him and his actions. I don't know where I'm going with this. I think I need to re-read the book.
Posted by: Bachalon | November 29, 2007 at 12:07 AM
I understand that the Coen's made a change to McCarthy's ending that he rejected. In their version, there's a big fight with Lewellen brandishing a chainsaw against Chiguhr's boltgun. Just as Lewellen is about to cut of Chiguihr's head, he runs out of gas and Chiguhr regains the momentum. And when he is about to blast him with the boltgun, the Sheriff comes bursting through the door with both guns blazing. To prepare himself for the combat with Chiguhr, he has adopted a mohawk hairdo just like the one that DeNiro wore in "Taxi Driver". It's good that McCarthy put the kibosh on this revision since we would have been robbed of the pleasure to listening to the Sheriff's crackerbarrel redneck philosophizing about how everything started to go wrong when youngsters dyed their hair green, etc. If I had missed out on that, I would have demanded my money back.
Posted by: Louis Proyect | November 29, 2007 at 02:39 PM
Some very interesting comments from everyone. It's great to have a movie like this that causes such fascinating discussion. But in the end I don't think I can go along with the idea that Chigurh is a ghost or death.
I think Chigurh is very real and I have a completely different take on what happened in the motel room when Bell goes in.
I believe that Chigurh is still someone in the room and that Bell has missed him somehow (for example, I don't think he ever looked under the beds). I found Bell's search to be very half-hearted like he wasn't looking forward to finding anything. Then when he sees the removed screen from the AC duct, he realizes that Chigurh is still in the room.
The movie cuts directly away to Bell in the truck but I believe if the rest of the scene had been filmed it would have shown Bell leaving the motel room as quickly as he can.
Chigurh undoubtedly personifies pure evil. And the coin tossing in his mind removes the moral implications of his actions. He also is completely convinced that the money belongs to him and he has the right to kill everyone who stands in his way. That's how he's able to operate with such detachment and coolness while committing these horrific killings.
Anyone who tangles with Chirugh dies and only those who flee from him (Bell) survive.
The movie is missing the story that Bell tells in the book about how he received a medal of honor during the war for an act of cowardice of his part.
Clearly this is something that Bell is struggling with throughout the story.
Bell has been telling the audience all along that things have changed for the worse. But near the end, Ellis reminds him that this evil is nothing new and again those who stand up to it are killed (Bell's uncle who was shot on his porch).
In the end, Bell decides that he just can't confront evil -- that this is No Country For Old Men.
Bell knows that he's escaped death for now but that it will catch up to him soon or later. The dream he recounts to his wife tells of his hope of being reunited with his father in the afterlife.
Posted by: Dave | November 29, 2007 at 03:15 PM
my own, overly academic take (sorry, this is just the way i think). the movie can be read as about law and objectivity:
-- bell is like the philosopher habermas, lost in nostalgia for the enlightenment, when law and order reigned and there was cooperation and communication among people who agreed on the basic rules of life in society. he knows that this idyllic past never truly existed (as his uncle ellis has pointed out to him), but he can't stop "comparing himself to the old-timers... wondering how they would act in these times." he keeps constructing and reconstructing this false past, because it is a beautiful dream and far preferable to the reality he sees himself as unable to confront.
-- moss and chigurh then appear as equals of a sort -- in the aftermath of the breakdown of law, we have a state-of-nature type situation where everyone is out for themselves. for some, this manifests in a kind of crude materialism, overconfident self-reliance, and a sense of entitlement. thus moss never thinks to call the police on his initial discovery of the massacre, assumes a right to the money, and constantly thinks he can defeat chigurh despite much evidence to the contrary. his family is an extension of his ego, and if he can help them, he will, but it's all pure assertion.
chigurh, on the other hand, is a nietzschean ubermensch: a world-creator. he has decided that the world just IS a certain way, and he enforces this on everyone whose path he crosses. hence the coin-tossing, the relaxed confidence, the flat affect. it's not about getting what he can -- he has no life within which he could enjoy money, no desires for which money could be a means. it's simply about bringing his world into being and enforcing it, in the absence of any higher law. thus the killing of carla jean despite the prior death of moss.
where woody harrelson fits into this, i don't know.
Posted by: S | November 29, 2007 at 03:51 PM
Has it occurred to anyone else that the scene with the two kids, Chigurh, and the $100 bill is just the whole movie writ small, and littered with fewer corpses? I think it's fair to assume that when Moss first found the money, he contemplated leaving it alone. Similarly, the kid initially turns down Chigurh's offer of money for his shirt. By taking the money, Brolin invites violence and horror into his life. When the kid gives in and takes the money from Chigurh, he and his buddy immediately start fighting over it (remember, I said it was "writ small").
And really, with the car accident, you have violence in the scene. If the other driver died, you have death. With Chigurh, injured and fleeing the noise of police sirens, you have another wounded man on the run.
I'm probably reaching a bit in that last part, but still...
Posted by: bill | November 29, 2007 at 04:12 PM
My take on the final scene is that in all the darkness in the world, Bell's father, a lawman like all of his ancestors, was able to guide him to a place of light and comfort to ward off the blackness. . . and then he "woke up" to reality. A grim message indeed. There will always be evil in the world.
I seem to remember Chigurh taking one of the kid's bicycles in the book. I think that scene should have been left in, especially if the bicycle had a bell on it. Ring a ling! Ding a ling!!Then he goes to hang out with this guy: http://pixyland.org/peterpan/
Posted by: Ben | November 29, 2007 at 06:41 PM
If Sheriff Tom Bell sees the dime, why does he not lift a fingerprint off it? We know it will be Anton's. Are we to assume that he decides not to do this because he's afraid of "what's comin'"?
Also, am I the only one who thought that Anton was next door in the motel scene with Sheriff Bell? It makes sense if you remember what Moss did earlier with the 2 rooms.
Posted by: Jason | November 29, 2007 at 07:49 PM
S.,
You ask the question I have been racked by and no one has discussed: how does the Woody Harrelson character fit into this? Since I viewed the movie in Old Testament terms, was he a prophet or angel, who explains how Moss violated God's law no matter how righteous Moss feels his cause is?
Posted by: Hank | November 29, 2007 at 11:24 PM
it's been a while since i read the book, but i remember feeling that chigurh was to be taken both at face value as a ruthless, absolutist but ultimately mortal killer and also as an allegory for the inevitability of death, and of the potential for violence in all men. i don't understand why the literal read and the allegorical read of his character should be mutually exclusive. mccarthy regularly confronts us with this sort of complexity... consider the character of the judge in "blood meridian".
another way to look at it would be to consider chigurh as a very pure conduit of these dark forces. death, violence, and perhaps "evil" being constants in the world, anton chigurh is simply a character who is completely reconciled with the existence of these constants and makes sense of his world through their application. mccarthy concentrates and distills these forces in chigurh so that we can see them clearly, and the role that they play in each of the other character's lives as well as in our own.
the scene after the accident with the two boys is key in this regard, it ultimately doesn't matter whether chigurh the man survives, dies, goes on killing or gets caught, the dark thread continues on, death is still inevitable, violence and evil march on. i'm not sure if my recollection of that scene from the book is still accurate but i seem to remember the boys not only taking the money, but also finding a pistol in chigurh's car? the torch being passed on.
maybe the coens' decision to leave the weapon out of chigurh's final scenes was simply to shift our focus from the basic violent acts to the larger allegorical themes.
Posted by: kitonga | November 30, 2007 at 12:06 PM
I recently heard Javier Bardem speak at a screening of NO COUNTRY. He seems firmly in the camp of Anton as a specter of death, a quasi-supernatural force unleashed by a country consumed by violence. He was asked very specifically about the motel scene and said he had asked the Coens how Anton escapes from the room. They shrugged, which made him conclude that his character was just as much a ghost as anything else.
Posted by: Geoff | December 01, 2007 at 06:36 AM
Very interesting discussion here. Does anyone remember: Did the kids at the end call Chigurh "Sir"?
Posted by: Brian | December 01, 2007 at 10:50 AM
I still don't understand the dead woman in the pool. Not that it matters anymore.
Posted by: Sally | December 01, 2007 at 04:14 PM
Sure, it matters. She's the woman who offers to share her beers with Llewelyn as he's going back to his motel room, an innocent victim in the bloodbath. She's billed as "Poolside Woman" and she's played by Ana Reeder. The entirety of their dialogue is worth going over again...it begins as Llewelyn is walking by the pool...
Poolside Woman: Hey!...Mister sportin’ goods!...
Llewelyn: Hey yourself!
PW: You a sport?
L: Yeah, that’s me.
PW: I got beers in my room…
L: Oh, well, I’m, uh...(indicating wedding ring with thumb)…I’m waitin’ on my wife…
PW: Oh…that’s who you keep lookin’ out the window for…
L: Um, half…
PW: What else, then?
L: Just, uh, lookin’ for what’s comin’…
PW: Yeah, but no one ever sees that….(further pause as Llewellyn nods)…BEER! That’s what’s comin’…I’ll bring the ice chest out here, you can stay married. (gets up to go fetch ice chest)
L (shaking his head): No, ma’am, I know what beer leads to…
PW (chuckles):…Beer leads to more beer.
(Llewelyn straightens out, fade to black)
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | December 01, 2007 at 05:30 PM
In the book, doesn't Chigurgh give the two boys his gun or they find it in the car (it's then used a few years down the road and ballistics tie it to some violent crimes)? If so, that would seem like a definite choice of omission by the Coens to further the idea of the "apparition of Chigurgh".
Posted by: AJW | December 01, 2007 at 05:43 PM
He doesn't give it to them; they find it. Here's the passage:
"They walked out into the street where the vehicles sat steaming. The streetlamps had come on. A pool of green antifreeze was collecting in the gutter. When they had passed the open door of Chigurh's truck the one in the T-shirt stopped the other with his hand. You see what I see? he said.
Shit, the other one said.
What they saw was Chigurh's pistol lying in the floorboard of the truck. They could already hear the sirens in the distance. Get it, the first one said. Go on.
Why me?
I aint got a shirt to cover it with. Go on. Hurry."
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | December 01, 2007 at 06:12 PM
I thought someone who read the book said that Bell is just imagining what is behind the door, and the Coens chose to adapt that literally, without illustrating that it was in his head.
This person also said that in the past, Bell as a lawman would have wanted his quarry to be waiting for him behind the door so he could kill or arrest him, but in this situation, because Bell couldn't understand the nature of what he was dealing with, he was hoping Chigurh WOULDN'T be there. This is what causes him to, as Glenn puts it above, abidcate.
Glenn you pointed out some of the differences between the book and film in this scene, but didn't mention whether or not the Chigurh-behind-the-door was an invention of the Coens or McCarthy.
Anyone care to clarify this?
Posted by: lazarus | December 01, 2007 at 06:26 PM
It's the Coen's invention. In the book, Chigurh gets to the motel after the massacre, goes around/under the police tape, blows out the lock, unscrews the vent (with a screwdriver!), retrieves the bag, takes it out to his pickup truck, puts it on the floor. He then sees Bell pull into the parking lot and watches as Bell goes into the room. The scene shifts to Bell's perspective. After seeing the vent on the floor, he gets back into his cruiser and pulls onto a shoulder of the highway and calls for backup. His intent is to keep track of any car coming out of the motel lot.
From the book:
"...Any vehicle that came out of the lot and headed up the access road he'd already determined to run it off the road.
When the cruisers pulled into the motel he started the car and turned on the lights and did a U-turn and went back down the road the wrong way and pulled into the lot and got out.
They went down the parking lot vehicle by vehicle with flashlights and their guns drawn and came back again. Bell was the first one back and he stood leaning against his cruiser. He nodded to the deputies. Gentlemen, he said. I think we've been outgeneraled."
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | December 01, 2007 at 06:49 PM
Well I don't think there's any dispute here. The Coens didn't put Chigurh in the room so they could show how well he can slip out of it without Bell noticing. That's idiotic. They made changes from the novel, obviously, but I don't think there's any validity to claiming it's anything other than Bell's imagination scaring him. It would have been a bit more obvious if Bell had looked behind the door and sighed in relief, but I like it better the way they did it.
For anyone who's planning on a repeat viewing: sit in your seat for as long as possible when the film ends, and let Burwell's music wash over you as you stare into the abyss. It really is a nice digestif.
Posted by: lazarus | December 01, 2007 at 07:05 PM
Nice article Glenn. I like how you're comfortable admitting "I’m not sure that I fully 'get' the ending myself". So many people either want to ram an interpretation down our throats or insist that there isn't any.
Posted by: cjKennedy | December 01, 2007 at 07:23 PM
Thanks to all above commenters; I'm sifting all this through my brain, because I too was a bit lost (tho loving it ALL the time) when the film so *unexpectedly* ended. And thanks in particular to whoever clarified to me that TLJ was called "Ed Tom"... because we thought he'd been called "Anton" after which we got into this whole Fight-Club-type scenario where they were BOTH Chigurh... (and then I had to run all THAT through... like we never actually saw them together and TLJ would not return to the scene of the crime, etc...)
Anyway, it's exciting to see such a completely polar divider on the ol' Love It Or Hate It scale!!! Count me among the Lovers.
Posted by: Django | December 01, 2007 at 08:11 PM
Coming late to this thread, but THE VERDICT works in much the same way: what would normally be the high points of a typical courtroom movie all occur off-screen. Worked then; works here. Moss' death is far more shocking because we didn't see it...and didn't see it coming, at least not that early.
Question: is it possible Chigurh deliberately left his weapon behind after killing Carla Jean because she was the last person he had to kill and thus he has no further use for it at this point?
Posted by: cadavra | December 02, 2007 at 02:11 AM
I doubt it's intentional -- or as simplistic a set of ideas as I'm about to clumsily attempt to outline -- but my third viewing of No Country last night led me to a very different reading of the film than the one I had at first, and increased my already-substantial admiration for the film.
Of course, as I say above, none of this may be intended on the part of the Coens or Mr. McCarthy; at the same time, I think that this film offers as many -- and as rewarding -- readings as it does means there's plenty going on in this film.
Jones's Ed Tom is a Sheriff, the classic Western hero - which is to say the classic American hero -- but his time-honored ways and methods can't cope with the seemingly-irrational Chigurgh.
Moss isn't motivated by tradition or law; just capital and expediency. But he's not prepared for Chigurgh, a man who can't be bribed or threatened or worn down into giving up.
Chigurgh is inventive, bold and resolute; he has a value system, even if we can't understand it. He will kill on principle, and does not care if we find those principles hard to understand and accept. He also doesn't have much respect for the principles and codes of the West; as he asks Carlson at gunpoint, "If the rule you followed brought you here, then what good was the rule?"
Ed Tom is the past -- law and honor. Moss is the present -- greed and self-protection. And neither of them can face what's coming, or are willing to.
Ed Tom talks a mean game, and he's folksy as hell, but he doesn't really do anything to stop Chigurgh from finding and killing Moss -- and he doesn't go to Odessa to find Carla Jean and keep her safe afterwards, either.
Moss can run, and Moss can hide, but after a lifetime of thinking he's pretty damn tough, he finds out -- the hard way -- that he's wrong.
Chjigurgh isn't some spirit -- he's shot by Moss, hit by the car; he's flesh and blood, just a man. Ed Tom or Moss could have killed him -- if they had been willing to 'push all their chips in," risk their lives in the struggle. Ed Tom realizes he's out of fight and retreats from the field; Moss can't let go of unearned riches and dies.
In his essay The Lion and the Unicorn, written during World War II, Orwell states, essentially, that England must win the war against Germany, and England can. But the essay's not a pep talk, but rather a serious critique of English society -- and a blueprint of how that necessary victory will also take a wholehearted revision of the entire fabric of English life -- eliminating class divisions so that fighting men can serve with honor as equals, regulating industry so that national defense and collective interest can't be put aside in the name of shareholder profit, changing England's relationship with its colonies so that England doesn't seem to be the same kind of exploitative overlord as Germany and Italy are to their colonies, and so on. Some of these things happened, some of them didn't, but Orwell's argument -- that new dangers and new enemies require new ways of thinking and new levels of total commitment -- was fascinating and thought-provoking then, and now. And it's possible to see No Country in a similar light -- not as a revision of the Western or an endorsement of it but rather as a serious critique of the West.
Sheriff Ed Tom can't change who he is as a man or a lawman -- can't "put his soul at hazard" -- to stop Chigurgh, and so he doesn't.
Llwellyn Moss can't let go of his new riches to stop Chigurgh, and so he dies.
Sheriff Ed Tom and Llwellen Moss (and, to some extent Carson) relied on historical reflexes and prior understanding to try and deal with a new type of present threat, and their inability to adapt -- their failure of the imagination and resolve -- led to their failure. And Chigurgh may be wounded st the finale, but even grievously wounded, there's no reason to think he's going to die, or stop; he'll keep killing anyone who crosses him, keep making murder in the name of his philosophy and principles. But sheriff Ed Tom gets to retire, do a little riding, Mission Accomplished. And he might as well dream of the past, because the lack of imagination and determination and sacrifice means a nightmare still haunts the present. His father rides ahead with the fire. Will Ed Tom -- will we -- be able to follow and do what we must to keep the darkness at bay?
Posted by: James Rocchi | December 02, 2007 at 06:07 AM
I find the references to the Vietnam war interesting. Wells and Lewellen are both experienced killers from their shared time in Vietnam. Nice interelation of internal and external American violence.
What about race in this film? Cowboys and Indians translated into Hispanics and white guys.
Also ... what are people's thoughts on the metaphoric content of milk and cats?
and also, Television. Anton and Ed Bell reflect in the TV. Bell's reading of the news story about the killers who tortured because their TV was probably broke. I suppose it's just another layer to the overall critique of a culture obsessed with violence.
Posted by: Cypress | December 02, 2007 at 06:10 AM
James Rocchi-
Excellent writeup, I'm glad to have the perspective of a 3-time viewer here on the page. I have seen the movie once, and I think that you have hit on a big theme that has really been sticking with me. It's one I have thought about quite a bit over the last 6+ years- how clumsy good people accustomed to certain expectations can be at trying to fight determined killers operating on principles that are hard to understand and accept. I think that you are right to bring up WWII and England, and especially the concept of Bell being unwilling to put his soul at hazard. In my estimation, Churchill and England finally were forced to go "all in", and only at that point did they stem the tide.
Bell and Moss will not place it all on the line in order to stop Chigurh, and one man suffers an ignominious defeat by the evil while the other is killed by it. Am I correct in thinking that Carla Jean, after refusing to conform to the Chigurh worldview and instead just taking "what's coming", is the only one to escape with honor? Is she not the only one that punctures the power of the monster with an unbending principle of her own?
I am reminded of the story of Fabrizio Quattrocchi, an Italian executed by Islamic terrorists in Iraq at the height of the spate of taped beheadings there in 2004. It was reported after his death that when the final moments came, and he knew what was about to happen, he screamed at his captors:
"Now I'll show you how an Italian dies."
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/16/1081998300849.html
"No Country for Old Men" is in many ways about principles, and how people will bend and stick to them and for what. If you bend them for money, you had better be the biggest bad ass, or a bigger bad ass will be around to take it from you shortly. If you bend them for safety and comfort, you may lose the battle with evil without ever really trying and be forced to live on with the ruinous knowledge of that failure.
These are haunting themes, staying in my mind days after seeing the movie, and bravo to a story that can do that. To not realize that these issues apply to everyone in their own life is, like the movie puts it, vanity.
Posted by: Brian | December 02, 2007 at 10:00 AM
James Rocchi - Great stuff. I think you're absolutely on-point.
Posted by: bill | December 02, 2007 at 11:37 AM
Interesting comments by all.
One thing I haven't seen discussed so far and that I noticed on my second viewing was (following the mirroring concept here) is that both Moss and Chirgurh buy clothing off of strangers after being profoundly injured.
Both do this after their well laid plans go awry, Moss after his trap at the hotel goes to hell and Chigurh after Carla Jean refuses to participate in the coin toss and then the unexpected car crash.
For Moss, this was the beginning of the end, I wonder if it isn't the same for Chigurh.
Anyway, fascinating discussion.
Posted by: bruce bridges | December 02, 2007 at 08:24 PM
Terrific post and wonderful comments (I even stole a frame grab of the lock for my post at Scanners.)
But I and three of my critic friends all thought Chigurh was in the motel room next door to the one Sheriff Bell enters.
1) He took a room adjacent to Moss's in the earlier motel/vent scene.
2) The set-up shot equally emphasizes the two motel doors (with the yellow tape running all the way across both doors -- and the screen).
3) Chigurh is never where you expect him to be, when you expect him to be there.
4) Sheriff Bell is indeed visibly relieved that he did not find Chigurh in that room (the two doors are the equivalent of his "coin toss" -- then he finds a coin on the floor). But he did enter it, look around, and Chigurh was not there.
5) If Chigurh wanted/needed to shoot Sheriff Bell (say, if he were discovered standing behind the front door, where we can see he isn't), he would have. But the movie is about how we all carry on living in the shadow of death.
6) We're never given any indication that Chigurh has "supernatural powers." Yes, he represents impending mortality (he's always lurking out there somewhere), but if you shoot him, does he not bleed? Yes, he does. We even see him treating his wounds, and he's as much of flesh and blood as Moss.
Did nobody else read the scene this way? Ed Tom made his stand, said "OK,I'll be part of this world." He won his toss, without knowing it. And as soon as he did, he could justify retiring to himself.
Posted by: jim emerson | December 03, 2007 at 05:22 AM
Thanks for chiming in, Jim, and I commend my readers and commenters to go over to Scanners for your deep, fascinating explorations of the film: http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/
As for the "Where's Anton?" question, well, I think there's sufficient cinematic evidence to suggest that we are to believe he's in the room Ed Tom enters, but that's gonna require another post (it'll take 12 screen grabs). Maybe this will spark yet another discussion (hopefully it won't be about the deficiencies in my eyesight!)
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | December 03, 2007 at 09:34 AM
Chigurh is in the same room. On second viewing I paid close attention to the layout of the room he is in. It is clear he is in the room Ed Tom enters.
Posted by: bruce bridges | December 03, 2007 at 12:06 PM
Anyone else think the dream sequence in which Jones says that his dad has gone ahead to light a warm fire and that he's waiting for him has something to do with finding peace in death? Life is a long, hard journey but death is easy? That's kind of what I got out of it. He's tired of trying to ride the horse, do what he thinks is right, and perhaps ready to accept death. Just waiting for what's coming?
The whole movie, to me, seemed like something about the futality of life and our desire to change that. Even a super massive sun eventually dies, and we now think that the universe itself will probably eventually spread out and burn out until nothing is left, and that humanty's desire to preserve life is all but fruitless in the long run, because death will eventually come to every one of us. It's not completely dark though, they're is humanity to be found all over in the film, its just as confusing as are the times we're living in. The darkness in the film is that nothing seems to ever renew itself, and that's part of the nature of things too.
I don't know, they just wanted to make us question things I think. In a time in this country where politics, enemies, terroism, all these ideas that we will always be constantly pitted against one another, that it's all fruitless, because we're all waiting for whats coming, we're all going to die. We should stop trying to undermine one another, take from one another, kill one another.
Posted by: Jake | December 03, 2007 at 05:11 PM
That was (more or less) how I initially read it. I've heard the argument that the dream is about the possibility hope in this world, making the line "And then I woke up" a real gut-punch. I can see that, but frankly, all things considered, the "solace in death" theory makes more sense.
Posted by: bill | December 03, 2007 at 05:21 PM
My thought -- Ed Tom faces Chigurh when he looks up from the vent hole where the money had been stored. The scene ends, or rather, he can't bear remembering, and skips to the drive out to his uncle's place. Unseen is when Chigurh confronts him and has the drop on him, but gives him the chance to call the coin toss. He "wins" and lives, watching Chigurh leave, helpless. There is nothing Ed Tom can do, nor can he admit what happened, and he retires/resigns. That's the missing scene in my mind's eye.
Posted by: Jeff | December 03, 2007 at 11:29 PM
damn fine analysis but there are some questions about the idea of chigurh being supernatural or death or what have you. what about the emphasis on him getting hurt and repairing himself. much time is devoted to his recovery and planned self-treatment, meaning that he could not go on until repaired. very undeathlike i might say. the best answer for this was a poster who said that chigurh could merely be both a cold blooded mass murderer and death. meaning that mccarthy is just confronting us with a contradiction that we cannot resolve just as ed tom struggles with his concepts of change and inevitability.
Posted by: Alex Goldberg | December 04, 2007 at 02:30 AM
I've only seen the movie once, but sometimes the best explanation is the simplest one.
Chigurh is behind the door when Ed Tom enters the room. Ed Tom does not look behind the door. Ed Tom goes into the bathroom. While Ed Tom is in the bathroom, Chigurh leaves the room.
No mysticism. Just simplicity.
---
As far as using the book to understand the movie, I do not think that is valid. I read the book. I saw the movie. They both stand on their own merits. They are different pieces of art and should be judged independently of one another. Sure, they can be compared to each other. In the end, however, they must stand on their own.
Posted by: BlueCarp | December 04, 2007 at 09:44 PM
There were two scenes that blew the movie for me.
1) the barry corbin scene - did I (the viewer) really need that scene to understand that bell felt defeated and that was the reason he was retiring? it slowed the movies ending to a crawl. excellent acting though. just not needed in my view.
2) the car crash - he gets up and walks away. big deal. so what. give me something else to take away from that scene. there was no real purpose for that scene. we already saw two cases of his fallibility. did we need a third? i would have preferred a scene showing him handing the money over to his benefactors. there didnt seem to be an "end" for this characters story.
I thought this movie was the best of the year until these scenes. i give it a 7 out of 10.
Posted by: Nick | December 04, 2007 at 09:50 PM
In the book there is a scene I don't understand. It's when some person is washing "blood and matter" off a black barracuda. Before the driver is a person who intercepts information off a tapped telephone line. After the driver is shot dead by Moss as he is killed at the end. What is McCarthy telling with the car paragraph and how does is fit in with the rest of the story?
Posted by: murray muzzall | December 05, 2007 at 12:42 AM
In the book, the Mexicans find out where Llewelyn will be via the tapped phone line. In the movie Carla Jean's grandmother (though she's called her mother) tells the well dressed Mexican at the bus station when he helps her with the bags. The section about the car and that guy in the book is just describing the Mexican on his way to the fatal confrontation with Moss at the hotel.
Posted by: Isaac | December 05, 2007 at 01:24 AM
Yes, but the car wash paragraph in the book implies that the Barracuda driver killed someone along the way(I suppose). If so, who? And what is McCarthy trying to portray with that seeming unconnected scene?
Posted by: murray | December 05, 2007 at 12:47 PM
My memory is that the Barracuda driver in the book is arrested and convicted of killing a police officer. Bell believes he is innocent of that charge as he believes Chigurh committed the murder and testifies on his behalf but the guy gets the death penalty anyway. Bell goes to visit the guy in prison afterwards and the guy mocks Bell and tells him that it was indeed him that killed the officer.
Posted by: Linc | December 05, 2007 at 02:41 PM
I've read most of these posts .... and will get back to read the rest. I too surmised that Anton is waiting in the room next door, since what I recall is a line of light (not the blown-lock hole) covering his gun and face.
I certainly have read a lot of academia: allegory to 1st Testament, and allusions and metaphors of death, but I haven't seen any reference in these posts to Yeats' poem Sailing to Byzantium. "That is no country for old men. The young/In one another's arms, birds in the trees/ -Those dying generations-at their song...Caught in that sensual music all neglect/Monuments of unageing intellect."
This is just the beginning of a Nature vs Art poem where the narrator wants no death like those of the multitudes, but rather, to be immortalized as a memorable work of art. Cormac must have been thinking of this poem.
I am not sure how this may play into Anton's character.
But let me ask, how did Chigurh figure out that the plot went to Paso?
Posted by: Chris Autio | December 05, 2007 at 05:15 PM
You know, it IS pretty weird that Yeats never comes up, given that "Sailing" provides both the book and the film with its title!
And of course just by bringing up Yeats you bring up "The Second Coming, " with its rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to by born. You can't stop what's coming, indeed.
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | December 05, 2007 at 05:28 PM
With respect, I believe the explanation that Chigurh is hiding behind the door just isn't feasible, and overlooks the nature of his character. Think about it: Chigurh is not afraid of confrontation, not afraid of a challenge, not afraid of death. Every time we see him, HE brings death. He never flees from it himself. If Chigurh had been in the room when Bell entered, he would have been sitting in a chair, or on the edge of the bed, facing the door, expecting Bell, prepared to deliver his sermon.
And, in a more general sense, I don't think we can rightly assume he was in the room. At least, I certainly didn't believe he would be. I expected to be left wondering. After all, being a fan of the Coens, I don't think you can expect a neat and tidy ending in this type of film. I've seen Barton Fink countless times, and I'm still perplexed at John Goodman's character. Sure, I understand the "life of the mind", but it's not so simple as calling him "the devil." I think the same goes for Chigurh. If he does represent everyone's "causa mortis", which I believe he does, there must be more to it than saying he was simply behind the door and happened to evade Bell. I originally thought he was in the adjacent room, but I also find the idea that he was imagined by Bell quite compelling. I also wonder whether the Coens aren't cross-cutting between different times of day. I think the main point however, is that Bell's escape must mean death's grasp on him was not so strong as it first appeared. Death - Chigurh - has passed him over.
Posted by: Andrew | December 06, 2007 at 03:38 PM
Great article.
One point though...
When Bell pulls up to the final crime scene, both doors have shot-out locks. By the time Moss dies late in the narrative we're lead to believe he's started using two hotel rooms. One to hide the money, and one to "take all comers". Next time you check the flick out, look as Bell slowly pulls up to the taped off area and check out both doors.
Chigurh was in the other room.
That's what I love about movies like this. There is SO MUCH to discuss and interpret. Thanks.
Posted by: Drew | December 06, 2007 at 08:56 PM
To the post above me, do you think this was the Coen's way of showing Chigurh's character being on the run?
Posted by: Tim | December 07, 2007 at 09:16 PM
This is very good, intelligent writing.I agree with the analysis of the film and I appreciate the careful comparison to the book.
Posted by: jesse | December 07, 2007 at 09:37 PM
To respond to the poster above,
Personal take, While behind the door I see a complete fear in Chigurh's eyes for the first time in the film. Rather than a coin toss, Bell's fate is decided by which room he picks, and it's naturally the one his boy Moss died in.
Chigurh has no need to kill Bell unless seen by him, and in step with the supernatural undertones to his character, senses something different with the presence of Bell entering the other room, hence the fear. They are polar opposites but pretty much the same man, bound by a strict set of principles.
I don't know if he's on the run so much as being a ghost. After the car wreck I sure as hell hope he was on the run, no one can self medicate a compound fracture. Unfortunately in the book he gets away and strikes up a new business deal with a man named Acosta.
But the film world is different, and in that off screen space I hope Chigurh is running for his life.
Posted by: Drew | December 07, 2007 at 09:53 PM
I've just seen the movie, for the first (but not only time) and have now read all these reviews and posts. I don't want to hash over anything that's already been written, but to throw a new thread out there.
I don't know if this is just Coen quirkiness or something deeper, but there was a definite use of the number 13. The original room at the Regal was 138. The room at the Eagle was 213. However, the rooms at the Desert Sands were 112 and 114 (the room Ed Tom chooses), so obviously the 13 is missing. And there was the bit with Wells noticing that "there's a floor missing in this building". That floor in many buildings of that time would be the 13th Floor.
Now, I want to go watch it again for that number and its references. There certainly were alot of numbers in this film and many weren't thirteen, but I thought this was of interest.
What did anyone else notice about this?
Posted by: David | December 07, 2007 at 11:16 PM
After reading the article and all the comments I have come to grasp the themes, symbolism, and true roles of the characters in the film. After reading this it all comes together and makes me think "wow that film is one of the best films i have ever seen!"
but the point is...i felt this way after reading all this. Its too bad the film can't create this sense of understanding so one's actual experience of watching the film creates this. Sure its nice to see a film and then have it mean so much more in discussion after but some people might not check this blog and i dunno i think a movie should do this post-realization of the meaning justice within the movie itself. i'm not sure if people get what I mean here...
...i feel as though the coen brothers wrote the movie more for readers of the book who could watch and at the say time see the connections and say "ah yes...that makes sense"
so i guess i wish i read the book first.
Posted by: Andrew Phillips | December 08, 2007 at 12:32 AM
Wow! Just wow! I just got home from watching the film for the first time. I tossed around so many loose ends in my head, debated back and forth about what so many pieces of this film mean, and I still didn't even make it to half of the concepts that you have all brought up. You guys have dug into this dish pretty deep. Impressive. I agree that it is difficult for me to believe that Anton is a ghost or "death", just an embodiment of evil, i guess. He is certainly flesh and blood as discussed earlier in him dressing his wounds.
I also really buy the concept presented that Anton was in the other motel room at the end. the way the camera fixed on the two rooms and left a clear decision for TLJ much like a coin toss makes perfect metaphorical sense.
I am most certainly going to see this again. there is so much more I want to look into. I am so glad that a film can still be made in modern hollywood that creates this much intrigue and intelligent discussion. When was the last time you could say such a thing? I can't remember. Thank you EVERYONE for posting here. Please keep this going and continue analyzing the film I can't wait to see some more interpretations.
Posted by: Andy | December 08, 2007 at 01:46 AM
Andrew,
That's a great point, that the themes covered in this discussion are not easily sensed during the first viewing of a film.
Yet rather than read the book, consider what that means. A very suspenseful film, one that, in some ways, is brutal on the senses, does not reveal its inner workings readily.
Isn't that life?
There ARE deeper connections. There are parallels. There are competing systems of principles. Yet, in the end, it's a blur. It's hard to resolve. Is Chigurh death? evil? just a man? a ghost? Too much happens in life, too much information in too little time.
I think the pacing, suspense, and shifts in the film all reflect that life moves too fast to fully understand. Only up in heaven, detached from it, do we get a chance to rehash over it in discussion boards.